The Color of Us (College Bound Book 2) (20 page)

A corn dog waved in front of my face. “Why did she get to know before us?” Julie glared, but there was a twinkle in her eye. I think she was happy I had someone to talk to when I needed it.

I sat back in my chair, arms crossed over my chest. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Stacy McGee is the coolest girl I know.” I grabbed the corn dog from Julie and took a bite, watching her jaw drop in food-theft horror. “Much cooler than you, Julie Prescott.”

Taren high-fived Stacy, and Julie threw a napkin at my head. I had three girls that I trusted with the hardest and most painful parts of my life. In their own ways, they made the pain a little less raw.

It was Stacy’s birthday, but I was the one who been given the best gift of all.

Thanks for the signs, Sam. All three of them.

“That’s a lovely scarf, Alexis.” Dad gestured to the colorful scarf wrapped around my neck in an infinity style. I held my dad’s hand as we left Scoops, and even though it was a motion I’d done a thousand times as a kid, it was different now. Back then I held his hand so he could keep me safe. Now it was me holding him steady, making sure he didn’t fall as we made our way down Main Street. The cemetery was within walking distance, but I still wished he would have let me drive him there.

“It’s from you and Mom.” I grinned up at him. “You sent it before midterms.” Dad’s mind was as sharp as ever, but he was a man, and I didn’t expect him to remember every small gift he sent to me. Especially ones he didn’t pick out himself.

“Oh, right. Of course.” His grin was sheepish, and we both laughed. As we walked along the street, he leaned against me, and I felt his body shake. We inched along the sidewalk, and I looked up to check on him. A light sheen of sweat covered his face. He was pale, almost gray, and his face was gaunt. He inhaled a shaky breath, and I held back my tears. The Dad I had always known was gone.

The past few months had flown by. I was more alive than I had been since I went away to school because of my girls, but as each day passed, I knew I was losing time with my dad. I hated that Sam was taken away so quickly and brutally, but this was almost worse. Sometimes it was like I was watching cancer devour him, taking every ounce of pride he had with each scrap of health it tore away from him. The disease was steadily stealing bits of his dignity only to leave him with his mind completely intact so that he would suffer even more as his body failed him.

I hated leukemia.

I hated death.

I hated loss.

Slowly but surely, we made our way to Sam’s bench and sat down side by side. A new batch of colorful flowers had been left in the vase on her headstone. They were so bright and vivid it looked as if someone had taken a bunch of white roses and swiped them through a painter’s palate.

“I love that you put such pretty flowers here. Sam would adore it. They’re so her.”

I could feel my dad nodding beside me, and he reached over to grab my hand again. “She would love them,” he agreed. “I wish I could take credit for them.”

My eyebrows dipped low in confusion as I looked over at him. “Every time I come here, there are flowers here. I thought it was you. You sure Mom didn’t leave these?”

He shook his head.

“Then who?”

He lifted his eyes to mine and gave me a small smile. “Sam was loved by everyone she ever met. Could be just about anyone.”

I took a deep breath. “True.”

“But,” he said, leaning over to pull out one of the roses that was still white, untouched by color. “Not everyone would keep this vase full.”

“What do you mean?”

He twirled the flower between his fingers, watching as the petals turned into a blur of white as it spun back and forth. “I come here a lot. It’s not just your thinking spot, you know.” He winked at me, and I mustered up a small smile in return. “When the flowers die, I throw them away. Next time I come, there are always new ones.”

“I don’t understand,” I admitted. I looked again at Sam’s headstone and marveled at how beautiful it was with the flowers. Just as colorful and vibrant as my memories of her.

“I don’t understand either, although I feel these flowers aren’t necessarily for Sam but for those who love her. So that when we visit we don’t see a dark, lonely grave. We find a quiet place to rest and beauty to appreciate as we think about her. This isn’t a place to grieve over what we lost but a place to reflect on what we had.”

Grieve over what we lost? Reflect on what we had?
It was hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. How could he talk so calmly, knowing that maybe just a few months from now I’d be sitting at another grave without him by my side? Marveling at the flowers someone had left for him.

“Dad…” My voice wavered so much on that one syllable I was surprised I managed to say it at all.

He stood up shakily, pulling me to my feet as well. “Come. I want to show you something.”

Curious, I followed. We walked deeper into the cemetery to a part I’d never been to but along a path he knew by heart. When he stopped at a headstone, I dropped my eyes down to read it and nearly collapsed to the ground when I saw the inscription.

Declan Murphy.

Why had he brought me to Declan’s grave?

I trembled as I stared at the name of the boy who killed my sister and the series of numbers underneath. The first date was an unfamiliar one, but the second one was a collection of numbers that could only ever mean heartbreak to me. I stared down at the engraving, my eyes blurring with tears of rage and… sadness. I expected to feel hatred, but I didn’t.

There was a vase attached to Declan’s headstone, and inside was one single white flower. Dad bent over, holding the rose that he’d taken from Sam’s bouquet, and slipped it next to the one sitting lonely and forlorn in the vase.

I didn’t understand. Who left just one flower? And how could Dad leave a part of Sam with Declan? Why did he bring me here? What did he expect me to do aside from fall apart?

There were tears streaming down my face and sobs clawing through my chest.

Dad slipped his arm around me, and when I buried my face into his shoulder, he was no longer the shadow of a man who was losing a battle. He was the hero who was showing me that pain and grief weren’t mine alone.

“It has taken me a long time to accept the fact that a bad decision doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is bad.” He tightened his arm around me, and I closed my eyes, unable to look at the two lonely flowers in the vase.

“Do you… do you forgive him?” I choked out. I wasn’t sure what I wanted or expected him to say. I was scared to hear either answer.

Dad rubbed his hand over my shoulder. “I’ve forgiven myself for the hate I felt toward him. He… Declan wasn’t a villain, even though for a while I found satisfaction in making him one. Losing Sam was hard, and I wanted to blame someone.”

“But it was
his
fault. The accident. It was his fault.” I clung to the accusation; that belief was the only thread that was holding me together.

Dad sighed. “Yes. And things would have been different if Sam hadn’t given him the keys. Or if she had decided to not get in the car with him.”

Tears burned my eyes, the back of my throat. “Are you blaming her?” I whispered.

“Of course not.” His voice broke. He folded me against him, and I couldn’t tell which of us was holding the other up anymore. “I’m not blaming anyone. I want to forgive him. Maybe I’m not quite there yet, but I’m working on it.” He leaned over to press a kiss to the top of my head. “He has family too. People who loved him. Every time I come here I can see how much harder it is for them to grieve than it is for us.”

“That’s not possible. Sam was amazing.” I mumbled against his chest. “How could it possibly be harder?” I cried.

“Because,” he said, smoothing my hair down my back. “Sam’s grave is covered in beauty and color and love. And this…” He released his grip on me and lifted my chin so I could see the spot at our feet. “This is a symbol of a family who wants to mourn but feels they can’t because their loved one killed our loved one.”

“You can’t know that for sure,” I whispered.

“Oh, but I do.”

I expected him to explain how he could know something so personal, but he didn’t. I’d never talked to him about Liam and me. I’d never told him about Liam’s family. As far as I knew, he’d never met Declan’s parents or brother. So how could he know how they felt? I didn’t even know how Liam felt about Declan.

And that thought rocked me so hard I almost buckled under the power of it. I’d never even asked Liam about Declan or his pain or how he felt. It had always been about me and Sam and my family and my grief. Even after I knew his brother had died too, I never asked him about his loss.

I let go of my Dad and sank to the ground on my knees in front of Declan’s headstone. Dad’s hand reached down to rest on the top of my head.

“I’m trying hard to forgive. I think my illness has given me clarity,” he said. “I started thinking about my death—”

“Dad,” I pleaded.

“—and I realized I don’t want you to live the rest of your life hating that I died. I want you to spend it loving that I lived.”

Sam…

***

“It is a good thing you are smart because you are terrible at races.” Stacy took a long pull on her milkshake as she walked around my room.

“Stacy!” her cousin said. “That’s not nice.”

I hadn’t known that Stacy and her cousin, Lila, had been on the fringes of the Greek Week event watching me make a fool of Asher and myself. But I couldn’t be mad at Stacy for her honesty. It was the thing I valued most about her. She told the truth, and her comments never had the bite that Julie’s did.

“That’s okay. Stacy’s right. I sucked.” I was glad that a job in a hospital would never require me to jump over barrels or crawl through tubes or climb over walls… all while tied to another person. Poor Asher. He was probably sorry I didn’t back out on the Greek Week events, especially the obstacle course he’d paired up with me for. He basically had to drag my clumsy ass through the entire course.

In the end, our sorority/fraternity matchup had won, but not because of me. It had been several days ago, but most of my sisters were still recovering from the celebration over our win. Taren had left for the weekend. Her boyfriend, Alec, had been in the hospital because he’d been injured in his gymnastics performance. He had a broken ankle, a few busted ribs and a concussion, and she was hoping to get a chance to see him. They had a fight right before his accident, and I knew she was worried that it was her fault.

I tried to put myself in her shoes and understand how I would feel if I knew Liam had gotten hurt in action. I was part of the reason he joined the Army. If he got hurt, it would be my fault. If I’d never pushed him away, if I’d just been braver, he’d still be back home, safe. The worst part was that I might never know how he was doing. It tore at something deep inside to know that he wouldn’t even answer my calls.

I was glad when Stacy had called, asking if we could hang out. With Taren gone and all the old thoughts of Liam bubbling to the surface, the ache of loneliness engulfed me.

Books and classes had always been enough for me the past two years, but now I was wondering if they were just patches over raw wounds. Did I spend so much time by myself because I wasn’t able to spend time with the person I craved the most? And even if that was true, what could I do about it anyway? Nothing had changed. Not really. He was Declan’s brother, I was Sam’s sister, and even if that didn’t matter—he wasn’t talking to me anyway.

Stacy wandered over to my desk and picked up a chain that had a crystal hanging from it. “Oh, this is pretty. Where did you get it?”

“I got another care package from my mom. She sent me a gift card to my favorite ice cream place. There’s a gift shop next door that sells those. She probably saw it and thought…” I didn’t finish my thought.

Stacy looked up from the crystal. “Thought what?”

“Oh my God,” I whispered. “This came the day after I went home for the weekend. My mom wouldn’t have wasted money on sending it, she would have just given it to me in person.”

I’d tossed the gift card and the necklace to the side without a thought, assuming it was another of my mother’s small gifts. I looked around at the other care package items that I’d received over the last year—the jar of skittles that I thanked her for but never named explicitly. The colorful scarf that my dad hadn’t known about. I picked up the
Wizard of Oz
mug full of kisses that came around Valentine’s Day. My mom had already sent me a February care package, so when the mug arrived, I assumed it was something she’d forgotten to include.

I frowned. My mom forget something? Insanity.

I quickly thumbed through my memory, thinking about all the little gifts that I hadn’t thought twice about when they arrived because I assumed they were from home. But looking back, I realized there were many items that never came with the larger monthly packages from my mom. And it suddenly occurred to me that those lone items were usually colorful or rainbow themed. Not the types of things my mom would normally get for me, but who else would send me things?

I never questioned where the packages came from because the return label for all the gifts was always the same, my home address. There were never any notes or names in cards. Anyone could have written down my home address for returns. And when I thanked my mom, as I always did, I never named each gift she sent. I just thanked her for all of them.

For the first time, I realized I was a fool to think any of those small things—the Scoops gift card, the
Wizard of Oz
mug, the rainbow scarf, the jar of skittles, the crystal necklace—would have been chosen by my mom. She would have sent me Godiva chocolates or a Kate Spade purse. She wouldn’t have sent me…

Stacy held the crystal up to the window where it caught the sunlight and tossed rainbows around the room as it swung from the chain.

My mom wouldn’t have sent me rainbows. She wouldn’t have known to send me reminders of Sam when I needed them the most.