I had a dream that night. I was standing in the middle of a clearing in a forest. The dry trees and the ground were covered in fresh snow. Pure, untouched white snow. I was holding a gun in my hands, a pistol. The caliber and the size do not matter, but it was loaded and in my dream, I knew I was about to use it.
I started walking, I didn’t know where to but I figured eventually, it would come to me. As I kept going, I ran into a pile of wooden boxes. Just lying there, stacked on top of each other. In the floor next to them, I found a photograph. I crouched to try and pick it up but I hear a loud noise. It took me a second to realize someone had taken a shot at me, but luckily they had missed.
I hid behind the pile of boxes and made sure my gun was loaded and the safety lock removed. The person shooting at me took nine consecutive shots, and then stopped. My signal that they were reloading, so I moved quickly. I lifted my gun and shoot and started walking towards them. The instant they rose to take their shot, I pulled the trigger.
I watched as the person’s neck exploded letting rivers of blood flow. I walked up to them, mostly because I needed to make sure they were dead, but also, because I needed to know who it was. I knelled next to them, they were convulsing because of the blood loss. I grabbed the helmet and took it off. To my surprise, I didn’t know that person. It was just a man, maybe twenty two at best.
“Who the hells are you?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t reply.
I let him on the floor and did the kind thing. Put a bullet in his forehead. Whenever I did that back there… I closed my eyes, I couldn’t stare at the person whose life I was going to end. But in my dream, I watched it, like it was nothing.
As he stopped moving, someone grabbed me from behind and stabbed me on my right side. I shook them off grabbing my wound to stop the bleeding. I turned to them and lifted my gun, but the gun was no longer in my hand. It was a hand-to-hand fight. Fine by me.
The man in front of me swing his arm, I dodged it and threw myself at him to knock him to the ground. Once on top of him I punched him as hard as I could, over and over again. I felt his face crack under my knuckles. His lip and nose tear open. I was disgusted with me but I couldn’t stop. I had to go home. I had to go home to my family, to Faye.
“You had to go home didn’t you?” I heard him say, but I didn’t stop punching him. “What about me? What about my family?”
I started crying, but didn’t stop. Yes, in order for me to come home, you have to die. And if that’s the price I have to pay, so be it. Selfish, sure, but I was going home.
“I’m not letting you do this!” I yelled “You’re not making me feel guilty for surviving! I did what I have to do!”
But so had he, so what’s the difference between the two of us? God knows. The more he talked, the more it hurt, and the harder my blows became. My arm muscles were hurting because of the strength I was putting into punching him.
And then he didn’t speak. He didn’t move, and I knew what I had done.
I woke up abruptly, sitting up with my breathing raging. My cheeks were wet with tears.
I took a few deep breath to calm myself down. I hoped my memory would do its thing. That after a few minutes it would forget those horrible images. It didn’t. You see, when memories are charged with emotional responses… my brain remembers them easier because the brain saves emotional responses somewhere else. For example, I remembered running into Bill perfectly. I remembered how happy that made me and that our conversation was close and comforting. But I don’t remember exactly what he said. What I’ve told you is a recollection of four hours of conversation by what I think is a summery. I remember the ideas, but not punctual things, except for one thing. I can perfectly recall what he said about Scott and Faye, that their marriage wasn’t what it looked like.
I rubbed my face to dry myself up. I stood up and walked towards the window to look at the street. The sun wasn’t about to come out any time soon and the air was still moist with the remains of the night. I breathed in and let the air out slowly, feeling my muscles relax.
It was still dark when I went for a jog, with soft music playing in my ears. Jogging in the cold, with the streets still wet and the sun hiding behind the mountains helped me concentrate. I ran through my neighborhood, past Mrs. Burton’s home, which I still couldn’t get used to the idea it was only hers now, and past the Walmart. Turned around and headed back. Thirty good minutes of thinking clearly, because I wasn’t thinking of anything. The instant my brain starts to think, it starts to get confused.
I went back home at 6:30 and the sun was beginning to shine. I took a quick shower, got dressed and went back down to have breakfast. My brother was looking at himself in front of the living room’s mirror. He was well dressed. Well, as well dressed as he could get. He was wearing a blue shirt, black jeans and a blazer. He looked like an attractive young man who was about to go into the real world. Like my baby brother growing up, but then he turned to me and said, “What are you looking at?”
I smiled and turned to my mom. She handed me my breakfast and ask, “What have you planed for today?”
“The builders are supposed to be done today, so with a little luck, we can start stuffing the shelves.”
“Really? When are you going to open up for business?”
“If everything goes according to plan, next week.”
“That’s good news. And look at your brother. So handsome… if he weren’t so lazy,” she joked.
My brother turned and gave her a killer look. Her smile just turned wider.
I ate breakfast, kissed my mother goodbye and went out the door.
I decided I would walk. If I were to take the bus or grab a cab, I might forget where I was supposed to be going long enough to miss my stop. And also, I liked walking and it was just two miles away.
Faye would be there, I knew that. She was the type to get there early in the morning and since she doesn’t really have anything else to do other than stay home sitting around, she’s eager to work. And she’s good at it. If it weren’t for her, I might not even have the right design for the bookstore. She took care of that and made sure the guys were following the original idea to the letter.
I couldn’t’ve opened up that bookstore without her. And I didn’t yet know how important that store would become. It would save my family.
I got there at eight thirty and Faye was helping one of the contractors to set the sign on top of the store upright. Once it was positioned in the center, Faye gave him the thumbs up and placed her hands on her waist, happy with the sign. It read Erick’s.
She turned and looked at me. She was angry I could see. I had left them without an excuse and more than that, I’d put my knee on her husband’s throat.
“Riley,” she said.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Don’t you ‘how are you’ me. We have to talk.”
“I know. I’m sorry about Scott.”
“Scott is a big boy and pisses people off often. He can take care of himself. Where the hell were you?”
“What?”
“I went after you, Riley! I didn’t find you so I went to your home and you weren’t there, so silly me I sat on the porch waiting for you until close to ten pm.”
“You… you waited for me?”
“I always wait for you!” Faye screamed. She didn’t mean to raise her voice, but she was no longer talking about waiting for me in my porch. She took a deep breath and said, “I thought something bad could’ve happened to you. If you didn’t wanna see anyone that’s okay but tell me you’re still fucking alive!”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry, I just… I ran into Bill.”
“Bill?” she asked not being able to place him. Then her eyes widened up. “Bill White?”
“Yeah, he was doing a stand up in a bar and… I walked in to drink something. I was angry and confused about Scott and… I haven’t being feeling like myself since I got back.”
Faye’s damning expression disappeared, instead, she looked at me with tender eyes. “We can talk about this later. For now, we need to get everything ready.”
I nodded and we walked into the store. We spend the rest of the day unpacking and cleaning things up while the guys made the finishing touches. This goes here, this goes there, a bit up, a bit down. Things like that. The contractors walked me through all the changes they’d made at two o’clock, made sure everything was of my liking, and then left. Everything had already been paid for. As I closed the door behind them, I turned to look at the place. It was a bit dusty but with time and merchandise, ti would look a lot better. And things were exactly the way I wanted them. A storage room in the back, next to the bathroom, and to the right a small office. To the left the checkout.
Faye and I spent an hour cleaning up the rest of the things. What the guys hadn’t managed to clean up, and stacking the books and the items on their shelves. I wanted to divide everything in segments. Here go the mystery books, here go the romances, here go the historical drama, here go the art ones. I also wanted to take up a section of the store and use it to sell art and paper supplies; canvases, oils, sketchbooks, charcoals, colors, notebook, things like that. And also sell some kindle gift cards.
Faye also thought that it would be great to get all the used books and the ones that were old and pile them up in a sale section. A buck each.
As you can imagine, that took us a long time. A lot more than we had imagined. At eight we were covered in sweat and dust, but we were happy. The place looked great. We were only missing half the bookstore which we could get done by tomorrow. So at the end of the day, we sat on the floor of the empty office and we shared a very much deserved beer.
“Should you be drinking?” she asked.
“I had a couple with Bill yesterday. I should be okay as long as I don’t overdo it. And truth be told, I hadn’t drunk a beer in a long time.”
“Talking about that, how is Bill?”
“Great, he looked okay.”
I couldn’t stop my head from bringing his words back, that Scott and Faye’s marriage wasn’t what it seemed. “Faye? You would never lie to me, would you?”
She laughed, had a sip and then replied, “What kind of question is that?”
“Would you?”
“No. I wouldn’t lie to you. Why?”
“Why did you marry Scott?”
The bottle of beer stopped half way to her mouth. She placed it on the floor and ran her fingers through her hair. “He’s a good man. He’s good to me… most of the times. He can be an asshole but he loves me.”
“And do you love him?”
She was about to answer when the phone rang. Before answering the call, she said, “Speaking of the devil.” She pressed the green button and said, “Hey, baby. Yeah, they did. It looked great, Riley and I spent the whole day stuffing the shelves. Yeah, pretty much. I’m not sure when I’ll be going home. Because I’m not sure, there are still a lot of stuff to unbox and half the shelves are empty. That is not true, most of nights when you get home, I’m always there. Excuse me? How about you make your own goddamn sandwich and fetch your own goddamn beer?” Oh shoot. “No it isn’t, I never agreed to that, you did, you decided that for the both of us and didn’t even try to ask me if this was what I wanted. That’s a lie, Scott I told a hundred times I wanted to work, you just kept ignoring me. You know what? I’m not having this discussion today, I was in a good mood until you called and I am not letting you ruin it for me, and I really don’t feel like seeing your face. It means I’m staying at my mom’s tonight.”
After that she hang up. She took a few deep breathes to calm herself down, then added, “Dickhead.”
“You okay?”
“No. I hate when he does that. Pretend he cares about what’s going on with me, what happens in my life and then complain about stupid shit. He just keeps making up these ridiculous rules and never tells me about them until I’ve broken one. Now it turns out that he wants me to be there every night when he gets home, make him a sandwich and get him beer, and his excuse is that he is the one working so I should at least care about his “needs”. I sandwich and a beer is not a need, idiot. And also, I didn’t decide I didn’t want to work anymore, he did that for me.”
“What do you mean he did that for you?”
Faye’s eyes, which had been fixed on the floor, suddenly rose up and glanced at me. Apparently she didn’t mean for all of that to come out of her mouth, but she was so angry she just needed to get it out of her chest. I just happened to be there at the time.
“Nothing…”
“What do you mean nothing? Since when does Faye Burton take orders from people?”
She sighed, “Faye Burton doesn’t. Faye Keane does.”
I felt a tug in my heart, like a small, very fine needle sinking inside. “You… you changed your name?”
She wouldn’t dare to look at me. “It’s not what it sounds like.”
I breathed in trying to stop my voice from breaking when I spoke. “I bet.”
“No, Riley. It really isn’t. He asked me to,” as soon as those words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. “What I mean is—”
“I was ready to give up mine and take yours. I didn’t care about it but you did. You said you couldn’t imagine being someone other than Faye Burton. What the hell happened to that?”
“Shit happened, okay!”
“Yeah. That you love him more than you loved me so giving up being Faye Burton wasn’t such a drag with him. Guess you didn’t love me enough to do tha-?”
I couldn’t finish what I was saying. She slapped me across the face so hard my ears began to buzz.
I can take a punch. I can take more than one… but don’t ever make Faye angry. That really fucking hurt, in more than one way.
“Don’t you ever dare to say I didn’t love you again. Ever. I waited for you! Day and night I waited for you. When you didn’t come back the first time… I still waited; when you wouldn’t answer my calls I still waited; and when you broke up with me I waited hoping you’d call and say you were sorry and that you didn’t really mean it. I waited for you… and you never came back for me. So sorry, honey, but I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”
“You mean whatever the fuck Scott wants.”
Yeah… looking back on it, I shouldn’t have said that. I was angry and I was having issues not being mean with her after finding that out.
“Fuck you, Riley,” was everything she said before picking her things up and leaving.
I stayed on the floor on the store’s office clenching my fists to stop myself from crying. So much for being open with each other.
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