One Small Step | ✔

Right Here With You

Adam and Carina watch
Tallulah eat her dinner
with the family. They
can't help noticing her smile.

"You know, that Soren guy
might actually be good for
Lulu-Bear." 
Carina suggests.

"No way!
Roman is awesome.
Even his name is cool."
Adam argues.

"That's because
Roman
acts a lot like you."
Carina shoots back.

No one, least of all
Tallulah,
realizes that
the two of them are there.

"Soren is more attuned
and mature. Plus, I've talked to
him. He's a nice guy."
Carina says.

"Yeah, well, Roman
keeps Tal from 
getting ahead of herself,"
Adam counters.

They're both silent for a moment
before Adam says,
"We were wrong, 
weren't we?"

There's a beat
before
Carina reluctantly admits,
"Yeah."

"You know Tallulah
wouldm't have cared,
right?"
he asks her.

She nods.
"She wouldn't have been happy
with you, but she wouldn't
have shunned you, either."

"I know,"
Adam says.
"I just couldn't face her,
I hate disappointing her."

"So why did you do it?
If you knew it wouldn't
matter to her?"
he asks.

Carina plays with her hair,
"It wasn't that. I mean yeah,
it wasn't easy but..."
she trails off.

"I guess, the burden
of taking care of the entire
family just crashed onto me."
Carina says softly.

"Taking care of Tallulah, and
my brothers. I would do it
again in a heartbeat, but the
stress was too much."

Carina tucks a strand of
blond hair behind her ear 
and hoists herself onto the
counter.

"I was still growing up.
it wasn't just stress that tore me down.
It was anger at my father.
Sadness for my mother."

They stare at the living,
around the table.
It's a scene they have
no place in.

Ambrose is gazing lovingly
at Dara, whose laughter fills the room.
Tate is grinning from ear to ear,
no doubt thinking something mischievous.

Margaret is telling a story,
happy to
be surrounded
by people.

Even Tallulah has a small,
but genuine smile on her face.
A faraway look in her eyes,
tattling about her thoughts.

"Are you going to visit your mother
soon?"
Carina asks Adam,
still watching her family.

He shakes his head,
"Not until Tallulah finishes
reading the journal. When are
you leaving?"

"As soon as I know
all of them will be fine."
Carina replies.
"Maybe I'll stick around for Ambrose's wedding."

Adam laughs.
"Maybe he'll
have the balls to do 
it this time."

Carina smiles.
"Maybe,
but Ambrose was
always a wimp."

"How about Jacob?"
Adam says.
"Aren't you worried about
him?"

"Jacob knows where to find 
everyone if he ever needs them.
When he realizes he needs them,"
she corrects himself.

Tallulah excuses herself from
the table and goes upstairs.
Both of them
follow her into her room.

From behind her dresser,
Tallulah pulls out his journal.
Adam winces but watches as 
she flips it open.

As he reads over her shoulder,
he remembers that party so long
ago. The party where he slept with
Tanya, the head cheerleader.

Neither of them
had been
drunk. Both were 
totally aware.

And both
wanted
to forget.
To lose themselves.

Sure, they could
have run to the keg
or gone to find
the junkies.

But they both
had to stay sober
because they both
had games the next day.

That night had been the before party.
The day they won,
they had an after party.
Adam was always partying.

"Jesus," he mutters.
"Why did I write all that
down? It's not gonna make her feel 
better."

"She has to know.
She wants to know."
Carina says.
"To her, truth is sacred."

Carina is watching her sister
with the
focus of a hawk.
Memorizing every part of her.

"She doesn't
need to know most of 
that."
Adam replies.

"You're not proud of
it, but it's still you.
Lulu will understand."
Carina assures him.

"But I don't want it
to be me," he wails.
Adam is a child again. The boy
Tallulah and Carina consoled every night.

"You made your choices
and died by them."
Carina says firmly, bitterly.
"There's no going back."

Adam hops out the window
with a wry smile.
"Don't remind me.
I know."

Carina sighs and slides
down to sit next to 
her sister. Her pale hand
hovers over Tally's hair.

"He's a good guy, 
Tallulah. Never forget that.
No matter what he wrote in there,"
she murmurs.

She doesn't understand the point of this,
living in the
house of the living,
dead as a human can be.

She wishes she was as smart
as Adam, leaving something
for Tallulah to read,
to understand.

She supposes she did.
A person.
If only that person could come
find her and speak to her.

Carina walks to the house across
invisible to everyone else.
She climbs up the tree
and observes the boy in his bedroom.

He runs a hand through his blond hair,
squeezing his blue eyes shut, before
opening them and staring at a picture
of his brother/cousin and him. Happy.

He places it softly back on his desk
and lies down on his bed. Then he
grabs his phone and fires a quick 
text.

A girl in the house
across his,
smiles as she reads his
text.

Carina waits patiently 
for his phone to ring,
knowing it will.
Sure enough, it does.

Adam reappears by her side.
"Eavesdropping,
I see."
He settles down on the branch.

"Hey,"
he answers, 
sounding more cheerful
than both expected him to sound.

They don't hear
Tallulah's reply
but he says,
"Just 'cause."

He listens for a moment
before smiling and saying
"Wanna come over tomorrow?
Mom and Dad want to meet you."

Another pause, this time a little longer.
"Come on, please?" he wheedles.
"I can show you one of my favourite
places in town."

He waits for her reply
before grinning widely,
"Great, it's a date!"
he says, chuckling.

Carina rolls her eyes,
"Look, he's turning out to be 
like every other jerkface on
this planet."

Adam glares at his best
friend's sister.
"'Course I have to be stuck
with you as company."

But even as Adam says that,
they watch on, smiling as the 
same person they love
and hurt, lives.

After all, they promised to always be right there with her. And so they are.

____________

Right. If you can't tell. This is from Adam and Carina's point of view. I wanted to give you the insight of how the two of them were instead of how Tallulah saw them and how they see Tallulah.