Page 66 of Aftersome
Just then, Kate and James emerged from the house with beaming smiles spread across their faces and that’s when I felt the lightest of pressure against my shoulder. At first, I thought it may have been a bug, but when I went to inspect it, I found Mal’s arm brushing against mine.
Purposefully.
He hadn’t even acknowledged me, yet he remained lightly pressed up against me as if to let me know that he was next to me. It didn’t make sense. Of course I knew he was here.
How could I not?
I continued to pretend like none of what he was doing was bothering me. Today wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about our feud, my mission to bring him home, nothing to do with us. For the next few hours, it was about Kate and James.
And their little baby.
Once Kate and James took their place in front of us all, my eyes dropped down to her swollen belly. Even just over the course of the two weeks I had been here, I could already see the change in her stomach. It was finally noticeable in all her clothes; exactly what she was waiting for to happen. In her words, she wanted the world to know she was having James Hendricks's baby.
The two of them looked overwhelmed with happiness and love. Giggles and smiles filled the air around us and even some laughter as James’s mother came to the front, holding a hockey stick and hockey puck in her hands.
He looked confused for a moment. Eyeing the gear his mom was trying to hand him, he glanced over to Kate.
“Boy or girl?” The low, rumbled question caught me off guard and at first I thought it may have been a voice in my head, but I soon realized it wasn’t.
It was Mal.
“What?” I asked on a quiet, annoyed hiss as Kate and James engrossed themselves in a private conversation.
“Little Hendricks,” he clarified. “Boy or girl?”
I didn’t understand why he was asking me, or why he cared. I didn’t understand much when it came to him, but I answered anyway.
“Boy.”
I didn’t look at him. I didn’t ask him what he thought, instead I watched as James grinned in realization.
“Sorry, everyone, my husband apparently had no clue that this was how we were doing the reveal,” Kate announced, and everyone laughed.
Including me, but I quickly stopped when I felt Mal’s eyes fall on me.
“Hey, to be fair, I was half asleep when you told me how we were doing it.”
They threw a few more words at each other before everything was finally ready, thanks to their mothers. Kate was now a few feet behind James while he stood in front of a net holding his hockey stick. Both their parents stood off to the side, anxiously waiting, and soon a photographer stepped out from the side and began taking pictures.
Everything was beautiful.
It was just so… them. Slightly chaotic, but perfect nonetheless.
The anticipation began to grow as everyone’s attention was now fully on them. But just as we all thought it was time, Kate had opened her mouth. “Before we go any further, I just wanted to make a quick announcement. Wren…” Her eyes wavered over the crowd until she finally found me. Her gaze immediately softened. “Thank you so much for everything. For your help, for being here, I couldn’t ask for a better best friend. I love you. James and I both love you.”
The last thing I expected was to be singled out when I hadn’t done all that much to help out. Surely not enough to get a thank-you in front of everyone, but I pushed my embarrassment to the side and smiled. I tried my best to hold back tears, and I somehow managed as I mouthed the words “I love you too” back. I missed our friendship so much that I had almost forgotten what it felt like. The ease. The pure happiness I felt in her presence.
After Hayes’s passing, I refused to drag her down with me. So selfishly, I pulled away from her. Being in such a dark place, I couldn’t subject her to my hopelessness because I knew I would never forgive myself. Before Hayes, I was a dark cloud, but after him, I became a never-ending rainstorm.
But standing here now, ten years later, I’m reminded of what love is again. That even without Hayes, there is still love. No matter the time and space, the trials and tribulations of our past, love will always be here.
It only took me over thirty years to figure that out.
Soon, when Kate and James were finally ready, they started a countdown that everyone joined in on. A wave of anticipation spread across the crowd. It was almost too surreal of a moment. As we all shouted the number five, James then lifted his hockey stick off the ground and held it above his head. The closer we got to zero, the louder our chanting grew.
I became lost in the motions and the shouting around me. We were approaching the number one and just as James began to swing the hockey stick, everything suddenly went silent in my head. There was nothing to be heard besides the increased thumping of my heart and everything just slowed down.
This was it.
