To this day, I don’t think Jordan has forgiven himself. I surely haven’t either. It was never supposed to turn out the way it did. I hadn’t seen Waldin in months. I heard that he and Avalyn had just up and left one day. I assumed he somehow knew I was the one who stole from the library and wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Such a shame I didn’t get all the letters he had written me, while he was away, until Avalyn gave them to me at the funeral. He had, in fact, known all along it was me; said the place reeked of my cheap cologne when he came in the next morning. I got Jordan out on bail with the money, but he still ended up pleading guilty to his third petty misdemeanor. After two months inside, he got out to only to learn his girl was three months pregnant. Jordan swore he wouldn’t be like our father. We were three, maybe four months late on rent; he had a kid on the way and we literally had no money after putting everything into getting him out. I remembered where Waldin lived and knew he was loaded. I figured it was harmless. He was gone. Whatever he had left he’d probably want me to have. Things are never that simple.
Jordan nearly lost it when he found out she got an abortion. It was probably for the best. I don’t know. That’s not for me to say. After necessities, Waldin’s money ended up sending me to art school the next year. It’s what he would have wanted. There, after earning a scholarship in my first year, I finally came to terms with my talent and never looked back.
I still see Avalyn from time to time, though it’s been several months since I last did. She handled it all with such grace. I swear I saw happiness in her at the funeral. This happiness burned at my bitter, envious, guilt ridden soul. It was nearly unbearable to face her, let alone console her, after Waldin’s death, knowing the truth. I could barely even face Waldin. The face that glared back at me from the casket could only be described as one that knew something I didn’t, something that, if possible, Waldin surely would have shared with me, over one of Avalyn’s fancy tuna sandwiches. I neatly folded the final letter Waldin wrote to me while he was away, placed it on his chest, and said goodbye. The final words never left me.
“I may forever wrestle with the irony that the more you mature the more you act like a child.”
Whether or not this idea is what he finally came to terms with before he left, he may have been right. Maybe we come into this world as clean slates. We are free from the burdens of judgment, hate, and lust; all of which we are not yet even capable of. We are entitled and attached to nothing. We know nothing; limitations and boundaries are not yet conceivable. We find joy in the simplest of pleasures. We feel without filtration, fear, or fabrication. Maybe life, from the moment anything tries to tells us how to be, is simply the struggle to return to that state. Do we all return? I’d like to think so. But there are plenty of things I’d like to think.
Anyhow, it seems I am now not so different than Waldin once was. I hide behind a lie, a lie I convinced myself was for the best. I too have found my ceiling stain. Can I continue on like this and claim Waldin meant anything to me at all?
Actually, I think I’ll go see her right now.
“Excuse me. I’m here to see Avalyn.”
“Creek?” the desk clerk shot back, pulling his head up from some paperwork.
“Yeah. I think she lives in 12A now.”
“She ain’t here no more, son.”
“Oh. Did I just miss her?”
Avalyn often went out for tea around this time. I could probably find her right now at the cafe where she met Waldin, scarcely different from how he first found her.
“No she’s gone for good. Turned in her keys yesterday. Said she was going to some Caribbean country. Haiti or something.”
I let out a brief laugh and fought to contain the light.
“Something wrong?”
“No, no, not at all. Life lies in the little things, I suppose.”
“What’s that now?”
“Never mind, sir. You’ll see.”
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