Free Arms Wide Open: a Novella by Juli Caldwell

he’s in my narrow field of vision, and all I see
is his dark head of hair as he leans forward to kiss my hand, and tears drop
onto my limp and exposed palm. They’re warm but they chill my hand as they run
off. I’m trying so hard to move, to touch him, to tell him to stop being a dork
and get us a pizza so we can forget this ever happened.
    “I’m sorry, Laur. I’m so sorry.”
    Quit being a tool and stop crying!
    I want to say it, but the words won’t
come. I’m not dead...am I? I can’t get any words out. My voice won’t work. I
can’t say anything and it’s annoying me. In the blur I can make out a fuzzy
square of light that might be a window, but beyond that I see nothing. The rest
is dark, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to see anything, and I’m happy not
to feel anything. The drugs make me not feel the agony that envelopes me
whenever I think of my sister. I can’t breathe without shots of guilty pain
stabbing my lungs. All I want is to tell Grant I’m okay and to stop crying
because that makes me want to cry. And I hate crying.
    “This is for the best,” he’s saying. I
wish I could stroke his hair, and pull him into my arms. He must’ve read my
mind because the bed creaks and lurches, and he’s suddenly beside me, curled up
next to me as I lie there like a corpse. He drapes his arm carefully over tubes
and wires to stroke my cheek.
    What’s for the best?
    “You need this time to get better. I
know you—you’ll understand why someday. It’s not like I want to walk away. I’m
not. I’ll never walk away from you, or from us. When you need me, I’m here,
even if you decide I’m the worst mistake you ever made. If you marry someone
else, if you end up in jail, if you need me to hide a body, I’m there. Always.
We have history, and I will always love you. If you come out of this and just
want to be friends, that’s cool. You, me, and Oliver will still be the three
amigos. I...” He sighs heavily. “You need to focus on getting better, work on
becoming whole without being someone’s girlfriend. You need to figure out who
Lauren is and make her better so we can be together again.”
    He snorts a little bit, and then
sniffles as he pulls me closer. “That’s what your mom said, anyway, and she’s
probably right. You know I never had one, but she’s pretty cool so I think with
her and your dad by your side, you’ll pull through this. They’re having a rough
time right now, too...first Coral, and now you, so go easy on ‘em. You’re all
they have left. I know how pissy you can get when you want something, but just
let it go and focus on getting healthy again.”
    He shifts beside me and I feel his
fingers caressing my face before he leans in and gently kisses my forehead.
“Bye, Laur. Get better and I’ll see you soon.” The indent on the bed lifts as
the warmth and weight next to me vanish, and the comforting smell of him is
gone.
    “I remember,” I murmur as a rogue tear
breaks free.
    “He was there.”
    “Yeah...he was. I remember now,” I
repeat, nodding in agreement.
    “So what now?” Oliver asks. He glances
again toward the men’s room but I can’t bring myself to look that way. I’m
afraid if I see Grant, my resolve will break and I’ll go running to him. I’ll
beg forgiveness. I’ll look like an idiot as I apologize and profess my undying
love. He’ll probably get a restraining order. He will thank his lucky stars I
showed my crazy when I did so he could make a clean getaway. Five years have
passed. I can’t erase that time or make right everything I did wrong, even if
that time didn’t come close to erasing how I feel about him.
    “What now?” I echo. “Now I go home,
Oliver. I give you my number and we can hang out. You make beautiful music with
your choir students. Grant passes the bar and goes on to be the most amazing
lawyer in the history of lawyers. I look for work and hopefully make a
difference to someone in this awful world.” I grab my