Like I Would

“Marc, Marc are you all right?” Jared had came and found me out by the dock. I’d assumed that the early hour would have kept anyone from bothering me, but I guess I’d been wrong. His voice was unmistakable ringing out through the quiet that the dock had provided me.

“No Jared, I’m not. He’s… he’s gone… and I didn’t even know he was sick. I never even went over and said hello or anything after high school,” I shook my head. After everything Mr. Sanders had done for me I hadn’t even made the attempt to look him up when I was home during the summers. I guess I was always worried I’d run into Carly and feel that uncomfortable sensation of knowing I’d lost her.

“That’s not your fault Marc – you and Carly didn’t really stay friends, so I mean it’s kind of natural to not have kept up with him, you know? You can’t feel bad about that,” he rationalized. Jared was usually pretty quiet, more a guy of action than one to talk things out, but he had his moments.

“It doesn’t make it any better though,” I admitted. He nodded, staring out over the lake as I had been. Instead I dipped my toes in the ice-cold water, preferring to focus on anything else but the pain in my chest.

“What happened between you two anyway? I mean, you were glued together then all of a sudden she was gone and we never heard you talk about her again,” I winced, wishing I could keep my baby brothers’ gaze from me as a question I’d evaded for seven years was out in the open, with no escape. It was like his eyes were burning holes into me even though I was desperately attempting to ignore it and keep my cool. I'd managed to keep my secret for this long, I couldn't just break now.

“It’s complicated,” I shrugged, half-mumbling as I kept my head down and eyes glued to the weird distortion line halfway across my feet where they were submerged into the water.

“It can’t be that complicated Marc. I just don’t get it… she just… got you, you know?”

That in itself wasn’t a feat many people accomplished. I was pretty open with my family, considered a bit of a “clown” by classmates, and even my teammates. I liked to be involved with people and make others laugh, but I didn’t like people prying into my own life. I’d always kept things to myself, and Carly had completely destroyed every wall I’d ever put up, knew every detail and secret about me that I wasn’t able to share with anyone else, or didn’t want to.

“It kind of is Jared, and besides, it happened a long time ago. We’re both totally different people now; I mean, I’m with Angie, and she’s in London or wherever it is now,”

“She’s a model now. Natalie gushed over her the whole drive home yesterday,” Jared supplied a piece of information that shocked me senseless.

“Really?”

“Well yeah, I mean, why wouldn’t she be? She’s drop-dead gorgeous, and tall, and fit... kind of makes sense. That’s the whole reason she’s living in Europe,” he explained, looking a little confused with me. I’d tried to shut out most of my memories of Carly after she ripped my heart in two, and had done my best to not keep up with what was going on, because it was what she wanted. But this came out of left field and nowhere. Last I’d heard she’d been helping build a school in Tanzania or something and teaching ESL somewhere else.

“Wow… I just never took her for the model type – she wasn’t ever interested in that stuff in high school,”

“Like you said, you’re two totally different people now. Maybe you need to get to know her again. It’s not like she has anybody here anymore,” Jared’s words echoed over the silence of the early morning, the reality of his statement hitting home with both of us. It had never even occurred to me that Carly might literally have no one now.

“Oh my God, she’s got nobody…” it broke my heart all over again. Carly hated being totally and completely alone. Being by herself, she could do that. Love it, even; when she could curl up with a book or immerse herself in something and not have to be interrupted was one of her favorite things. But she needed to know that if she wanted or needed it someone was there. She’s always been like that, and I doubted it had changed.

“Maybe… maybe I should go see her. Just make sure she’s okay,” the whisper escaped before I’d fully realized that I’d had the thought. Jared nodded, his green eyes cloudy.

“I think you should. Nat and I can come with you, if you want. If it would be easier… I mean, I knew that her leaving had something to do with you. Otherwise she wouldn’t have taken off the way she did, or we would have heard from her. If you need backup you’ve got it bro – all you need to do is ask,” Jared told me, patting my shoulder once before getting up and making his way back to the house.

I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be, to lose the only person you have left. And imagining the same kind of pain I’d seen on her face seven years ago being there now nearly tore me in two. I needed to help, someway, somehow. But I knew I was probably the last person Carly wanted to see.