My parents quickly realized a few years after Camp Rylan opened that living in the main plantation house with all of those extra guests sleeping there didn’t give them much privacy, so they had a house built just for us. The house is a ten-minute ride in a golf cart from the plantation house. It’s close enough that they can get to camp quickly if they need to, but far enough for us to enjoy our privacy and peace and quiet from the camp activities that take place all over the forty acres of land we have. The summer Everett, Aiden, and I became friends, my dad constructed this treehouse for us so we’d have our own place to escape the other campers if we wanted.
“And I’ve got our birthday tradition ready to go,” I tell Everett with a smile, pulling a star-shaped notepad and pen out of the pocket of my dress and holding it up.
Everett shakes his head at me and lets out a soft chuckle that makes my stomach flip-flop.
“We’re still doing the wish thing?” he asks.
“Of course we’re still doing the wish thing. It’s tradition.”
Not only do we always come out to the treehouse on our birthdays, we always drink the Grape Crush that Everett brings, and we always eat the entire bag of Fritos that Aiden brings, along with one Little Debbie cupcake. Aiden also provides the candle and swipes one of his dad’s lighters from the glove box of his car, where he keeps it hidden from his mom so she doesn’t know he smokes cigarettes whenever she’s not with him. Last summer, Aiden also swiped three cigarettes from his dad’s pack along with the lighter. When I threw up in the garbage can in the treehouse after a few puffs of my cigarette, we decided that was a birthday tradition we wouldn’t be continuing.
My contribution to the party is this star-shaped notepad. The boys make fun of me every year, but I don’t care. Just because we make a wish when we blow out our candle on the Little Debbie cupcake doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get another wish. I’m covering all our bases and making sure our wishes come true. I made all three of us special boxes, shoe boxes I stole from my mom’s closet, and decorated them with our names in glitter paint and stickers. On our birthday, we get to write down one super-secret wish on one of the pieces of star-shaped paper, something we want more than anything else in this world, and we stick it into our box. Everett pulled up one of the floorboards in the treehouse and we nestle our boxes down inside the secret hiding place, where they wait for the next person’s birthday and their next wish on a star.
“What did you write down on your wish star last year?” I ask him.
“I thought those wishes were a secret and we weren’t supposed to talk about them?” Everett replies.
Technically, that’s true. I even brought a Bible to the treehouse and made Aiden put his hand on it and swear on his mother’s life that he’d never look at our boxes. I knew Everett would never do it, but Aiden can’t be trusted. He’s sneaky and likes to do things to annoy us. But I knew what Everett’s wish was. After Aiden left the birthday celebration we had for Everett last year because he had to get home for dinner, the two of us stayed in the treehouse until the sun went down, just talking. Everett had been really quiet and sad that day and it made me sad. No one should be unhappy on their birthday, even if it wasn’t really their birthday and just one we made up so we could all celebrate together. Everett told me what his wish was and made me promise never to tell Aiden. A promise I’ve kept and plan to keep forever. He wished that him and his brother didn’t have to live with their mother anymore.
I knew that she wasn’t a very good mother, not only from Everett himself, but from a few conversations I’d overheard when my parents didn’t know I was in the next room. They talked about how sad it was that Everett’s grandmother was the only one in his life who really cared about him, and that someone needed to “get that boy under control.” Everett told me about all the fights he got into back at home and how he skipped school all the time and even got in trouble for stealing, and it made me mad that anyone thought he needed control. He just needed love and for someone to care about him.
“Of course they’re a secret and we should never talk about them with anyone else, but I know what you wished for last year, Everett Southerland, and I know your wish came true,” I remind him.
Right after Christmas this last year, my mom and dad sat me down and told me that I’d be seeing much more of Everett going forward and that him and his brother had officially moved in with his grandma, just a few miles down the road. It made me happy and it made me want to cry all at the same time. If Everett lived with his grandma, I could see him all the time, and not just during the summer. But I didn’t want Everett never to see his mom again. Even if she wasn’t always nice to him, she was still his mom. I loved mine more than anything else in the world, and I couldn’t imagine not seeing her all the time or not living with her.
My happiness won out over the crying. I was so excited, that I called his grandma’s house immediately so I could see if Everett really was there, make sure they weren’t playing a joke on me. Ever since then, I’ve seen Everett almost every day. When he’s not here just to hang out with me and Aiden, he helps my dad around the plantation in the horse barns and with other work around the camp that needs to be done, and I’m secretly hoping this will go a long way toward proving to my parents that Everett isn’t bad. I have never been more grateful for my star wish idea and there’s no way I’m stopping this tradition now. Especially with the wish I plan on making this year.
“Yeah, Cam, my wish came true,” Everett replies, his voice sounding sad even though he’s smiling at me.
I know he misses his mom, and I wish I could take his sadness away. Maybe that’s what I should wish for, instead of what I really want.
“I guess the wish thing was a good idea and we should keep doing it, huh? It’s kind of nice that I get to see you all the time now and not just in the summer.”
The stupid butterflies are back, as well as the dumb nervous giggle, and I decide to stick with my original wish. If it comes true, I’ll have plenty of time to figure out how to take Everett’s sadness away. I’ll have the rest of our lives.
“Who’s ready to party?!” Aiden shouts from behind us as he walks into the clearing, holding up a bag of Fritos and a ziplock bag with a Little Debbie cupcake in it.
When he gets up to Everett and me, he stops suddenly and looks me over from head to toe with the same wide-eyed look that Everett had when he first saw me today.
“What the hell are you wearing, kid?” he asks with a laugh, nudging me with his elbow. “And what did you do to your hair?”
I narrow my eyes at him and feel my cheeks heating up with embarrassment, waiting for Everett to join in with Aiden’s laughter.
“Shut up, Aiden,” Everett scolds him, snatching the Fritos out of his hand and turning to make his way to the ladder that leads up to the treehouse. “It’s her birthday and she looks nice.”
I stick my tongue out at Aiden and he reaches over and musses up my hair with the palm of his hand. I smack it away with an angry growl and duck out from under his hand, which just makes him laugh harder.
“Fine, fine. I’m sorry. You look good, kid. Let’s get this celebration started,” he tells me with a smile, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the ladder. “Do you know what you’re going to wish for?”
“That’s for me to know, and for you to never find out,” I tell him sarcastically as he moves in front of me to start climbing the ladder behind Everett.
“Oh, I’ll find out someday, don’t you worry. Just don’t make a wish that I’ll fall madly in love with you and ask you to marry me,” he jokes.
It’s my turn for my mouth to fall open and my eyes to widen in shock as I stare after Aiden while he scrambles up the ladder.
If he only knew that’s the exact wish I planned on making today.
Just not about him.
Chapter 5
Everett
Patting the back pocket of my jeans, I feel the folded piece of paper I put in there this morning when I got d
ressed and I take a steadying breath. I’ve become OCD when it comes to that damn piece of paper, always patting my back pocket every couple of minutes just to make sure it’s still there.
Six months ago, I wanted to burn that letter. Six months ago, I couldn’t stand the pain the words written on it brought me and I tried to drink myself to death, but now I can’t stand not having it on me at all times. Now I freak out making sure that it’s still there and that I didn’t misplace it or forget to put it in my pocket to carry with me everywhere. I’ve folded and unfolded it so many times, that the creases are about ready to rip in half if I do it one more time. It’s not like I need to reread it. Every word has been imprinted on my brain and I don’t need to look at it to remember what Aiden said to me, but it brings me comfort now to see his handwriting. It gives me strength to stay away from the booze and wake up each day, wanting to live, wanting to move forward and wanting to be a better man.
I don’t know if it was the look on my brother’s face and the words he said to me six months ago, when he came home and found me on the floor of the living room, or the sound of Cameron’s name that finally woke me up. But whatever it was, it did the trick. I woke the fuck up. I had to accept the fact that there was nothing I could have done to save my best friend, and I had to learn how to live with the pain and the guilt of not being here when he died—without the crutch of alcohol. I was still here, living and breathing and I needed to start acting like it.
“You’ve traveled around the world, you’ve saved lives, you’ve become a goddamn hero to strangers. Now it’s time to be a hero back here at home, where you belong.”
I can hear Aiden’s voice so clearly in my head, the one that was always laced with a hint of sarcasm and a touch of pompous asshole, that it feels like he’s standing right next to me. And I smile to myself instead of feeling like I want to curl up in a ball and die. The guilt still stabs into my chest like a knife, and the ache of missing him so much takes my breath away, but the pain of his words makes me stop feeling so goddamn numb.
Leaning across the counter, I pick up the bottle of vodka that’s been sitting there next to the sink for the last six months, collecting dust. I unscrew the cap and then twist it back on, over and over again, staring down at the empty bottle. The last one I drank and the one I keep here in my kitchen to remind me how fucked up I was and how I never want to go back to that dark place ever again.
Now that I’m sober, I’m able to process my thoughts and actions a bit more clearly. Finding out Aiden had cancer and I couldn’t do a damn thing to help him wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. When I was younger, I always wanted to be a doctor like my father. He was a hero who died helping people. When his convoy was pulled over on the side of the road to assist a local who had been shot, a roadside bomb took out his entire unit. I wanted to honor him by helping people in my own way. I thought going off to third world countries would allow me to do this. Little did I know that while I was off being noble, I wasn’t there for the one person who really needed me, the one person I should’ve helped.
I wanted to numb the pain. I wanted to stop feeling. I wanted to stop remembering all the people I couldn’t save oversees or the ones I left behind here at home. It worked for a few months. I drank from the minute I woke up in the morning until the minute I passed out at night. I stopped hearing the cries of pain from sick children and I stopped seeing the devastation on family members’ faces when I couldn’t fix one of their loved ones, and I stopped seeing Aiden’s face everywhere I turned. The alcohol worked…until it didn’t. Until nothing could keep the memories from breaking in and wreaking havoc on my brain. Until I realized nothing could keep the pain away. And that feeling that pain, even if it hurt like a bitch, was how I knew I was alive.
So I’ve spent the last six months getting clean and sober, needing to feel the pain, needing to feel alive, needing to be strong enough to be a hero here at home, like Aiden wanted. I may not have been there for him, but I owe it to him and Cameron to be there for her.
I’m still angry he’s gone. Not a day goes by that I don’t curse him six ways to Sunday for not telling me that he was sick. I understand now that I wouldn’t have been able do anything to save him, but he was my best fucking friend. I should have been there with him at the end, and I’m pissed at him for not giving me the chance to say good-bye. But the anger is better than the depression. He was a daredevil, a risk taker, and he always used to joke that he’d die young.
Great job, Aiden. Way to follow through.
Being pissed at him is better than wanting to die right along with him. I can’t exactly fix things with Cameron if I’m dead, and fixing things with my remaining best friend is my top priority now. It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going to the store and stocking up on vodka and from doing nothing but sitting around feeling sorry for myself. It’s gonna take a lot for Cameron to forgive me, and I need to be strong enough to push back when she fights me on showing back up in her life, like I know she will. I need to be strong enough to let go of my jealousy and just be content at being her friend again. Because regardless of my feelings in the past, I miss our friendship. I miss her, and I hope to God she can let go of her anger and let me back in.
“Do we need to have another intervention? Because I gotta say, the first two were exhausting enough.”
I look up from the bottle in my hand to see Jason stroll into the kitchen and right to the fridge, opening it up and grabbing an apple from the drawer. He slams the door closed and takes a huge bite out of it before crossing his arms in front of him.
After I got sober and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the local hospital, and when Jason saw I was serious about staying clean this time, he moved out of our grandmother’s house and got a place of his own in town. I tried to tell him he didn’t need to leave, that this house was as much his as it was mine, and that Grandma had left it to both of us when she moved to Florida to spend her remaining years in the sand and sun, but he reassured me that he’d never really wanted to live here. He just stayed here when I was gone for all those years so it would be ready for me when I finally decided to come home and stay home. And then when I finally did, there was no way he could leave, out of fear that I’d do something to myself and he wouldn’t be here to save me.
Hearing him ask about another intervention and thinking about all the times he took care of me, when it should have been the other way around, almost made me want to pick up the bottle again. I hated that my younger brother was always picking up my pieces. I hated that I made him feel like I was his obligation and that he had no other choice. That hatred with myself and for what I’d done to him is another reason why I’m determined to keep myself on the straight and narrow and not fuck up again.
“Sure, come on in, Jason. Help yourself to whatever you want,” I reply sarcastically. “And no, you do not need to have another intervention with me. I got your previous messages loud and clear.”
Setting the bottle back down next to the sink, I look back at my brother and we share a look. The last time he saw me with a bottle in my hand, I was one sip away from being hospitalized for alcohol poisoning. Even if the urge to drink is always with me, I’d never do that to him again. Even when I was three sheets to the wind and lying in a pool of my own vomit, I could never forget the look on his face when he snatched the bottle out of my hand and told me that losing our parents was bad enough and I could go fuck myself if I thought I could leave him behind as well.
I shake myself out of that memory, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out the letter. Jason comes up next to me and leans back against the counter to stare down at the piece of paper with me.
“Why do you keep holding on to that thing? It’s depressing as shit,” he mutters, taking another loud, crunching bite of his apple.
“It’s not depressing. Not now, at least. It gives me something else to focus on other than wanting to drink,” I tell him with a shrug.
“You’re not Mom.”
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His softly spoken words pull my eyes away from the letter in my hand as I look at my brother.
“I know,” I reply quietly.
“Do you? Because sometimes I think you’re still punishing yourself, feeling guilty for something you had no control over. I’m not an idiot. I know you lied to her about what you were doing in college because of me. Because you were afraid she’d turn into a drunk again and ruin everything.”
I always told Jason back then that we needed to keep things from her because she never got over our dad’s death and knowing that I’d be putting myself into the same kinds of dangerous situations would kill her. I never wanted him to feel like he had any part in that decision. I never wanted him to feel guilty. I should have known he’d see right through it. He was my brother after all. He sometimes saw things more clearly than I did.
“You were happy. I couldn’t ruin that for you. I didn’t want you to have the same childhood I did…” I trail off.
“Newsflash, I did have the same childhood as you. I just didn’t let it get to me like you did. I knew she was a shitty mother and I also accepted the fact a long time ago that nothing I did would change that. Being a mother didn’t keep her sober. You lying to her didn’t keep her sober. Nothing worked, Everett. I accepted it and I let it go. It’s time for you to do the same.”
I look away from him to stare back down at Aiden’s letter in my hands, wondering why in the hell I always felt like the weight of our family’s happiness rested on my shoulders. If I had talked to Jason about this years ago, maybe I wouldn’t have carried around so much guilt for so long.