Reminders of Him(13)

“It’s not mine. It’s my best friend’s truck. My car is in the shop.”

I was relieved it wasn’t yours, but also a little disappointed because I found the color so amusing. You motioned for me to get in the truck. You looked proud and smelled like a candy cane.

“Is that why you’re late? Your car broke down?”

You shook your head and said, “No. I had to break up with my girlfriend.”

My head swung in your direction. “You have a girlfriend?”

“Not anymore.” You shot me a coy look.

“But you had one when you asked me out earlier?”

“Yes, but by the time I purchased my third dinner plate, I knew I was going to break up with her. It was overdue,” you said. “We’ve both been wanting out of it for a while. We were just too comfortable to call it off.” You flipped on your blinker and pulled into a gas station and up to a gas pump. “My mother will be sad. My mother really likes her.”

“Mothers don’t usually like me,” I admitted. Or maybe it was more of a warning.

You smiled. “I can see that. Mothers prefer to imagine their sons with wholesome-looking girls. You’re too sexy to make a mother feel comfortable.”

I wasn’t one to get offended by a guy calling me sexy. I worked hard that day to look sexy. I spent a lot of money on the bra and low-cut shirt I had purchased thirty minutes earlier with the goal of making my breasts look store bought.

I appreciated the compliment, even if you were being a little tacky.

As you got out to fill your friend’s truck up with gas, I thought about the wholesome-looking girl whose heart you just broke simply because I agreed to go on a date with you, and I felt a bit like a snake in that moment.

But even though I felt like a snake, I didn’t plan on slithering away. I liked your energy so much, I planned to coil myself around you and never let go.

When Ledger said his name against my lips earlier tonight, I almost said, “Scotty’s Ledger?” But the question would have been pointless, because I knew in that instant that he was your Ledger. How many Ledgers can there be? I’ve never met one before.

I was overwhelmed with questions, but Ledger kissed me and it ripped me in half, because I wanted to kiss him back, but even more than that I wanted to ask him questions about you. I wanted to say, “What was Scotty like as a child? What did you love about him? Did he ever talk about me? Do you still talk to his parents? Have you met my daughter? Can you help me put all the pieces of my broken life back together?”

But I couldn’t speak because your best friend had his searing hot tongue in my mouth and it felt like he was branding me with the word CHEATER.

I don’t know why it felt like I was cheating on you. You’ve been dead five years, and I kissed the prison guard, so it’s not like you were even my last kiss. But my kiss with the prison guard didn’t make me feel like I was cheating on you. That could be because the prison guard wasn’t your best friend.

Or maybe I felt like a cheater because I actually felt Ledger’s kiss. It trickled all over me the way your kisses used to do, but then there was that added element of feeling like a cheater, or a liar, or trash, because Ledger didn’t know me at all. To Ledger, he was being kissed by the transient girl he couldn’t stop staring at all night.

To me, I was being kissed by the hot bartender whose best friend died because of me.

Everything exploded. I felt like I was shattering. I was allowing Ledger to touch me, knowing full well he’d probably rather stab me if he knew who I was. Pulling away from his kiss felt a little like trying to put out a forest fire with a nuclear bomb.

I wanted to apologize, I wanted to escape.

I felt like collapsing, thinking about how Ledger probably knew you better than I did. I hated that the one guy I ran into in this town is the one guy I should be avoiding.

Ledger didn’t turn away when I cried, though. He did what you would have done. He put his arms around me and let me be however I needed to be, and it felt nice because I hadn’t been held like that since you.

I closed my eyes and pretended your best friend was my ally. That he was on my side. I pretended he was holding me despite what I’d done to you, and he wanted to help me heal.

I also let it happen because if Ledger is back in this town, and he’s still driving the truck I met you in all those years ago, then that means he’s a fan of routine. And there’s a huge possibility that our daughter is part of Ledger’s routine.

Is it possible I’m only one person away from Diem?

If you could see the pages I’m writing this letter on, you’d see the tearstains. Crying seems to be the only thing left in life that I’m good at. Crying and making bad decisions.

And, of course, I’m good at writing you bad poetry. I’ll leave you with one I wrote on the bus ride back to this town.

I have a daughter I have never held.

She has a scent I have never smelled.

She has a name I have never yelled.

She has a mother who has already failed.

Love,

Kenna





CHAPTER EIGHT


LEDGER

I didn’t park in the garage when I got home last night. Diem likes to wake up and look out her window in the mornings to make sure I’m home, and when I leave my truck in the garage, Grace says it makes Diem sad.