Learn to Fly

Peyton threw her phone down in the van seat next to her watching as it bounced and fell onto the grey carpet of the vehicle. It vibrated again but she didn’t touch it. She didn’t want to talk to him—she had been telling him to leave her alone since Georgia died.

She wiped sweat from the back of her neck and sat up in her seat, realizing that no one else was in the van. She must’ve fallen asleep a few moments before they arrived because she didn’t sleep in cars anymore without having nightmares, but today she did which was highly unusual.

She stepped out of the white doors and stretched her arms above her head feeling a small breeze running on her midriff. She slid her sunglasses onto the top of her head and made her way into the venue listening as A Rocket to the Moon held their sound check.

Peyton found a black door with a note on it that read: The Maine. She knocked on the door softly before entering. She smiled as she saw a boy lying on the couch, his eyes focused on the TV in front of him where the Dallas Cowboys were running across the field, fighting off the Seattle Seahawks.

She crossed her arms and smirked at the boy, “I didn’t know you liked football, O’Callaghan.”

John laughed and opened his arms, asking for her body. She lied down next to him and buried her face in his neck, loving the feeling of his hands on her waist. He chuckled, “I don’t really. Watching it just makes me feel like more of a man.”

Peyton giggled and sighed, taking in John’s scent. He had two smells: pre show and post show—and preshow was no doubt the better of the two. She took a deep breath and buried her face deeper into his neck, “My dad and I used to watch football together when I was little. I grew up watching the Cowboys play.”

She watched as John turned the volume of the TV down and adjusted her to where she was looking into his eyes. He bit his lip softly and kept his eyes down before looking at her with a question on his lips, “Tell me about your family, Peyton. There’s so much about you that’s a mystery to me…and I want to know.”

She looked at him nervously, before staring at the chipping nail polish on her fingers, “What do you want to know?”

John shrugged, giving her an encouraging smile, “Just tell me everything. When were you adopted? Why did your parents…you know, kick you out? Tell me about Georgia.”

Peyton looked at the ceiling, the fluorescent lights suddenly feeling like they were interrogating her. She didn’t talk about her past—with Georgia and Nick she never had to because they were always there with her, and besides them she never felt close enough to anyone to tell them. But, John, John deserved to know.

“I was adopted when I was four. My birth mom dropped me off on the doorsteps of the orphanage,” she started, sighing softly. “She was a whore—like it was her job, prostitution and apparently I just kind of…happened.

“My adoptive mom saw me one day when they were checking out the place…it sounds so weird when I say it, it’s like shopping for a puppy,” Peyton said, laughing gently. “I remember it briefly. I was playing with a doll that had been donated two days earlier and my mom came and played with me. She was so sweet to me, so gentle. She always told me from that moment that she knew she needed me in her life.”

Peyton looked at John who was listening to her intently, giving her hand small squeezes as if to tell her to continue. “Things were great,” she said, a small smile on her lips in remembrance. “We did all of the things that normal families did. They took me to the park, the zoo, we saw movies. I went to school. I rode on the bus with Nick—I met Georgia. They nailed me for my grades and put me in dance. They were so good to me.

“They always knew I could be better, you know? They pushed me. They never let me settle for less than I was worth. I started looking into Julliard for dance, my mom would record me so that we could watch my movements and I could work on them at home. My dad would tutor me in math even though he worked extremely long hours. They called Geo their second daughter. We were a normal family and they loved me a lot.

“But I guess even though I thought everything was perfect, it wasn’t. Nothing golden ever stays, you know?” Peyton sighed, thinking of when her life took its change. “My uh, my mom was cheating on my dad with some man that worked in her office. His name was Christopher. God, I’ll never forget him. He—he used to come to parties my family would hold for her law firm. He was so nice to me, like he needed my approval, and I never understood why.

“My dad caught them cheating when I was fifteen. He went to surprise her at work for her birthday, and she was screwing him on her desk. My dad saw it,” she continued, her voice breaking. John squeezed her hand and ran his own down her back in comforting circles. “They got divorced a few months later. Christopher was her fucking lawyer.

“My dad started drinking, a lot and my mom, she left. My dad stopped taking me to dance and Nick’s mom started taking me. She started watching over me and more often than not I was sleeping at their house or at Geo’s. I was so mad at him. He missed my recitals, my induction into National Honor Society. He was missing everything. So I stopped trying to impress him.

“I started partying a lot, and even though I may not have been as outgoing as Georgia, when I was drunk I lost my mind. I did so many things—I’m not sure how I stayed a virgin honestly. I know for a fact that if Nick and Geo hadn’t been watching out for me I probably would have been raped. I started drinking alone…and I started smoking.

“At first it was weed, but that was too hard to get with Mrs. Santino watching over me, so I just fell back to cigarettes. My grandma died of lung cancer…and when my dad found a pack of American Spirits in my bag I was out. It was as simple as that. I came home from school one day and my entire room was on the front lawn and his car was gone. He abandoned me.”

Peyton took a deep breath, trying to suppress tears. John smoothed his hand over her hair comfortingly. She sighed softly, “I realized in that moment that no one had ever wanted me. Not my real mom and not the ones who had in a way ‘bought’ me. Georgia found me on my lawn, just laying there dumfounded. I didn’t understand how you could just leave your child…and why it was so easy for people to leave me behind.

“She took me to Nick’s mom and after a lot of tears and tissues they convinced me to stay with them. I honestly don’t know where the hell I was planning on going otherwise. Maybe to find my mom, or my dad, I don’t know. But I was just done,” Peyton said softly, her voice getting softer as she spoke.

“Georgia put me back together, John. We may have been best friends since the third grade, but in those few short months she really showed me why we were best friends. In time I got over it, as well as I could I guess. But I learned to become more optimistic…Georgia was always so optimistic, and I never had been. She was my opposite and that’s why we worked I suppose.”

Peyton bit her lip softly, “Georgia was my rock. She kept me from me in the hardest of times…her and Nick both. Nick was there even when I really didn’t know it. He may not have been as hands on as Georgia, but he was keeping me away from things…boys, that would have been bad for me. He helped me get my grades back up. He made me dance again. He made my priorities straight…”

“Wow,” John commented softly. “I—I…wow, Pey.”

Peyton listened to his silence, expecting this. What were you supposed to say to something like that? And God, there was still more. They sat in silence for a moment, with only John’s hand moving against her back, cooing the girl who just shared her entire world with him. She was trying so hard to hold herself together, but she was so scared of the next words she was about to speak; the words that only she and two other people knew of. One of which she refused to talk to.

“Georgia cheated on Nick,” she whispered softly, feeling her eyes fill with tears.

She felt John go rigid next to her in surprise. A small ‘what?’ ghosted his lips as she let her tears pour over her eyes. Her head fell into his neck as his arms tightened around her body comforting her sobs.

Something about speaking those words aloud scared her. She didn’t want John to think Georgia was someone she wasn’t—it happened one time, but at the same time, she needed to feel justified.

Justified for being mad at her best friend the last time they had ever spoken.

“Does—does Nick know?” John asked quietly. She knew he was unsure of what to say, but he was trying. He was trying to talk this through with her.

Peyton nodded her head, her eyes closed trying to stop the saline liquid from her eyes. “We—we were on our way home from a party. We hadn’t spoken in a week and we ran into each other there. She was taking me home…I was buzzed. I hadn’t drank in a few months and when Georgia cheated on Nick, I felt like I was back to when my mom cheated. I had lost hope again.

“She—she picked me up and literally dragged me to her car. I was saying the worst things to her John…I was calling her the most horrible names,” Peyton sobbed, her thin body shaking. “We were at a stop sign and she told me that her and Nick talked that day…and they were okay. They had taken the week to think but one mistake wasn’t going to ruin the three years they had spent together as a couple.

“I couldn’t forgive her, John. She was pleading for me to forgive her…to just listen to her, and I couldn’t. The last thing I told her was that I didn’t know who she was…and whoever she was now…I—I,” Peyton’s body shook roughly as loud cries fell from her lips. “I told her I didn’t need someone like her in my life and then the car…he hit us.”

Peyton now saw that the world was cruel and it played games. She had never fully understood that until that night. She had asked for something and within moments it had come true.

She had never gotten anything she had ever asked for until that moment.

And she would give the world to change it.

John stayed silent. He just held her tighter, letting her cry. And she needed to. Her sobs were the only sound to be heard other than their rough breathing. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that—it could have been over a half an hour, she didn’t care. All she knew was that her words were letting her deal with something.

The words she had spoken aloud for the first time were begging her to accept that Georgia was gone. Those words were asking her to forgive herself for things she couldn’t change, but she just couldn’t. The things she had said could never be taken back and no matter how much she bargained with God, those insults were the last thing her best friend had ever heard in her time on Earth.

Soon Peyton felt John’s hand on her cheek, begging her to look into his eyes. She did a few moments later, embarrassed of the mess she was. She was sure her eyes were bloodshot and that her cheeks were splotchy but he didn’t seem to care.

“Georgia knows that you didn’t mean those words, Peyton,” he said, looking at her seriously. “She was your best friend, she knows. She loved you so much—and you loved her. I can see that every time you talk about her. You—you can’t change what happened…you never can, but you can believe that she is watching you right now, and she is so proud of you. You’re finishing her list for her.”

But he was wrong. Georgia couldn’t possibly be proud of her. Hell, this was her fault. If she had just forgiven her earlier they wouldn’t have been driving that night. “John, I—

“You did not hit her with your car, Peyton. You were not driving the other vehicle. It is not your fault that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” John said sincerely, reading her mind. “You can’t change what happened, Hayes. Trust me, I tried that for years when Tanner died. You have to understand that it’s not going to feel better. It’s going to hurt—really fucking bad, but you’re going to get through it. I’ll make sure you do.”

Peyton looked down as a single tear fell from her eye. John had been through this. He wasn’t just another person telling her of things they knew nothing about. He had lost his own best friend—he’d had been at the bottom of the same black hole she was in.

“ Well, shake it up, baby, now. Twist and shout. C'mon c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, baby, now. Come on and work it on out. Well, work it on out, honey.,” John sang softly, his lips on her ear.

Peyton felt a small smile make its way onto her lips involuntarily.

Georgia used to talk about angels. She grew up in a church and she had always believed in a God. Peyton was never religious herself, but Georgia’s talk of these beings who were made solely for the purpose of helping and protecting you always just made her feel—safe.

Whenever she pictured these angels it didn’t matter that her mom left her on a doorstep.

It didn’t matter that her mom cheated or her dad left.

It didn’t matter that she had literally lost everything.

When she pictured these protectors they held her tightly in their arms, guarding her from the demons that tried to tear her down.

And as John held her securely against his chest she wondered if maybe just maybe Georgia had sent him to be her angel.