Just Another Lovesick Boy

Throughout my entire childhood, I had the lesson of never judging people based on first impression instilled in my mind. If I were to judge, it was to be based on consistent actions. Cecilia was a rather plain woman with pale eyes that seemed to reflect her ignorance. I tried my hardest to not deem her clueless but I just could not seem to help it. She and Jack were constantly over at my home during the next week and my patience was growing thin on both of them. Jack would always do things involving me or my mother that got us annoyed but what annoyed me even more were the clearly incorrect and ignorant things Cecilia would say. I refrained myself from sighing or rolling my eyes every time she spoke as much as I could. It was not until two weeks later that I had some alone time with Cecilia.

I was sitting with her at the dining room table while my mom and Jack were back at the Evans’ shop. Apparently, the wrong measurements were taken for Jack’s tuxedo so he had to go back. Cecilia insisted on staying behind and my mom insisted that I stay behind with her. It was then that Cecilia started talking to me about her hobbies. Cecilia admitted to me that she absolutely adored scrapbooking. She had at least three with her on our dining room table. All of them were open in front of me and I could not help but look at them with intense curiosity. Two of them were obviously her life before Jack and the last was her life after she met him. I stared at a picture of her grinning widely at the camera while she was on a horse before moving to the next scrapbook. The open page held a few pictures of her at the beach, one of them was a picture taken at a distance as Cecilia was on a surfboard in the ocean. She looked so serious yet so serene as she stared off into the distance. Cecilia turned the page on the third scrapbook before turning to look at me with a small smile. My eyes widened a bit when I looked at the single picture glued on top of a plain black background. In the picture was Jack, looking more serious than I had ever seen him. He was not looking at the camera. Instead, he was looking at Cecilia, who was smiling forcefully to the camera from a hospital bed. She had numerous machines around her with an IV. But what shocked me the most were the amount of cuts and bruises she had on her arms and face, along with the gauze around her head that was soaking with blood.

I glanced up from the scrapbooks carefully to look up at her. Cecilia had her elbows on the table as she clasped her hands and rested her cheek on her hands to study my reaction. I stayed silent and she did too for a moment before unfolding her hands to flip the pages of the first book. She went to the first page to reveal a picture of a younger version of her with what looked like to be her mother.

“That’s my mama. She was an adventurer. She always took me exploring. She’s where I got my spirit from.”

I nodded, wondering where she was going with this. She pointed to the next picture, which had her standing next to a man.

“That’s my daddy. He owns a horse ranch in Colorado now. He’s where I got my love for animals from.”

She turned the page to reveal a picture of her looking incredibly serious and somewhat angry while she stood some distance away from a man smirking at the camera.

“And that’s my step-father. He was a mean old drunk. Beat my mama something good. One day, he beat her to the point where her spirit just gave out. I was seventeen when she died.”

I glanced up at her only to find her looking stoically down at the pages she flipped through.

“I went to live with my daddy for a while after that. He taught me more about horses and the wild than I ever thought I could know about. He taught me about love and to not be so cynical. Because of my daddy, I decided to live a life of adventure to keep my mama alive. So I set out to do that. I traveled a bit, wanted to see the nation. I ended getting really into surfing, horseback riding, and rock climbing. Did it for years. After I met Jack, I thought it would be good to incorporate a man into my interests. We went climbing one day. And I don’t even know what happened but I just couldn’t get a good grip.”

I sharply looked up, knowing where she was going with this. She did not look at me and for once, she was not smiling. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on the picture of her in the hospital.

“I fell a good thirty feet. Hit some sharp rocks on my way down. Ended up hitting my head pretty bad. I was unconscious for the rest of the day and when I woke up the doctors said I would have short term memory loss for the rest of my life. That’s why some of the things I say don’t make much sense.”

“Do you remember it?” I asked quietly.

“Hmm? No. All I remember is slipping and seeing Jack reach out. And then I remember waking up with him so serious by my side. I think he blames himself for me falling.”

“Why would he think that?”

“He seems to think it’s his fault that he loses everything. Like you and your mama. And he thinks it’s his fault that I lost a part of my mind. I don’t think he realizes how much I feel that it’s my fault either though.”

“Why would you think that it’s your fault?”

“I wanted him to be a part of nature with me so much. He thought that the cliff wasn’t safe. He begged me to not go but I kept begging him to come with me. If only I wasn’t so insistent,” she sighed.

“It’s not your fault,” I said as I stared at her with a puzzled look. “You love nature. You love him. It’s only natural that you wanted to combine the two.”

She gave me a small smile before asking me, “So what do you think of my memory loss?”

I stared at her for a moment in silence as I pondered it. I looked back down at her scrapbooks before flipping through the pages. There were so many pictures of her doing amazing things. Pictures of her in mountains, deserts, oceans, or just plain gardens. In almost every single picture, she had a large smile on her face. All of these were great experiences for her.

“I think your memory loss is a gift. It may be a burden, not remembering things and all, but that means that you get to experience things and they’re always new. They’ll never get old and they’ll always be a happy time.”

“It took me a while to get to thinking like that. And it only took you a few moments. That’s what makes you so special, Adrian,” she grinned before patting my shoulder.

After that, I saw Cecilia in a whole new light. I was no longer seeing her as Jack’s Woman but as Cecilia. I had a newfound respect for her. Not only did she survive through her memory loss but she dealt with Jack. Jack confused me more greatly than Cecilia ever did. I would glance at him across the dining table some days to see him smiling gently down at Cecilia with love in his eyes before he grasped and kissed her hand. I would often catch him kissing her knuckles, tuck a curl behind her ear, or even just softly brush her hand as she walked by. They were things that I knew I would do if I had a girl of my own and that made me hope that Jack was seriously different. But then I would catch him leering at my mother or trapping her between his arms and the wall and all my hopes would crash and burn. I felt like I was helpless and could not do anything to save my mom or Cecilia from him.

After Nara Lee and I reconciled with each other at her dad’s store, we became close friends. We soon started going to the park with each other or called each other all the time. I was happy that we were in each other’s life. I stopped thinking of her as a girl I dreamed about and started thinking of her as my friend in reality. I would often call her whenever I felt helpless about Jack crossing the lines again.

“I just feel so useless,” I whispered to her from the phone.

“You are not useless. But you have to understand that it’s your mom’s situation. It’s not up to you. Besides, she handled it once. She can do it again.”

“It broke her heart the first time. I don’t think she can handle it again. And her planning his next wedding is just so sick. I just want to save my mom from his evil.”

“You’re not Batman, sweetie. You may think you are, but you’re still at Robin level. There’s not much you can do right now.”

“I guess you’re right,” I sighed as I rolled over on my bed.

“Of course I am,” she mumbled, sounding like she was distracted.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Why do you ask?”

“You sound distracted. Should I go?”

“No. I’m just trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow.”

“Is it that hard of a decision?”

“Adrian, girls can’t be like boys and throw on the first thing they see. Well, I suppose they can but the first thing I see is usually a bed sheet and that would just be weird.”

I laughed for a moment before suggesting, “Why not wear something simple and comfortable than? Like a blue shirt with black pants or something?”

“You are a genius, my dear. Now I have to hunt for shoes. God, my room is a mess.”

“Then clean it.”

“Later. So are we walking to school again tomorrow?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we?”

“I don’t know. I guess…it seems like Eddy doesn’t like me.”

“I’m sorry about him. But he’s pretty convinced that you were in on the paint thing. I’ve been trying to explain otherwise but he won’t listen to me. But he can suck my left nut for all I care. I like you being around so he’ll have to deal.”

“Would you choose me over him?” she asked quietly.

“Are you asking me to?” I asked back, already knowing what my answer would be.

“Adrian, I – ”

“Hey there, pumpkin!” a voice interrupted her.

“Jesus Christ, Eddy!” I yelled as I rolled off the bed in surprise.

I dropped my phone in my panic and I could hear Nara Lee frantically asking what was wrong. I breathed out deeply as I grabbed my chest as I stared at Eddy incredulously. He sat cross legged on my bed with a huge smile on his face, along with a huge red stain near his mouth. I grabbed a pillow and viciously hit him with it a few times before glaring at him as I bent down to grab my phone.

"Sorry, Nara, it's just my idiot best friend," I growled.

"Shall I disapparate and allow you two to settle?" she asked.

"Oh crap, not you too," I groaned.

"Not me what?"

"Eddy uses Harry Potter references all the time too," I said as he stuck his tongue out at me.

"Who wouldn't?" she asked with a laugh. "Well I'll leave you two alone. See you tomorrow.”

I sighed as I threw my phone on my desk before I turned back to Eddy. I hit him once more with the pillow that was still in my hand before I sat next to him on the bed. He turned to stare at me, with his chin in his palm.

"I take it that you two are seriously friends now," he said as he looked away to pick at a piece of string that was sticking out of my blanket.

"I suppose."

He nodded as he twirled the string around his right index finger before wiping his mouth, taking away the red smear. I raised an eyebrow at his silence and waited for him to continue the conversation. But I was waiting for nothing because Eddy refused to open his mouth once more to further explain anything. I noticed the string around his finger was growing longer and longer and the cloth from my blanket was gathering together in resistance. I looked back up to see his face blank and somewhat cold, not his usual happy self.

"Is that a problem, Eddy?"

"No, it's perfect," he spat.

"What's up with you?" I asked as I watched him stand up to walk to my desk that held pictures on the shelves.

"Nothing, I'm peachy," he said monotonously as he fiddled with a corner of a picture frame that held a photograph of me and him laughing at the camera with our arms around each other.

"Dude, you're my best friend. I know when you're upset."

"I'm not upset. I'm so fucking happy that you and the princess are finally happy together," he said as he glanced over at me.

"She's not bad. She apologized," I whispered.

"Oh! She apologized. Well then," he scoffed.

"She didn't know, Eddy. I don't see what the big deal is."

"The big deal is that everyone thinks the sun shines out of her ass, especially you. The big deal is that you're friends with a girl who is too weak to stand up to the people she calls friends. And you're just like her. Whenever something happens, you just ignore it. You're too damn nice, both of you. Maybe you really do deserve each other," he said as he flipped the picture of us down.

"Is this really about her, Eddy, or is it something bigger?" I asked as I watched him flip down all the pictures that held the both of us together.

"Everything is fine, Adrian. I'm happy that you got your dream girl. I'm happy that the girl I like doesn't like me because I'm so damn weird. I'm glad that besides you, my only friend is my seven year old sister. I'm glad that my best friend that I've had my entire life is ditching me for some girl."

My eyebrows furrowed together as I watched Eddy walk back and forth in my room as he spoke his rant. I had absolutely no idea that that was how he felt about Nara Lee all this time. I felt frozen on my bed as I watched him flip down all the pictures of me and him and carelessly flicking things that I suppose he thought reminded me of him on the floor. It felt like at any second, Eddy would lean right over me and light the board that connected our bedrooms on fire, thus ending our friendship. I stood up to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Eddy, you're my best friend. Have been since the day I was born. You're like a brother to me. There is no way a girl could ever come between us," I told him as he stared down at the floor.

He glanced over at me with a hard look in his eyes. "You're all I've got, Adrian. I don't have anybody else," he told me.

"I doubt that, everybody loves you."

"Not like you do. Everybody else just sees the weird guy who wears blue every fucking day. Face it, besides that, I'm invisible."

"I see you, Eddy," I told him softly.

"Just you, Adrian. Just you."

"I'm not going to abandon my brother, okay, Eddy?" I asked him as I held up my palm to him.

He stared down at the center of my palm where a very small and fainted scar was. Four years ago, Eddy and I had made the ultimate pact: the blood pact. Our blood ran through each other’s veins. We were brothers until the day we both died. Nothing would ever come between us. Nothing at all. We were always going to be together no matter what life threw our way. That was what we promised to each other. He looked down at his own scar on his hand. He nodded before he turned away to the window.

"Eddy, you shouldn't care what people think."

"I don’t," he said as he straddled my window sill. "Trust me; I don't care what those goddamn mindless people think of me. The only people whose opinions matter to me are my family's and yours."

"You're not invisible, Ed."

"Yes, I am. But as long as you see me, I'm okay," he said as he gave me a weak smile.

I had no idea what else to say to him. I watched him, with my arms wrapped across my stomach, as he crawled onto the board and walked over to his bedroom. I stared at he jumped to the ground of his bedroom floor and avoided my gaze. I ignored the buzzing of my cell phone on my desk as I gazed at him. My lips slightly parted as I watched Eddy do the thing I never thought one of us would never do. We never swore to each that we would not - it was just an unspoken promise. But Eddy did it anyway. And it was only when he did it that I realized how serious he was being at the moment.

Eddy shut the window to me.