You Always Remember...
folder
Romance › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
6
Views:
1,365
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Romance › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
6
Views:
1,365
Reviews:
9
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
You Always Remember...
Hey everyone. Yes, it is I again with yet another first chapter of a story. I know that I’m horrible at starting these and leaving them for the longest of times, but I am going to finish this one. And never fear, I am not giving up on Tango or any of my other works.
Now, for that nasty bit of this where I have to say that if you copy my words without permission, I will have to feed you to a pool of sharks and watch them eat you alive. Ok?
And so, without further ado, I present to you…
You Always Remember…
Chapter One
I was sitting in my bedroom, watching the snowfall as I periodically wrote in my journal. There were no lights on as my pen moved over the paper. I was using the glow from the streetlights and the neighbors in their apartments surrounding me. That is what I was doing the moment I got the phone call. The ringing nearly made me fall off the window seat.
They say that you will always remember everything when they give you the call. I remember being able to still smell Matt’s cologne from that very morning and the coffee that I had brewed a few hours ago. I remember that the digital clock was reading 9:26, its time set ahead to ensure that both Matt and I would be ready to go to class every morning. There was the faint glow in the living room beyond my bedroom from the fish tank that my mother had bought me when I was twelve for Christmas and I could hear the traffic down below and the nightly news update from the television in the apartment above mine.
I also remember every memory that we ever shared flashing before my eyes. Our ‘wedding’ when we were four, making mud pies during the summers spent outdoors after a hard rain fall, holding hands on the bus the very first day of kindergarten. The first kiss we ever shared in the tree house that we had built in the spring one year. Graduation from elementary school, the first day of high school, our prom and graduation, and the first night in our shared apartment and how we were both jumping at every little noise.
They say that you remember everything about when you get the call. My only problem was that I didn’t remember anything after.
Once I heard the stranger on the other end say that there had been an accident that night when Matt was walking home, I knew that I would never be able to talk to him again and everything went murky. Words were jumbled and my mouth felt as though I had eaten sawdust from the flooring company down the street. I couldn’t make out the shapes of objects around me, but I was able to take the bus to the hospital.
I then remember being in a cold room with silver squares that opened on the walls. I remember looking at Matt’s kind face and placing my cold hand onto his colder face. I remember wondering how many times I had done that over the years. I had always been the one to make him feel better, and vice versa.
He had been my big brother ever since we met at daycare when we were two. He was my best friend, at one time my boyfriend and lover, but when that didn’t work out, doomed from the very beginning, we settled back into how we had been before. We knew everything there was to know about the other person and I told him everything.
After our first few years at university, we decided to move into an apartment together in order to get away from the residences and had been living together ever since. Our apartment was small, two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom, but it was more than enough for us.
As I looked down at his once handsome face, I started to feel myself falling away piece by piece. The next memory that I had after that night was standing beside the freshly dug grave with Matt’s parents and older brother, my mum and dad, all of our high school friends who were able to make it back home for the funeral, relatives with sad faces, and the minister from our childhood church.
They say that you remember everything when you get the call. Right then all I wanted to do was forget it all.
After the ceremony, I was the last one to leave the grave. The diggers had started to fill in the gaping hole and I just stayed planted where I had been the entire time. It was snowing again but I couldn’t feel the tiny flakes hitting my exposed skin. I was already frozen, so the temperature didn’t affect me either. All I could do was stare at the name engraved upon the black slate of marble. Matthew William Mackenzie. Born March 12, 1985. Died January 25, 2006. He had only been twenty, too young to die.
“He loved you more than anything, you know.” Came a voice from behind my left shoulder. I didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Oliver, Matt’s older brother.
I didn’t want to turn around either and face the only person alive who looked just like Matt. Well, close enough. Where Matt’s eyes had been blue, Oliver’s were gray. Oliver was just a bit taller too, and his hair was a shade or two darker. But their mouths had been the same shape, same full lips. They both had their father’s nose and their mother’s cheekbones. I used to tease Matt about that, how he looked more attractive as a girl that I did with a face like his. Both were built the same too, tall, gangly and athletic looking.
“I loved him too. More than I was ever able to tell him.” I responded, still keeping my misty eyes trained on the headstone. “I wish now more than anything that I had.”
I felt Oliver come up closer behind me and he placed his large hands on my shoulders and squeezed. That was all the prompting that I needed. I fell to the ground sobbing, letting out all the tears that I had kept back since I got the news. My body was heaving from the sobs, my shoulders shaking from the effort to not be so loud in the cemetery. Oliver followed me down into the snow. I didn’t care that I was ruining my dress and he didn’t care that his legs were getting wet. He pulled me closer to him and wrapped his arms around me in comfort, rocking me back and forth slowly.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but the sun had set and the temperature had dropped even lower before I was able to stand again, let alone walk to where Oliver’s car was parked. The snow had stopped falling, too, by that time.
We drove in silence, the radio set to a rock station but the volume was turned down low. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to Oliver but found myself unable to do it. Whenever I tried my mouth went dry and my throat seemed to close. It wasn’t the time to say it either. There was just too much emotion between us right then to let words get in the way. If I could have, though, I would have told Oliver just how much Matt loved him too, despite their differences.
In childhood, they never truly liked each other, their personalities clashing for the most part. But they always loved each other. Oliver had always looked out for Matt at school, beating up anyone who dared pick on his little brother. Unless, of course, that person teasing Matt was him. Oliver had been every picture of the protective brother, even when it came to me. But he was the athletic brother who was on all the sports teams, the student council and was popular. Matt was bookish, liked to play video games and had a girl for a best friend. Though, he had his popularity as well. Both had always been good looking and no girl went without having a crush on one or the other at some point in their lives. I was one of the lucky ones who made it to being friends, and then more, then friends again.
After what seemed like hours, we pulled up the long driveway that led to Matt and Oliver’s childhood home, one that had been like a second home to me as well. The gravel drive was congested with vehicles of all colors and makes. I could see my parent’s Ford resting closer to the house, showing that they had been there for a while.
Oliver drew the car to a stop and shifted the gears into park. He turned the engine off and undid his seatbelt. I mimicked his actions but it seemed to be only out of habit. I eased open the passenger door and when I stood up I could hear the faint noise of conversation floating on the winter wind.
I couldn’t do it. I knew then that I would be unable to see those faces, hear the condolences, and face the pictures of Matt that I knew lined the walls of the house. Without looking at Oliver, I fastened my coat tighter around me and started to walk away from the house, heading towards the shelter of the woods just east of it.
Secluded in those woods lay the tree house that we had labored over for so many hours. There I would find the peace that I knew I needed right then. My focus was on getting there, I never even noticed that Oliver had followed me until I was standing under the main platform of the fort and realizing that there wasn’t a way to get up.
“Dad took down the ladder a while ago after he found out that some neighbor kids were using it for their own pleasures. If you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” I said. I should have known that, since we hadn’t used the tree house in so long that it wouldn’t have been the same as it once was. Even if the ladder had still been there, age and weathering would have eroded the rope into something unstable. But I wasn’t about to let something like that stop me.
When I had been younger, and while we were still building the tree house, Matt and I had never used a ladder. That had just been an add-on after everything was done. And though I had grown taller since then, and I hadn’t climbed trees in almost as long, I was still able to. So that’s what I did. I hiked my dress up higher so that I could raise my leg to get a firm foothold, and started to climb up the old tree. At the very top I had to shimmy my body up through the hole where the ladder once hung through, and after I was done I realized that Oliver had probably seem my underwear, but sitting on the rotting floor I could feel Matt all around me.
From the light of the moon I was able to make out the shapes of the chairs and table that we had hauled up there. I could see the posters on the walls, a sorry attempt at trying to disguise the cheap wood, and the shelves where we once stored books and comics. Letting my eyes roam freely, a sense of calm came over me. Then my sight landed on an old cigar box of my fathers. Curious to what it was doing up there, I shuffled over on my knees and placed it in my lap once I got a hold of it.
In the faint light I could see that there was the childish writing of both Matt and I on the top, but I was unable to read exactly what it was. Holding it, though, I knew that that was what I had come to get. So I made my way back to the hole, and like a cat lat myself fall gracefully to the ground, landing as I had when I was carefree.
“Do you have a flashlight handy?” I asked Oliver, catching him a bit by surprise when I landed.
He didn’t say anything but handed me his key chain, where there was a tiny flashlight dangling. I took it from him and turned it on, letting the ray of light rest on the words that Mat and I had written so long ago.
To Whom it May Concern, it read in the childish handwriting, if you are not Matt Mackenzie or Merry Leighton, when you open this you will get really bad boogers in your nose and you will smell for 100 years.
I laughed quietly to myself at the words and ran my hand lovingly over the words. ‘Matt’, I thought and I reached to open the box.
Now, for that nasty bit of this where I have to say that if you copy my words without permission, I will have to feed you to a pool of sharks and watch them eat you alive. Ok?
And so, without further ado, I present to you…
You Always Remember…
Chapter One
I was sitting in my bedroom, watching the snowfall as I periodically wrote in my journal. There were no lights on as my pen moved over the paper. I was using the glow from the streetlights and the neighbors in their apartments surrounding me. That is what I was doing the moment I got the phone call. The ringing nearly made me fall off the window seat.
They say that you will always remember everything when they give you the call. I remember being able to still smell Matt’s cologne from that very morning and the coffee that I had brewed a few hours ago. I remember that the digital clock was reading 9:26, its time set ahead to ensure that both Matt and I would be ready to go to class every morning. There was the faint glow in the living room beyond my bedroom from the fish tank that my mother had bought me when I was twelve for Christmas and I could hear the traffic down below and the nightly news update from the television in the apartment above mine.
I also remember every memory that we ever shared flashing before my eyes. Our ‘wedding’ when we were four, making mud pies during the summers spent outdoors after a hard rain fall, holding hands on the bus the very first day of kindergarten. The first kiss we ever shared in the tree house that we had built in the spring one year. Graduation from elementary school, the first day of high school, our prom and graduation, and the first night in our shared apartment and how we were both jumping at every little noise.
They say that you remember everything about when you get the call. My only problem was that I didn’t remember anything after.
Once I heard the stranger on the other end say that there had been an accident that night when Matt was walking home, I knew that I would never be able to talk to him again and everything went murky. Words were jumbled and my mouth felt as though I had eaten sawdust from the flooring company down the street. I couldn’t make out the shapes of objects around me, but I was able to take the bus to the hospital.
I then remember being in a cold room with silver squares that opened on the walls. I remember looking at Matt’s kind face and placing my cold hand onto his colder face. I remember wondering how many times I had done that over the years. I had always been the one to make him feel better, and vice versa.
He had been my big brother ever since we met at daycare when we were two. He was my best friend, at one time my boyfriend and lover, but when that didn’t work out, doomed from the very beginning, we settled back into how we had been before. We knew everything there was to know about the other person and I told him everything.
After our first few years at university, we decided to move into an apartment together in order to get away from the residences and had been living together ever since. Our apartment was small, two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom, but it was more than enough for us.
As I looked down at his once handsome face, I started to feel myself falling away piece by piece. The next memory that I had after that night was standing beside the freshly dug grave with Matt’s parents and older brother, my mum and dad, all of our high school friends who were able to make it back home for the funeral, relatives with sad faces, and the minister from our childhood church.
They say that you remember everything when you get the call. Right then all I wanted to do was forget it all.
After the ceremony, I was the last one to leave the grave. The diggers had started to fill in the gaping hole and I just stayed planted where I had been the entire time. It was snowing again but I couldn’t feel the tiny flakes hitting my exposed skin. I was already frozen, so the temperature didn’t affect me either. All I could do was stare at the name engraved upon the black slate of marble. Matthew William Mackenzie. Born March 12, 1985. Died January 25, 2006. He had only been twenty, too young to die.
“He loved you more than anything, you know.” Came a voice from behind my left shoulder. I didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Oliver, Matt’s older brother.
I didn’t want to turn around either and face the only person alive who looked just like Matt. Well, close enough. Where Matt’s eyes had been blue, Oliver’s were gray. Oliver was just a bit taller too, and his hair was a shade or two darker. But their mouths had been the same shape, same full lips. They both had their father’s nose and their mother’s cheekbones. I used to tease Matt about that, how he looked more attractive as a girl that I did with a face like his. Both were built the same too, tall, gangly and athletic looking.
“I loved him too. More than I was ever able to tell him.” I responded, still keeping my misty eyes trained on the headstone. “I wish now more than anything that I had.”
I felt Oliver come up closer behind me and he placed his large hands on my shoulders and squeezed. That was all the prompting that I needed. I fell to the ground sobbing, letting out all the tears that I had kept back since I got the news. My body was heaving from the sobs, my shoulders shaking from the effort to not be so loud in the cemetery. Oliver followed me down into the snow. I didn’t care that I was ruining my dress and he didn’t care that his legs were getting wet. He pulled me closer to him and wrapped his arms around me in comfort, rocking me back and forth slowly.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, but the sun had set and the temperature had dropped even lower before I was able to stand again, let alone walk to where Oliver’s car was parked. The snow had stopped falling, too, by that time.
We drove in silence, the radio set to a rock station but the volume was turned down low. I wanted to say ‘thank you’ to Oliver but found myself unable to do it. Whenever I tried my mouth went dry and my throat seemed to close. It wasn’t the time to say it either. There was just too much emotion between us right then to let words get in the way. If I could have, though, I would have told Oliver just how much Matt loved him too, despite their differences.
In childhood, they never truly liked each other, their personalities clashing for the most part. But they always loved each other. Oliver had always looked out for Matt at school, beating up anyone who dared pick on his little brother. Unless, of course, that person teasing Matt was him. Oliver had been every picture of the protective brother, even when it came to me. But he was the athletic brother who was on all the sports teams, the student council and was popular. Matt was bookish, liked to play video games and had a girl for a best friend. Though, he had his popularity as well. Both had always been good looking and no girl went without having a crush on one or the other at some point in their lives. I was one of the lucky ones who made it to being friends, and then more, then friends again.
After what seemed like hours, we pulled up the long driveway that led to Matt and Oliver’s childhood home, one that had been like a second home to me as well. The gravel drive was congested with vehicles of all colors and makes. I could see my parent’s Ford resting closer to the house, showing that they had been there for a while.
Oliver drew the car to a stop and shifted the gears into park. He turned the engine off and undid his seatbelt. I mimicked his actions but it seemed to be only out of habit. I eased open the passenger door and when I stood up I could hear the faint noise of conversation floating on the winter wind.
I couldn’t do it. I knew then that I would be unable to see those faces, hear the condolences, and face the pictures of Matt that I knew lined the walls of the house. Without looking at Oliver, I fastened my coat tighter around me and started to walk away from the house, heading towards the shelter of the woods just east of it.
Secluded in those woods lay the tree house that we had labored over for so many hours. There I would find the peace that I knew I needed right then. My focus was on getting there, I never even noticed that Oliver had followed me until I was standing under the main platform of the fort and realizing that there wasn’t a way to get up.
“Dad took down the ladder a while ago after he found out that some neighbor kids were using it for their own pleasures. If you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” I said. I should have known that, since we hadn’t used the tree house in so long that it wouldn’t have been the same as it once was. Even if the ladder had still been there, age and weathering would have eroded the rope into something unstable. But I wasn’t about to let something like that stop me.
When I had been younger, and while we were still building the tree house, Matt and I had never used a ladder. That had just been an add-on after everything was done. And though I had grown taller since then, and I hadn’t climbed trees in almost as long, I was still able to. So that’s what I did. I hiked my dress up higher so that I could raise my leg to get a firm foothold, and started to climb up the old tree. At the very top I had to shimmy my body up through the hole where the ladder once hung through, and after I was done I realized that Oliver had probably seem my underwear, but sitting on the rotting floor I could feel Matt all around me.
From the light of the moon I was able to make out the shapes of the chairs and table that we had hauled up there. I could see the posters on the walls, a sorry attempt at trying to disguise the cheap wood, and the shelves where we once stored books and comics. Letting my eyes roam freely, a sense of calm came over me. Then my sight landed on an old cigar box of my fathers. Curious to what it was doing up there, I shuffled over on my knees and placed it in my lap once I got a hold of it.
In the faint light I could see that there was the childish writing of both Matt and I on the top, but I was unable to read exactly what it was. Holding it, though, I knew that that was what I had come to get. So I made my way back to the hole, and like a cat lat myself fall gracefully to the ground, landing as I had when I was carefree.
“Do you have a flashlight handy?” I asked Oliver, catching him a bit by surprise when I landed.
He didn’t say anything but handed me his key chain, where there was a tiny flashlight dangling. I took it from him and turned it on, letting the ray of light rest on the words that Mat and I had written so long ago.
To Whom it May Concern, it read in the childish handwriting, if you are not Matt Mackenzie or Merry Leighton, when you open this you will get really bad boogers in your nose and you will smell for 100 years.
I laughed quietly to myself at the words and ran my hand lovingly over the words. ‘Matt’, I thought and I reached to open the box.