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  “I really hope we can be friends now.” I could sense my loneliness lifting and feel the emptiness in my heart filling with love for him. All the pent-up anger that I had been holding on to for the last five years was finally disappearing. There was no longer a place inside me for the resentment. As cliché as it sounds, I truly felt like there was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. “So, how long are you going to be in town?” I wasn’t ready for him to leave already. I needed to know I would be able to see him more before he left.

  “I hadn’t determined that yet. I have off work for a couple of weeks.” The intensity of his stare drew me back in, causing me to attentively regard every one of his movements.

  As he lifted his beer bottle toward his mouth, I watched it touch his lips, and when he swallowed, I examined his Adam’s apple as it moved up and down. What’s wrong with me? “Why do you have off from work?” It occurred to me he told me he was a paramedic when we were in the grocery store earlier today.

  “Just a minor injury. But protocol is protocol.” He didn’t look injured to me. The way his chest tightly stretched out a T-shirt and the definition of the corded muscles of his arms certainly gave me the appearance that he was fit enough to do anything he physically wanted.

  “Well, I’m glad it isn’t anything serious.” If he could give chest compressions to that old man for endless minutes, it couldn’t be that bad. “So, friend”—I emphasized for him—“what have you been up to the last five years?”

  A sullen expression promptly crept across his face as his eyes narrowed and those lines expressing delight across his forehead disappeared. I wasn’t sure how my question caused such a reaction. Did I ask something I shouldn’t have?

  “I mean, you told me you were a paramedic…” I stammered and sputtered my speech, trying to retract anything offensive I might have said, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what that was.

  Thankfully, his stern expression softened as he cut off my words with his own. “Yes, I am. I have been working as a career firefighter and paramedic for the last three years.” In between sips from his beer, he explained that he’d gone to a community college to become a paramedic, and then he went to the University of Maryland to acquire a bachelor’s degree in fire science. Currently, he was working for Anne Arundel County Fire Department. He had only lived one and a half, maybe two hours away from me for the last five years. We could’ve seen each other if we had wanted to. Sweltering, all-consuming sadness and sorrow developed deep within my core on account of that realization.

  “How about you?” I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond as the scorching heat from stomach acid ascended. “Emergency room nurse, right?”

  Somehow, I managed to push the lump crawling up my throat back down and nearly coughed out my response. “Yeah, I went to Sandy Cove University.” He had been at my house when I opened my acceptance letter. I guess he remembered my career aspirations and dreams. “Got a degree in nursing and went to work at the hospital in town after graduation.”

  “I’m sure the ER suits you. You were always looking for adventure when we were kids. I know that kind of job offers that to you on a regular basis.” It was true. I’d always been an adrenaline junkie. I loved that rush of excitement that came along with saving a life. Even though he had been gone so long, he still knew me so well.

  After leaving the bar, I made sure to text my brother that I was fine and heading home. Of course he asked if things had been rectified with Louis. I assured him that we managed to smooth things over. Cam responded with several smiley faces. I swear, he was such a girl sometimes.

  I was scheduled to work the next day. Even though it was a Saturday, the ER remained open every day of the week. And since I’d only been a nurse for a little over a year, I was still working the night shift. In a way, it was a good thing I didn’t have to go to the hospital in the morning, because after an hour of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. My mind refused to rest. Nagging memories about Louis haunted me every time I tried to close my eyes.

  Talking about that night helped alleviate some of the current simmering tension, but I still didn’t know what his thoughts were back then. Why did he leave so abruptly? Where did he go? Why did he end up at a community college? He had been accepted to Florida State, so I knew he would leave after the summer, but he left a hot second after graduation without even saying goodbye. In fact, he didn’t say anything to me after that night.

  The three of us were sitting in the basement of my parents’ house watching TV. I was sitting on the couch with my legs folded up underneath me, and Cam was sitting on the opposite end. Louis sat in the armchair that’d been deemed “Lou’s chair” as it seemed to be his spot. That was where he always sat when he came over to our house, which was every day. If he didn’t come over to our house, then he was either sick or on vacation with his family.

  We spent the entire day fishing on the lake in our canoe. I caught a small bass. The boys didn’t catch anything. But we had a great time. We always did. My brother and Louis were my best friends. I always found girls to be a little too…well, girly. They didn’t like to swim in the lake or go fishing. They never wanted to get their hands dirty, and most of them were so busy chasing boys. Honestly, I thought girls were kind of boring.

  It’s not like I was never around girls. My sister Claudette was very much a girly girl. She is three years older than us, so she used to tell us we were juvenile with our outdoor antics. She repeatedly told us one day we would grow up and realize farts weren’t funny anymore. And for the record, I could armpit fart better than Cam or Louis.

  I laughed to myself about that recollection. We were exhausted after our day on the boat in the sun, so we came back to the house to eat dinner and relax. It was a Friday evening, so like every Friday evening, my parents had ordered pizza. We each grabbed a few slices and retreated to the family room downstairs to eat and relax in front of the television. We drank soda and had a belching contest. I could belch the loudest, but Cam could belch for the longest duration. Louis could pretty much belch on command without needing the effervescence of the soda bubbles.

  So we were curled up in each of our own satiety, and Cam began to doze off. After the third or fourth drop of his head, he told us he was going to bed. Louis and I each said good night to him. I stretched my legs out on the couch once my brother retired for the night, and Louis stood up from “his chair” and sat next to me, sinking into the cushions. Anywhere else, it would not have been strange for him to sit next to me, but it felt weird at my house where he had his own favorite spot.

  He lifted my legs gently and slid beneath them so that they rested across his lap. I don’t remember what was on television, probably because I was focused on his unusual behavior. Once his fingertips touched my leg and massaged circles into the muscles of my thigh, I blurted out, “What the hell are you doing?”

  He withdrew the pressure from his fingertips on my leg immediately but turned his torso toward me rather than facing the television as we had been. “I need to tell you something.” His sweet innocence displayed in his facial features and I was convinced he was going to tell me bad news.

  “What’s wrong?” Worry and concern grappled in my belly. I left my legs on top of his, but panic was hastily rushing through me—like I might need to get up and run away at a moment’s notice.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” His blue eyes danced around in circles like magical swimming pools reflecting back at me. “I just need to talk to you.” I nodded for him to proceed, and I remained frozen in my spot with my calves still sitting on top of his thighs. “I have started to develop feelings for you other than friendship.”

  Crap. That’s not even remotely close to anything I thought he would ever say to me. I didn’t know what to do or what to say, so I just sat there motionless while he continued.

  “I want to be your boyfriend.” Absolute shock pulled a lurid gasp from within me. “I want to take you to prom.” As his he
ad drooped forward, a whooshing sigh left him and his shoulders fell from their usual proud position. “I want us to be together.”

  Then he raised his head up and with the slightest of lateral movement, his piercing gaze searched my eyes. I’m not sure what my eyes said, I just know my mouth didn’t say anything. Apparently, whatever my eyes told him, gave him an indication the best thing to do at that moment was to drag my legs off his lap and drape his body over me. Then, while hovering a few inches from my face, he leaned in further and gently brushed his mouth against mine.

  I remember thinking how soft his lips were, but it only took half a second before I started thinking, what the hell is happening? This is Louis! Since my mind wasn’t working clearly, my lack of resistance encouraged him to really kiss me. I felt like he was stealing my breath away, but at the same time, he provided me much-needed oxygen. If I didn’t keep kissing him, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to breathe again. So when his tongue swept across the seam of my lips, I willingly parted them and allowed him access to the inside of my mouth.

  He tasted like pizza and cola, which were two of my favorite things. He was one of my favorites, too. His tongue was warm, and the surging heat began to dissipate throughout my entire body. Our breathing increased, as did my heart rate.

  The kiss deepened, and soon, we were kissing each other with passion and desire neither of us had ever known in our eighteen years on Earth. I could hear a heart beating fast and loud. I didn’t know if it was mine or his, but I felt like there was likely to be an explosion. My brain decided to work again because with that realization came a moment of clarity.

  I had made out with boys before, but no one had made me feel this way. And this was my brother’s best friend. This was my best friend. I didn’t want to lose him as my friend. I didn’t want some passionate necking to be the reason we couldn’t be friends. I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend. I wanted him to be my friend. I had a couple of boyfriends during high school, but both of those relationships ended. I didn’t want my relationship with Louis to end, so I did probably the hardest thing I ever had to do. I pushed him away. Flames were burning and sparks were flying during our teenage make-out session, and I halted the fire.

  After I successfully shoved him off me, Louis fell back, away from me, and I could hear the heavy panting and see his chest rise and fall dramatically due to his erratic breathing. I tried to normalize my own breathing because I needed to tell him how I felt. But his fingertips stroked across my face, and I thought I would melt into a puddle right there on my parents’ couch.

  “I love you, Charlie,” he managed to force out through his labored breathing. Then he drew me into his chest in the most tender embrace I had ever experienced. He rested his head on my chest for several, unmoving moments. My chest continued to rise and fall quickly, but he made no attempt to move his head.

  “I’m sorry, Louis, but I don’t feel the same way.” I would have never had the nerve to say those words if those blue eyes of his had been boring into me. Even still, tears emerged from the depths of my eyes. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to hurt us more.

  Only a brief glimpse of time lapsed before his head jerked away from my galloping heart, and he lured me into an entrancing state with those cobalt-colored spheres. I knew he was peering right into my soul. Because of our tethered connection at that moment, I thought he would see right past my words and know that I loved him, too. But instead, sadness fell across his face. The corner of his eyes sagged, and his demeanor wilted. I swear his mournful expression made me feel like I had just told him his dog died. His slouched posture uttered devastation and heartbreak, and I was all too aware that I had done that to him.

  With a sluggish movement, he flopped his dejected body off the couch. No words were said by him as he shuffled his feet along the hardwood floor and stomped up the stairs. The squeaky hinge on the side door screeched as it opened, followed by a soft thud as it shut. The basement was cold and empty…much like the broken heart tumbling against my breastbone.

  I figured I would see Louis the next night at prom, but he didn’t show. I briefly saw him at graduation one week later, but we didn’t speak to each other. I found out he left town shortly after that. I wasn’t sure when he departed exactly because he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything actually.

  At that point, I knew I had probably made a bad choice, but I was only eighteen. How could I have known that things would turn out the way they did? Now, at twenty-three, I not only realized I made a bad choice, but I also realized I needed to make things right again.

  Before today, his last words to me were, “I love you, Charlie.” Maybe I couldn’t make him love me again, but I could at least make him like me again. He said he was going to be around for a couple of weeks. I prayed that it was an adequate amount of time for him to forgive me. I didn’t want him to leave again without saying goodbye. If I was completely honest with myself, I would admit that I didn’t want him to leave ever.

  4

  Louis

  Well, today was a lot more exciting than I had anticipated. Had I known that returning to my hometown would’ve been like this, I doubt I would’ve done it. Or maybe I would have done it sooner. Aside from the unexpected CPR, seeing my best friend again had gone better than expected. Cameron didn’t question why I hadn’t seen him in five years. He didn’t ask what had taken me so long to come home. He just inquired about what had been going on in my life. I filled him in, and we went right back to where our friendship was.

  I wish I could say the same about seeing Charlie again. She had been my friend during the majority of my childhood years. I should have thought more about how telling her that I wanted to be her boyfriend would impact our relationship. But when you’re young and foolish, you don’t necessarily think before you act. I’d just needed to tell her. I’d had to get that elephant off my chest before I left for college.

  However, being young and foolish came with great heartache as well. The impulsiveness that went along with being young and foolish yielded great anguish. That anguish became less and less the older I got, because I’d created fewer opportunities to make myself vulnerable. I’d decided there would be no more heartache for me after I left home. I’d decided that I would never put myself in that situation again. A human being could not possibly have his heart crushed beyond repair more than once in a lifetime and continue to live.

  I know I sound like a sap, but being young and foolish also meant that you didn’t have much life experience to deal with the anguish and heartache. I just knew I had to get away. So that was what I did.

  I’d called my cousin Drew and explained that I needed to get out of town for a while. He was only five years older than me, but he owned a landscaping company. My uncle had turned over the company to him, but not before he went to college. My uncle wanted Drew to learn how to run a business, not just the art of landscaping. So Drew had gone to college and graduated with a degree in business. Then he was essentially handed a company to run.

  Drew offered me a job working for him the summer after my senior year of high school, but he lived near Washington, D.C. It was almost a two-hour drive from the town I grew up in. I didn’t care at the time. He also offered me a free room in his house where I could stay. Desperate to get away, I accepted his offer of a job and a place to live.

  I’d joined a local firehouse near my cousin’s house as a volunteer during that summer, and it didn’t take long to decide that attending Florida State in pursuit of a degree with an undecided major no longer appealed to me. I liked being an EMT, and I liked being a firefighter, so I’d made the decision to become a paramedic. The certification program yielded a two-year degree, and I was able to attend school while keeping my job at my cousin’s landscaping company. My volunteer firehouse set me up with a program that paid for my paramedic degree, so I also had the luxury of attending college without going into debt.

  After I graduated and passed the registry for a paramedic, I w
as promptly hired by the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. Training school was tough. It was physically and mentally challenging, but I survived. I was only twenty at the time. I wasn’t old enough to buy beer, but I had a career and a two-year college degree. The benefits for health insurance, dental, and vision were impressive, but a twenty-year-old doesn’t really care about those things. However, finding out that the organization would pay for my education did pique my interest.

  So I continued college and graduated with a degree in fire science from the University of Maryland. I didn’t work for my cousin full time anymore, but I still worked most of my days off when the weather was warm. I only worked two days a week as a paramedic. Don’t get me wrong, they were grueling days. Each shift was twenty-four hours long. But luckily, I had three days off in between each shift to recover.

  I still belonged to a volunteer firehouse, but I found it more difficult to put in as many hours as I used to. I’d moved out of my cousin’s house and into an apartment close to Annapolis once I landed my paramedic job. Although I had lived my life and had good experiences, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed my hometown until I returned yesterday.

  I didn’t realize how much I’d missed Cameron and Charlie until I saw them today. I guess I had been keeping myself so busy that I hadn’t allowed myself any time to miss anything. I had heard that everything in life happens for a reason. Maybe my minor injury had happened so I could reconnect with my two friends again. Even with meeting various people and making new friends, Cameron continued to be the best friend I’d ever had. And Charlie, well…the verdict was still out.

  As I lay in bed that night, I shifted uncomfortably from my back to my side, and I thought about her. I don’t know why, but as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about why purple was my new favorite color.