Jessica Sankiewicz - If Only We

A slight twinge of a smile edges on the corner of his lips, but it disappears just as quickly as it came. “Sometimes I wonder why you do.”

I guess I'm not the only one with doubts. “I care about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you listen to me when I talk. You go out of your way to cheer me up when I am down. You chose to be friends with me out of all the rest of our classmates when you didn’t even know me yet. You care about everyone around you so much. You are one of the closest friends I have ever had in my life.”

He slowly closes his eyes. I stand there silently, waiting for him to respond to my words. He opens them again and turns to me, a mixed expression on his face. He finally says, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here. For,” he holds open a hand toward the grave, “just helping me get through this.”

I press my lips together. “Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m helping that much.”

“You’re helping more than you know.”

His words give me a sensation I haven’t felt in a long time. It's hard to describe but it feels like a reassurance. Of what? I'm not sure yet but it reminds me of Seymour’s words earlier. I stand there a moment. I break the silence and say, “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.” He sits down next to the grave and I sit next to him. He leans on my shoulder. “Despite everything that happened, I'm glad I tried to do something for him before he died.”

I lean my head on his head. “He was glad you did too.”

“How can you know?”

“Trust me, I know. I could see it in his eyes.”

“Now that you mention it, I think I saw it too.” He reaches over and takes my hand in his. “Will it ever get easier?”

I squeeze his hand. “Someday. Someday it will.”

I wake up the next day with a jolt. My legs nearly fall from under me as I leap out of bed, and I have to steady myself with a hand on the dresser. I go downstairs to find my mom pouring syrup over her waffles. This is different. This isn’t like before.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

My sudden appearance in the doorway startles her to the point where she clutches her heart. “My goodness, you scared me.”

“What is today?” I ask in a hurry.

“Sunday.”

“No, the date.”

“The twenty-sixth.”

“Of?”

“August.”

“It’s not June?”

“No.” She tilts her head in confusion. “Why?”

It’s not June second again. It’s August. It’s the day I was supposed to live to begin with. Then that changed. I tried to change the course of time. I tried to change everything. I tried so hard to fix my mistakes.

And I got nowhere.

I can’t tell her any of this. I shake my head and force a smile. “Nothing. Just a weird dream that it was June again, that’s all.” It’s all just a dream, isn’t it?

I wish it were a dream.

I grab a banana and go back upstairs before she can respond. I quickly slip into the jeans that are on the floor from yesterday and throw on a tee. Next thing I know I am in my car and driving aimlessly. I need to talk to somebody about this so badly but I can’t. I can’t tell a soul about what happened to me because not only will they not believe me but they will probably want to take me in for a psychiatric evaluation. What can I do? Where can I go?

As I leave the city limits, I have the sense of déjà vu wash over me when the abandoned barn comes into view. I turn into that driveway and jump out the second I turn off the ignition. I break into a run and go inside the barn. I stand there in the center of the barn and just look around. For a barn that is not in use, it isn’t as broken down as I expected to see it. Dirt-encrusted straw covers the floor and the stalls. Nobody has been here for several months, if not a year or two possibly. At least that means that no one can stop me from being in here.

And if nobody is here, I can tell these walls anything I want.

“So…” I start, breaking the silent air, “this is how it’s going to be, huh? You give me a second chance and I’ve blown it.” Part of me knows that I have done some good, like yesterday with Chevy.

It doesn’t bring John back though.

“Maybe I should be grateful for this. No, I know I should be grateful for this opportunity. But I wish it had never happened. Why did it happen? I just don’t understand!” I let out a frustrated scream. “I screwed it up! Don’t you get it? I screwed it all up.” I kick one of the stall doors and it smacks against the wall with a loud thud. “I want to be happy with how things turned out but I don’t see how I’ve made any progress. I have not done anything to right the wrongs. I have just made things complicated in different ways.”

I heave a heavy sigh and lean my back against the wall. The memory of the last time I was here comes to the front of my mind. The tears I cried before cause new ones to emerge in the corners of my eyes. I fight the urge to cry, and fail. One tear, two tears, three…

I slink down to the floor, hold my knees to my chest, and wipe the tears away with my hand. “This isn’t how I expected my life to be.” As if the first time would have gotten me to that place either. Letting out a deep breath, I shout, “Oh, get a grip, Adrienne! Life isn’t perfect. Not everything will go as planned.” I make a fist and tap my knee a few times. “I suppose I only have myself to blame for most of it. I shouldn’t just assume that everything will fall into place.” I pick myself up and dust off my pants. “I can make it all fall into place. I can still fix this.” Something has to get better; otherwise, I would have relived this again.

There's still time to make things right.

With that, I can feel the possibilities open to me just like when I first realized I had a second chance. My apprehension has not faded but my optimism is renewed.

After taking a moment to catch my breath, I get back into my car and stop by Lyndsay’s house to wish her luck on her first week of college.

“I know it isn’t what you want, but I still wish you were going to be there too,” she says. “We would be in most of the same classes and we could study together.”

“Yeah, it would have been nice. I still have next semester to look forward to.”

“Have you figured out what you want to take?”

I stare at the wall and shake my head. “No. I have no clue.”

She reaches over and puts her arm around my shoulder. “You still have time to discover your true potential.”

I smile at the truthfulness of her words. Considering the reality at hand, for me there is a whole roadway of discovery and choices and decisions. “Yes, I do still have time.”

Due to the circumstances, The Auto Shop gave Chevy an extra week off. It was a good idea since he had taken his father’s death hard. I go over every day to get him out of the house. He needs to get out of his head a little bit. Otherwise the grief will take over. I don’t want him to forget about his father, but I don’t want him to dwell on the sadness forever either. It's a difficult balance—one I don’t even know if I would be able to handle if I were in his shoes.

Seymour stayed in town all week to help Noreen with getting back on her feet. She is doing very well and I believe part of it is due to Chevy being around and not running off anymore. Once Seymour leaves, Chevy will be all she has. Now that the week is over, reality is starting to come to the forefront. Noreen and Chevy will be going back to work next Tuesday. I don’t think either of them looks forward to it.

And, to be honest, neither am I. I'm not sure what I will do with my free time when he goes back to work. Probably just back to “work” myself.

When I get to his place, I can tell Chevy seems to be getting a little better. I can see it in his face. There is still an overcast of clouds but it is slowly starting to dissipate.

I say to him, “You want to go see a movie? There are a couple good ones that came out today.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

“No,” I say with a smile.

“Really? You have to. You have your sewing business to deal with.”

“It can wait. Besides, I need a break from it.”

“As much as I enjoy having you around, I don’t want your future to go up in flames because you spent all your time here.”

I shake my head at his worry over the little things going on in my life. He is right though. Not only that but he probably needs a little time to himself.

“Okay, fine,” I concede with a sigh. “How about this? I'll spend the weekend working on my future. But…on Monday, we need to do something special since it’s your last day off.”

He nods in agreement. “Okay, deal.” He shuffles back and forth on his feet. “Adrienne, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” I sit down on his bed and he sits next to me.

He takes a deep breath. “Do you think I’m destined to become an alcoholic too?”

His question takes me by surprise. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that’s what they say about alcoholics—their children have a higher risk of becoming the same. I know it’s not entirely genetic because there are plenty of people with parents who are alcoholics and addicts but they still manage to avoid it.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Look,” I tell him, “you’re strong, just like your father was. He fought the battle like a warrior.”

“But I don’t know if he would have beaten it entirely.”

“Does any alcoholic beat it entirely? They fight it every day. A lot of them can go years without alcohol but any one of them could cave at any time. The reason why they don’t is that they are determined not to. They have reasons why they stop. That’s what keeps them from ever starting again.”

“Why did my dad stop?”

“For his family.”

“How about me?”

“Like I said, you’re strong. If you ever feel that pull of addiction, I know you would fight it. You would find a reason and you would fight it.”

A smile begins to form on the corner of his lips. “Thanks,” he says. “I needed to hear that.”

“You’re welcome.”

He peeks over at me. “We’re still going to see a movie tonight, right?”

I chuckle and put my arm around his shoulder. “For you, anything.”

The nervous anticipation is palpable as I walk into Hidden Treasures to see how my month went. I have been both dreading and longing for this day. Now that it is here, I'm attempting to be confident while sweating bullets.

I drive over there late in the morning so I don’t seem overly anxious about being paid. I am sure there are plenty of other people who get there right at nine when the place opens up. I don’t want to be like that. This is why the anxiety has built to higher than normal levels. That and I have a couple dozen headbands in a tote to share with her today. She told me to bring new stuff in anytime but I decided to wait until September when I had enough stuff built up.

When I walk in, Mary Ann looks up from the paper and smiles. “Hi, doll! How have you been?”

“Doing all right. How about you?”

“Can’t complain.” She reaches under the counter and pulls out a binder. “Let me see here,” she says with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as she flips through it. “Adrienne, right?”

“Yes.” Here we go.

“Okay.” Her finger scrolls down and she stops at my name. “Hmm…”

“What?”

“Well, it looks like you didn’t have any sales this month.”

My heart sinks. “Oh,” is all I can say.

She can see the disappointment in my face. “Don’t worry though, dear. Sometimes the first month you sell nothing. You never know what to expect. One month you sell nothing, the next you sell ten things, and the next you sell one.”

“That makes sense,” I say, nodding even though I don't believe it. The tote of headbands starts to weigh my arm down. I try to get the words out to tell her about my new venture, but I can’t. I just say, “Well, I guess I’ll wait and see how this month goes then.” I flash a big smile.

“That’s the spirit!” she says enthusiastically as she puts the binder away.