Fall From Grace(7)

“Lea, I have a huge file folder of those pictures on my computer.  It won’t stop you.”  I knelt down next to my best friend and pulled her blonde hair from her face.  I grabbed a ponytail holder from the front pocket of my jeans and tied her hair back.

Her big brown eyes looked into mine and I saw tears fill the edges of them.  “Jake’s really gone?”

I nodded.  Saying anything would make me start crying again.

She moaned, heaved into the toilet again, and I just rubbed her back.  “How do you do it, Gray? How can you watch people die over and over again?  I can’t even imagine him not in this world anymore.”

I sat back and leaned against the door of the stall.  My eyes flitted over the small space, amazed at how clean it actually was for a bar.  I didn’t want to talk about this; about anything.  I didn’t want to feel anymore.  This was hell.  “Lea.  He suffered.  He was too good for this world; no one should feel that pain.  I wish it were me, Lea.  I don’t know how I do this.  I don’t know anything.  I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t want you to say you wished it was you.  I almost lost you once, you were my miracle.”

I hugged her tight.  “Let’s get off this floor, okay.”  I helped her up, took her to the sink, and helped her wash up.  I hoped she would drop the subject, but I knew she had to grieve somehow for Jacob. After all, we were closer than family.

We grew up next door to each other, born the same day, she five minutes before me.   Our families said we were destined to be best friends; like sisters.  Our mothers and fathers were best friends. When I was fourteen, I lost my parents in a horrific car accident and I almost died.  I did, actually.  For two minutes, I clinically died.  Months later, when I opened my eyes, I was a different person.  I remembered Grace’s childhood, I knew all her friends, her crushes, her pains.  However, the real Grace moved on, her beautiful spirit evaporating like raindrops into the heavens.  Only I stayed behind, stuck here, as if I was super-glued to the earth.  My soul’s punishment for something that happened so long ago.

After my hospital stay and my rehabilitation, Lea’s parents took Jacob and me in, not that we needed for anything.  My parents had a life insurance policy that was astronomical, so Jacob and I would never want for anything.  Ever.

Jake didn’t live with us long though. He was eighteen, used some of our inheritance to go to Cornell University in Ithaca, and lived on campus.  Lea and I visited him as much as we could and he came home every holiday. We were a family.

I knew she needed to grieve.

“Hey, what happened to your shirt?  You’re sopping wet!  Nice bra.”

I looked down, remembering the spilled drinks and I laughed.  “A fight broke out in the middle of the bar and I kind of got caught in it. I spilled our drinks all over myself.”

“Ah, man, our drinks spilled?  Were they margaritas?  Did you kick their asses?”

Leave it to Lea to think that I should kick someone’s ass over a spilled drink.  I stripped off my wet shirt and put on Shane’s dry one.

“Where did you get a shirt?  Did you come with extra clothes?  Did you go shopping without me?  What the...”

“The singer, Shane, right?  He took off his shirt and gave it to me.”  I cut her off before she asked anymore of her dumb drunk questions.

“Shane gave you the shirt off his back?”  Her expression was sheer confusion.  “Be careful of that one. He’s slippery like a fish.”