Chapter 26
Iwas finally able to get a flight home. But I’m still not getting in till nine at night—stupid weather delayed my flight.
“Rune! Rune!” I rush through my apartment door, terrified at what I might find.
I talked to Cole after the accident and then after they left the ER, only a few stitches and some bruising on his belly from the seat belt but no other injuries.
I wept in relief while waiting to board my plane.
I’m sure the surrounding passengers thought I was a basket case. Well, I guess I kinda was.
When I got the call that they had been in an accident, I thought the worst. I thought I was losing the boy I loved most in this world, again. I wouldn’t survive losing Rune. I only survived losing Everett because of Rune.
“Mom! I’m in here!” I hear his sweet voice in the living room and run that way like a bat out of hell.
“Hey, little bird. Are you okay?” I gently caress his face, staring into his pale-green eyes—Everett’s eyes.
“Yeah. Do you think I’m going to have a cool scar now?” He points to the bandage on his forehead, and I can’t help but let out a breath of relief and shake my head.
“Yeah, you just might.” I kiss his forehead. “Do you want me to make you some mac ‘n’ cheese?”
“Yes! With ketchup please!”
Him and his obsession with ketchup. This kid literally puts it on everything.
I once saw him eat an Oreo dipped in ketchup, and I about lost my lunch.
He loves to cook and experiment with new flavors, just like his dad.
Rune is so much like Everett. Sometimes it's really hard to see that. To see his goofiness, his bravery, his kindness. But then I remember that maybe Everett wasn’t as brave as I thought he was.
At one time in my life, he was like a knight, coming to my rescue, defying his parents in order to love me.
Then one note changed it all, and he was no longer my knight in shining armor.
His armor became dull, and I realized that I had put too much of myself, my hopes, my dreams, my light into him, and when he was gone, so was I.
“I’m so fucking sorry, LJ! That car came out of nowhere.” Cole approaches me like a kid coming near a wild animal. Timid but curious. Her eyes are puffy and glossy, like she has been crying.
“It’s okay. Rune is okay. You’re okay. Accidents happen. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I feel like it was. I feel like I could have seen him coming, but I had the green light, I—”
“Stop, Cole. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Rune is fine.”
She’s silent a moment. And once she has processed that I’m okay, she’s back to her normal, bubbly self.
One thing about Cole is when she loves you, she forgives you as fast as lightening.
She is never able to hold a grudge. It's something I am learning from her.
Something she instills in me. The ability to forgive and let go.
So just as quick as she forgives, she is just as quick to move forward.
“You know who was fine? Rune’s doctor. Fuck me sideways and take me to church, girl, ’cause I would get on my knees to worship him every second of the day.”
I giggle at her. “Yeah? Did you get his number?”
“Oh no. He’s gorgeous but not my type. I like the dark haired and damaged. He seemed more like the golden retriever type. And he was great with Rune. He made him laugh and asked him all these questions about his life and what he liked. Really made him feel safe, you know?”
“I’m glad to hear that. I think it’s been hard on Rune, growing up with us women. He needs a man in his life. I just don’t trust anyone near him.”
“Well, you’ve only dated like two guys in the eight years I’ve known you. You really didn’t give any of them a chance.”
I look at her, playing with her twists. Cole was lucky in life.
She had a caring mom, a stable home life.
I’m not saying she hasn’t had hard times…
Her dad died while deployed in Afghanistan, so she knows heartache, but she hasn’t had her trust broken along with her heart.
She doesn’t understand my reluctance and fear over letting a man not only close to me again, but to my son.
He is all I have, and I will protect him with a fierceness that has never been seen before.
“I can’t, girl. You know that. I would rather spend my life alone than have a man come into my son's life and hurt him by leaving. I have only ever felt unquestionable trust and loyalty in my life one time, and he broke it. Broke me.”
I guess I felt that way with Ski too, but that was more of a father figure than a lover.
It’s a different kind of love with that old man.
And thinking of him tears at my chest. I haven’t reached out.
In all these years, I couldn’t bring myself to, and I don’t even know why.
He deserved better from me. I just felt so stupid and ashamed, and then months went by, then years, and then it felt like it had been too long and I couldn’t.
I need to go see him. I need to let him know I am okay.
But I’m so terrified of running into my mom, Everett’s mom or, worse, Everett.
I have no idea if he went to college or opened his restaurant, married Natasha, and then moved home.
I have no idea where that man is in this world.
It’s funny how you can plan a future with someone, have your whole world revolve around them, and then one day, they’re a ghost.
“I hope you find it in you to trust again, babe. You deserve to be loved.”
I just nod and give her a smile. A small smile that conveys Me too, but it’s not going to happen.
I bring Rune his bowl of mac ‘n’ cheese with ketchup slathered on top.
“Here you go, sweetie. Let me look at that cut.”
I peel his bandage back, and it's not as bad as I was expecting. About two inches long and stitched together perfectly.
“Well, hate to break it to you bud but you might not have a scar. Those stitches look perfect. You sure an ER doctor did this?”
“Yeah, Dr. Giraffe.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. Maybe he does have brain damage…
“Dr. Giraffe?” I repeat.
“Yup. He said that some little girl told him he was taller than a giraffe, and now that’s what all his patients and the nurses call him.”
“Interesting. So was he really tall, then?”
“Oh yeah, he was so tall! He had to sit down on a really small stool to see me. It was kinda funny seeing him try to fit on it. It made me laugh.”
“Yeah? And what else did Dr. Giraffe do?”
“Well, he had to poke me with a needle. But it didn’t hurt ‘cause he let me use his seth-scope to listen to his heart. But then he started making all these funny noises like farts and burps, and hearing them with the thing-y made it even more funny. I didn’t even feel him poke me.”
I laugh at his pronunciation of stethoscope.
“He sounds like a good doctor. What else?”
I’m suddenly fascinated with Dr. Giraffe and want to hear more, especially since I know he is also apparently gorgeous. Even through the few words Rune has spoken about him, something calls me to want to know more about him.
“When he went to fix my cut, I told him I was afraid of needles. He told me he was afraid of spiders. While he was doing my stitches, he let me watch a video on his phone of his friend pranking him by putting a fake spider in his takeout box, and when he opened the lid, he screamed like a girl! It took him a long time to fix my cut ’cause I kept laughing so hard and moving, but he didn’t care. He kept laughing too.”
Rune begins to laugh at the memory.
“I told him that I didn’t mind spiders, but my mom hated them too. Then he asked some questions about you.”
Strangely, for the first time since Everett, my heart-wings flutter in my chest. “Oh really? And what did you tell him?”
“I told him that you have pretty hair, like a lion's mane, and that you like coffee. Oh, and that you hate waking up in the morning, and sometimes I have to go in and pull the covers off you, but then you pull me into bed with you to snuggle and tickle fight.”
I laugh now because he is right. I do that all the time. Rune is an early riser, also like his father. And I have found the best way to stay in bed as long as possible in the mornings is to have snuggle sessions and watch cartoons.
“He told me that he likes to get up early in the morning and make breakfast, which he told me is the most important meal of the day and it’s his favorite.
He said that he would make me breakfast every morning and that we could have Nerf gun fights and that we could play pranks on you and that we could rock out to Nirvana and he would teach me how to throw a football and teach me the trick to get a perfect spin on it.
I told him that I wanted him to be my daddy. ”
Runes face drops a little. And the protective lioness rouses within me. Why would a doctor say something like that to a patient? I’m sure he was just trying to cheer him up, but he doesn’t know how much Rune already struggles with not having a dad around.
“And what did he say to that?”
“He said he would like that too. Can he be my daddy?”
I promised I wouldn’t lie to Rune about his dad. I told him that we were young when I got pregnant and his dad would have wanted him if it was a different time in our lives. It has been the most difficult part of being his mom, balancing being a dad too.
I run my fingers through his soft golden curls. “We can prank Auntie Cole, and we can definitely rock out to Nirvana. But Dr. Giraffe can't be your daddy, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
Rune’s face doesn’t change. Because deep down we both know that despite all I can do, there are many things that only a dad can.
“Oh, and he told me to give you this. Said it needs to be given to Leo.”
Man, I haven’t been called Leo in a while. It's been LJ since I left Oregon. When I changed my name legally, I chose to change my first to Leo and my last to Phoenix.
I couldn’t go by Leora anymore. That name carried so much weight.
First it was the name my mother gave me, so it felt tainted, and then Everett used to call me his Leora, so every time I heard it, I wanted to die inside.
And I chose Phoenix as my last name because that’s what I was hoping I would feel like.
A beautiful bird risen from the ashes. I’m still working on that rising part though.
Rune pulls out an origami heart note from his pocket.
A flash of nostalgia and heartbreak flood my chest. It’s folded just how Everett used to fold his. I begin to carefully unwrap it, and my heart sinks as heaviness settles into my stomach when I see that handwriting. That chicken scratch handwriting.
All that Rune just said starts to fall into place.
Fear of spiders.
Breakfast food.
Nirvana.
Football.
If I were his.
No. No. No.
I can’t breathe.
He’s not your secret anymore.
– Ev