365 Cups of Coffee

Eighteen: Coffee With a Scoop of Chocolate Ice Cream

    Silence.  This is it, I know it, I can feel it.  He thinks I’m a murderer.  This is the end of whatever the heck we have together.  I brace myself for the end.  But the end never comes.  Instead, he wraps me into a hug so tight, it rivals even the one I gave Dylan when I found out he was alive.  I feel him in my arms, drink in his own unique smell.  Vanilla.  I stare into his eyes, feeling tears blur over my vision. 

    "I should have known," he says; I see tears overtake his own eyes.  I see him crumble under the weight of what he knows.  “I should have known that was why you moved.  It was all over the news.  School shooting in Savannah.  Eleven dead.  Just like you said.  I should have known.  But I forgot.  I never thought . . . I never . . .”

    I blink back tears, looking into his eyes again.

    “But you don’t . . . Blame me for what happened to Landon?  Don’t you hate me?  I’m a murderer.  Just like him, Daniel.  I murdered him.  He didn’t have to die.”

    “How are you a murderer?” Daniel says, astonishment in his voice.  “Aspen, like you said.  It was self-defense.  You can’t blame yourself for that.  He was going to kill you.  What I’m more concerned with is what you did to Dylan.  Is that why you haven’t been able to tell me . . . How you feel?”

    “About you, you mean?” I ask, and he nods in confirmation.  I take a deep breath.  “I think so.  Because . . . I really do.  I do . . . Like you.  A lot.  But every time I look at your face, it reminds me how guilty I feel.  How I just left Dylan there, left him hanging.  That’s the worst thing you can do to a person.  But what else was I supposed to say?  I didn’t know how to break it off, not after everything that happened.  You can’t just . . . Tell someone that every time you see their face, you see a nightmare reply in your brain.”

    Daniel nods in agreement, but says, “That is true, but you can’t do what you did either.  I know you were scared.  I would have been too.  I’m surprised you were able to fake happiness with me as long as you did.  If –”

    “I didn’t fake it,” I say.  “All of that . . . That was real.  Somehow, while Dylan makes me remember everything, you make me forget.  That’s why I didn’t tell you.  I couldn’t possibly.”

    “You should have,” Daniel says in a whisper.

    “I told you in letters,” I say.  “It was all I could do.  I couldn’t bring myself to relive it, after so many times I tried in dreams.  At first, you don’t want to remember.  And then, when it starts fading, you feel guilty.  I feel guilty, Daniel.  I’m forgetting how much it hurt to hear Dylan was dead.  I’m forgetting the way it felt to squeeze the trigger on that gun.  At some point, you just want it to all come back.  A few times I’ve tried to dream it back.”

    “So now that you want to remember . . . You can tell me?” he asks, and I nod slightly, sighing.

    “I guess that’s it,” I say.  “But I’m still terrified of the memories.  I still wish it never happened, wished the thought wasn’t as destructive as it is.  Because no matter what happens here, no matter how much I feel like I belong, I’ll always wonder what would have happened if I stayed in Savannah.  And I don’t want school to start.  I don’t know if I’m strong enough to walk back into a school building again.  I don’t know.”

    “You’re the strongest person I know,” Daniel says, and I scoff.

    “What about Raven?  She’s stronger than me.  I’m just running away.”

    “You’re not running away . . . You’re starting over.  And you’ve done a damn good job getting over what happened.  I can’t believe you can be so happy with me.”