Page 22 of Between Hope & Tragedy

I waited about ten minutes before I sent him my address. There was something inside me, something that was once good andpure, something thatcared andwas trying to get me not to do this, but I pushed it away.

I wasn’t pure and good; not anymore, and I knew I never would be again. I knew that the only way to end the pain of losing Scott, the little bit of pain that I felt, would be with Garrett. It was probably hurting him more than it hurt me because he couldn’t understand that the boy was better off without us. He was better off dead. With as much as I hated to admit it to myself, he really was.

Once I got the response from Garrett that he had received my message, I shut my phone off, and put it back onto the charger before splaying onto my back on the bed. I wasn’t sure when he would be arriving, whether it would be later today, or even tomorrow, but I had to make the most of what was yet to come.

***

It was noon when I finally woke up. I don’t know how I managed to sleep for almost twelve hours, but I felt refreshed and more sure of myself. The doubt of what needed to happen was gone, and I found myself actually looking forward to Garrett’s visit.

I got up and went into the bathroom, humming a happy tune to myself as I retrieved the toothpaste and my toothbrush. Running it under the water for a moment, I put a quarter sized amount of paste onto the bristles, before running it under the water again, then proceeded to brush my teeth.

I was still happily humming to myself and scrubbing my teeth when a knock came at my front door. I rolled my eyes and spit the paste into the sink, grabbed my small plastic cup, filled it with water, and swished. The knock came again, more persistent than the last time, and I spit the water into the sinkbefore running the brush under it again and placing it in its holder. I quickly turned around and pulled a small washcloth out of the linen cabinet behind me to wipe my face, then tossed it into the hamper as I walked out of the bathroom.

I glanced at the time and sighed. It was quarter after twelve, I had woken up only moments ago, and it seemed that Garrett was already here. I knew it was him because I recognized the heavy-handed knock that mimicked the one from the hotel room door.

I stopped in front of the door and waited a few moments. I wanted him to knock again, for no other reason than to prove to me that he wanted to be inside with me. It would be a small consolation in the downfall that had been my life; to have someone who actuallywantedto be in my presence.

I placed my hand on the doorknob and closed my eyes, waiting for the knock I knew would come again. Garrett had only let me down once in my life before, and I think that now that I was back in his, he would do his best to make it up to me for as long as he could.

“Zaydee?” his tired voice rang out, followed by the knock.

I smiled and closed my eyes for a moment before I pulled the door open. There he stood on the other side, a luggage bag hoisted over his shoulder and a decorative vase in his hands. His eyes were dim; as dim as I saw the world that night in the hospital and he looked like all he wanted to do was just lay down and sleep for the rest of his life.

“What’s that?” I asked, stepping back and letting him walk in.

Garrett cleared his throat but didn’t answer my question. Instead, he glanced around the living room before walking away from where I was standing. Curiosity would’ve made a normal person follow him to see what he was doing, but I was far from normal, so I went to the couch and turned the television on.

A few moments later he returned and sat at the other end of the couch, the vase still in his hands. I knew he wanted me to ask again, even though I had guessed full well what it was at this point. I assumed I should show some kind of sadness and pity, considering he had remembered to bring Scott with him, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up without sounding insensitive about it.

“How was Arizona?” I asked, my eyes on the screen as I started flipping through channels.

Garrett scoffed and put the vase on the living room table and turned to look at me. I didn’t meet his eyes until I found the History Channel. The current program was something about archaeology in Ancient Egypt. It seemed interesting enough to keep my attention away from the inevitable hurt I was supposed to be feeling.

“Bitter, to say the least,” he finally said. “Your Uncle Bill and Aunt Rose seem like good people.”

“Yeah, my favorite cousin is their son,” I replied distractedly.Wow, they were really advanced for their time,I thought becoming engrossed in the program.

“And Scott is dead,” he said bluntly.

“I know.”

Garrett reached over and snatched the remote control from my hand in a quick motion and shut the television off. I looked at him in outrage but softened when I saw the angry tears streaming down his face.

“Youknow?” he repeated incredulously. “How long have you known? Did you know what I was walking into?”

“Not until you left,” I admitted with a sigh. “That box Grandma gave you for me had some notes and letters in the envelopes. One had pictures too. Anyway, his suicide note was in one of them. At least that’s what I think it was.”

I jumped when he quickly got to his feet, swearing loudly. It was almost as ifIhad killed Scott and kept it a secret from him. But to be honest, had I known ahead of time, I still wouldn’t have told him. I wouldn’t want to kill his hope of maybe meeting him, and I think that finding out separately as opposed to together was better anyway.

Was I hurt by it? To some extent. Was I willing to show it? No, and he would have to accept it.

“Sit down and stop yelling,” I said, suddenly developing a headache. I put my fingers to my temples and began to rub them in a circle, but Garrett was obviously far from done in his sudden rage.

“Zaydee, I refuse to believe that you aren’t bothered by this. I refuse to believe that this doesn’t hurt you as much as it hurts me. How can you sit there and act so coldly about it?”

I chuckled and shook my head, getting to my feet to face him.

“Because,Principal Spears,this should never have happened. If I hadn’t been late to class that day and hadn’t decided to try to fuck the sexy history teacher, we wouldn’t have kept our little rendezvous going, I wouldn’t have ended up pregnant and shunned, and we wouldn’t have a dead child as a result. So, as you can see, I can’t let something bother me that was never meant to be in the first place.”

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