Say the Word(8)

Vitali’s Chaconne, if I wasn’t mistaken – one of my favorite classical pieces. I’d heard it for the first time on a rainy afternoon eight years ago, and in the many years since I hadn’t been able to listen to it — or any other classical music, for that matter — because it was irrevocably tied to too many painful memories. And yet, as I began to arrange the containers on the tabletop, I found that no matter how much time had passed, I still knew each mournful note by heart. The violin was mesmerizing, heart-wrenching as it climbed effortlessly through the scales. As I listened to its defiantly beautiful strains, I had to fight the urge to weep.

Jesus, Lux, it’s just a song. Let it go, already.

I quelled the gathering mist in my eyes and let the music wash over me. I couldn’t help but think that it was a strange soundtrack choice for such a sexy photo shoot, but I was just a lowly columnist – the artistic process wasn’t something I had any right to question.

I’d just lifted the last salad from the bag when I heard something far more upsetting than the tinny speaker music. Something that caused the container to slip from my fingertips and thud against the floor in an explosion of lettuce and croutons.

Or, to be more specific, someone.

Someone whose voice I hadn’t heard for seven years – whose voice I’d never expected to hear again. That same someone who’d first played Vitali for me all those years ago.

Sebastian Covington.





Chapter Four





Then


It was a bitter January afternoon – the kind where the wind whips icy rain into your face and the crisp air bites against your exposed skin like it has actual teeth. My jacket was from two seasons ago, so worn out it barely shielded me from the elements or retained any warmth. The ripped-out knees of my skinny jeans sent chills racing up my legs.

I always laughed lightly to myself whenever I saw the wealthy girls at my school wearing pairs of $150 designer jeans that had been purposefully ripped to shreds with the help of a manufacturer. They were paying good money to look like war-refugees, while I would’ve just liked to own set of pants I didn’t have to patch or turn into cut-off shorts when I grew too tall for them – ironic, wasn’t it?

I kept my head down against the spitting rain as I walked along the side of the road. I’d missed my bus again, which meant I was in for either a long wait in the rain until the next one rolled around at five, or a lengthy, drizzly trek through muddy puddles. I opted to walk, hoping it would get me there faster.

Ms. Ingraham, my spring session advanced Latin teacher, had kept my entire class after school today because she was convinced no one had done the mandatory reading – or maybe it was just because she was a lonely old cat lady with no one to spend time with other than the students she coerced via detention sessions. Regardless of her reasons, I knew she was going to be a pain in the ass, and it was only the second day of classes.

The old bat was not only responsible for the hand cramp I had after conjugating approximately 17 million Latin verbs, but was also to blame for me missing my bus and being late to see Jamie at the hospital. He’d been there for almost three weeks this time, recovering from a particularly rigorous surgery on his left femur where more cancer had begun to grow.

He was supposed to start physical therapy any day now. The doctors were hopeful that he’d walk again within a few months of recovery, so long as the cancer didn’t return. Unfortunately, their optimism was likely unrealistic. The sad fact that everyone knew but didn’t say out loud was that with a cancer this aggressive, regrowth was an inevitability rather than a possibility. It was only a matter of time before Jamie was back at the hospital for another bone graft or, if things got really bad, a full amputation of his left leg.

They’d wanted to amputate this time, but Jamie had begged them to try to save his leg. It was riskier, but worth it, according to Jamie.

“No risk, no reward, Lux,” he’d tell me, smiling through his pain.

I felt my numb lips twitch up into a reluctant grin, and pressed on through the downpour.

He wasn’t responding to his chemotherapy drugs anymore, so the surgeons were taking a more aggressive approach. Limb-salvage surgeries weren’t always effective, but since Jamie was young and relatively strong, they said it was his best option. They didn’t say out loud that it was his only option, but I was smart enough to read between the lines of their sugar-coated prognoses, worried expressions, and hushed whispers.

So was Jamie.

He hated being at the hospital alone, cooped up in bed and unable to move, so I tried to visit as often as possible. I didn’t like the thought of him lying there contemplating death or the possibility that his surgery wouldn’t be a success.

My parents had picked up double shifts to pay the rapidly accumulating medical bills, so they weren’t around much to visit him. Even if they hadn’t been working, though, I wasn’t sure their presence would’ve done Jamie any good. We’d never been as close to our parents as we had to one another — perhaps because they’d never seemed too interested in getting to know us. But I couldn’t complain – not when they’d both been working nonstop to keep our house out of foreclosure and to cover Jamie’s basic medical care.

Truthfully, it was silly for me worry about him getting lonely. With Jamie’s handsome features – he pulled off the bald look really well – and sense of humor, he’d charmed the nurses within days of his first hospitalization. They all checked in on him and fussed over him like a son, bringing him extra pudding cups and sharing all the hospital gossip whenever they stopped by. It was hysterical and mildly inappropriate, but I was grateful he wasn’t alone.