Chapter 45 A Picture is Worth a Million Words
A PICTURE IS WORTH A MILLION WORDS
The little bell rang over the floral shop door. Tristan held my hand as we walked in.
“Hello, what can I help you with?” A young girl with pink hair smiled.
“We need some flowers. Some roses and shit.” Tristan looked around the shop.
“Oh, a wedding.” She did a little shiver of excitement. “You will make such a handsome groom.” She looked at me. “And you a very pretty bride. I’m guessing a gothic wedding. Oxblood roses with black and gold accents.”
“No, it’s a funeral,” I said.
“Oh, that’s interesting, like with caskets and stuff?” She opened a book.
“No, we need flowers for a funeral,” I said.
The girl frowned. “Oh. Your wedding still would have been really awesome. Jess, they need to order funeral flowers.” The girl looked at Tristan. “You look really familiar. Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so.” Tristan shook his head.
“Really? Hmm. Let me get my cousin. She takes care of the funerals. Jess!”
A short woman with dark hair came from the back. It was Jessica Hampton; she was in our grade but hadn’t run in the same circle. She was a good girl. No drinking, part of the math club. I always thought she would leave this small town. But the roots of this town were hard to dig up.
“Tristan Anderson and Evan Carter. Gosh, how long as it been?” Jessica smiled.
“No fucking way. I knew it. I knew when you walked in you looked familiar. Jess, you know who this is? This is Tristan Anderson. The Tristan Anderson. Miami’s Tristan Anderson.” The pink-haired girl pointed at Tristan.
“Yes, I know. I went to school with him. Back then he was Evan’s Tristan. Or Late for Class Tristan Anderson. Or Mr. Potter’s favorite: Where the Hell are Evan and Tristan?” Jessica shook her head.
“Wait, you went to school with him? Are you fucking serious?”
“Libby, language. Now go help with the deliveries.” She shoved Libby towards the back. “I’m sorry. She was just supposed to be here to help over the summer. Mom broke her foot.”
“No fucking way. I gotta text Sam. She is going to shit. I love your work, man. Someday I’m going down there and getting inked by you. I can’t believe it! Tristan Fucking Anderson is in Parkfield, Minnesota.”
I watched Tristan struggle with who to be. Miami Tristan or Parkfield Tristan. “You can just call me Tristan.” He smiled at the girl staring at him. This was new for me, seeing people treat him like something other than a mistake.
“And you are way hotter in person.” Libby stood there, phone in her hands.
“Libby! Forgive her. Go!” Jessica pushed the girl again. “I’m sorry about that. Evan, how are you? I heard Harold was in the nursing home.” Jessica pulled out a book.
“I’m good. And yes, he is.” That was the thing about a small town: you were all caught up before you even entered the room. Everyone knew everything.
“Tristan, I’m very sorry to hear about your mother.
She was, um… Well, I’m sorry for your loss.
Curtis called and said that James wanted a full funeral and would like a casket spray, a couple standing pieces, and a heart-shaped pillow with ‘grandmother’ on the ribbon?
Does that sound right?” Jessica pulled out an order form.
Tristan cursed under his breath. “I need to call Noah or at least give Craig a heads-up. She wouldn’t even speak to Bailey.” He ran his hand over his mouth.
“Go call him. I’ll take care of this.” I said.
“Are you sure?” He pulled out his phone.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll make it quick.” Tristan kissed me before stepping outside.
I turned back to Jessica. I could see all the questions plainly on her face. “No pillow. Let’s do something for the casket and whatever else.”
“How is Noah?” Jessica pulled out another book and started paging through it.
“As good as can be expected. You know what his life was like.” The whole fucking town did.
Jessica said nothing, just paged through the book. “How about this with a fall mix? We’ll do the casket spray with a ‘mother and wife’ ribbon and two side pieces that say ‘sister.’ And did she have any nieces or nephews?” Jessica pointed to a couple flower arrangements.
“Skip the ribbons. And add a few roses to the casket one.” I pointed to the photo. I shouldn’t have been angry at Jessica. She was a kid back then. What the hell was she going to do?
“Am I charging this to the funeral home?” Jessica made a few notes, glancing at my hand, looking for a wedding ring.
“No. Credit card okay?” I dug my wallet out.
“That’s fine.” She gave me the total, and I handed her my credit card.
“You’re still Evan Carter?” Jessica looked at the card. “You didn’t take his last name?”
I had always wanted to keep my dad’s last name. I was the only one left with it. But now I might have liked to be The Evan Anderson. “We’re not married.”
“Oh.” Jessica handed me the card back. “Is there a visitation?”
“Ah… a couple hours prior to the funeral on Thursday.” I signed the receipt. Tristan came up behind me and rubbed my back.
“Shit, did you pay?” He reached for his card.
“It’s fine. Noah okay?”
He looked at Jessica. “It was nice seeing you.” He put his hand on my back and led me out to the parking lot. When we were still in school, there used to be a movie rental place here.
“Noah and his dad got into a fight. James wants her buried, but there’s no money, so Noah said cremate her.
James’s preacher said that was a sin, which then led to a fight about all of this being my fault.
And I need a fucking cigarette or something else.
Fuck!” He paced a couple steps. He pulled a cigarette out, lit it, and blew smoke into the air. “Why can’t this just go away?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“She was your mom too. What do you want?” I didn’t think he remembered that he could have a say in this too. That she was his mother.
“I want whatever Noah wants. She was more his mom than mine. She hated me. I reminded her of everything she couldn’t have.
” He stepped away, looking out over the lot.
“Do you remember the movie place that was here? And over there was that shitty café that all the drunks ate at. It was, like, open until two a.m.”
“I know this is hard, but things need to be settled, and Noah needs your help,” I said carefully.
He took a long drag. His words came out in gray puffs.
“The last time I spoke to her, she said I was like my father, River. He was fucking useless too. Everyone thought he was some hero, but he wasn’t.
He was just some loser with a pretty face.
Like father, like son. That’s what she said.
” Tristan scoffed, taking another drag. “And she was right. Did you know before he shot himself, he tried to OD but couldn’t even do that right. Neither could I.”
I let those words hang between us. I didn’t want them. I didn’t want what he said to be true. I hated James for what he did to Tristan. But I hated Laura more. The pain she inflicted was harder to watch. Harder to fix. “Tristan, that’s not true.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Really? And what the fuck do you get out of this, Ev? Huh? I ruin everything and everyone around me. You, Noah. Everyone.” He looked at me.
“Craig told me that guy you’re seeing is a good guy.
That he’d never hurt you. He’d give you a good life.
And what did I do? I dragged you back to this shit show. And for what?”
He paced the parking lot, his emotions flickering across his face. God, I hated Laura. Even from the grave, she was cutting away at what little self-worth he had. “You, Tristan. I get you.”
“Well, that’s a fucking prize, isn’t it? Did you ever have to tape up him? Pull glass from his face? Did he bleed all over your bathroom floor? Is he selfish like me?” He looked at me.
This, like the night with the girl, had nothing to do with me. “Tristan, it’s—"
“It’s not what? I remember that first night sitting on your bathroom floor.
You looked so scared, and I kept thinking this was so wrong, that I shouldn’t have come, but that didn’t stop me.
For almost five years, I kept going back, demanding you patch me up.
” He laughed before stepping away. “You were just a kid. And so was she when he killed himself. In front of her. He broke her like I broke you.”
“You didn’t break me.” That was my father.
No, that was cancer. The therapist in me wanted to tell him he was better than River.
That despite everything he had been through, he had beat the statistics.
He had made it past eighteen. And I was not his mother; I was stronger than her, and I loved him.
But nothing I could say would change his understanding of self-worth.
Too many years of abuse had altered his brain into believing he was worthless.
I hadn’t fix him. All I did was hold his pieces while he put himself back together.
“Tristan I…” I wanted to say something to fix him, but I didn’t know how to fix this. All my schooling and training couldn’t fix the one person I so desperately wanted to.
“It’s okay, Ev.” He took another drag, looking out over the parking lot. “I’m glad she’s dead. I just wish I—”
“Don’t.” The word came out in a desperate plea.
My hate for Laura was so deep, if you cut me open, you’d see it.
A black rot that filled the spaces between my ribs.
The damage she had caused Tristan was tattooed on his skin, and it bled into the marrow of his bones.
It would never leave him. And she’d never see the damage she had done to him or Noah.
Death was too soft of an ending for her.
I stepped closer and rested my chin on his shoulder.
“Remember that night the party out at the Smokie Hills got busted? We all ended up at the burger place. The waitress was so pissed that there were about twenty drunk teenagers ordering food and using all the creamer to make the coffee taste less like coffee. I don’t think I have ever had a burger as good as the one that night.
You remember how good it was? They put some sort of sauce on it. ”
“You remember the burger?” Tristan turned to face me.
“Yes.” I smiled. Laura had taken enough of his life. I wanted the rest. “I mean, the burger was the best thing that happened that night.” It wasn’t. Something else about that night was much better.
“We had sex in the back seat of my car that night, and all you remember is the burger.”
“I don’t remember that part. My memory is a little foggy. Are you sure?” I teased, trying to get him off the ledge.
“I’m very sure.” He stepped closer to me, my back pressed up against the car like that night. His hand slid up my shirt. “Do you ever wear a bra?” he asked into my mouth.
“When I remember to pack one.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him kiss me and feel me up in the parking lot like were teenagers again.
Some may look at this and see it as unhealthy, but I’m done caring what others think.
I’m human, and humans do stupid shit. We cut ourselves to prove we are alive.
We kiss boys whose mouths were made for kissing and breaking hearts.
Whose hands fit perfectly on your ribs and the small of your back.
Who say your name in a way that makes you forget it’s yours.
We are human, and we never learn no matter how many times we break.