~ Chapter 18: Going back home. ~

        We took the plane a little later than planned and landed in the United States in the morning. We were totally jet lagged and didn’t know if we were supposed to sleep or eat or whatever else. We took a cab that drove us home and I went in my house after saying goodbye to Damon, who was going in his.

I opened the door, hoping I wasn’t going to find the house in a disastrous state. But I didn’t. It was like I had left it. Maybe not exactly like I had left it but it wasn’t in a complete mess. There wasn’t anything broken or anything on the floor.

“Is there anyone home?”

I heard a scream and shouted too while rushing in the stairs. Jenny jumped in my arms and I laughed while hugging her.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back home!??” She screamed.

“I wanted to surprise you!”

“I missed you!! You’re so tanned!! I can’t believe you went to Hawaii and Paris!! I hate you!!”

I laughed and she hugged me again, over excited. When she calmed down a little, we sat on her bed and I told her everything about my trips. Without leaving Damon out of the story of course. I told her also about Sam and that I had slept with him before he left, about the X Factor audition (then she asked me to sing the song) and then everything about the list and what we had done.

When I was finished, hours later, it was Jenny’s turn to fill me in on what I had missed. So she told me about college, the parties I had missed, the couples… Then she told me Josh and her had broken up.

“What? Why?” I asked, surprised.

“I was bored. And I sort of cheated on him so I thought it would be best to break up before he’d find out.”

“With who?”

“Um… I don’t think you should know…”

“Tell me!”

She hesitated and bit her lips. So she was guilty of something.

“… It kind of was your… brother.”

I opened big eyes and mouth and she apologized.

“I’m sorry, it just happened… I didn’t mean to…”

“Ewe! That’s just… Gross!”

“Leah, I’m sorry to break it to you but your brother is HOT!”

“Ewe, Jenny, don’t talk about Seth like that!”

She laughed.

“I can’t believe it! Don’t talk about it ever again or I won’t be able to look at the two of you ever again!”

“We’re not a couple. It was just for one night.”

“Again. Ewe.”

She laughed again and apologized. I wasn’t mad at her, just disgusted at the idea of my best friend and my brother doing… you know.

“Where is Seth by the way?”

“Some friend of his agreed to let him stay at his place. So he left. Besides it was kind of awkward after we had done it.”

“Jenny!!”

This idiot was laughing again. We changed the subject luckily and talked again for a long time. Damon had texted me that he needed to sleep so he wouldn’t come by the house today.

Jenny made pastas and we ate together, then watched a movie like old times. I had missed my best friend and it felt really good to have her back.

When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was search for Damon’s hand but suddenly I remembered I was home, alone in my bed. I had missed his muscled chest to lie on.

I got out of bed, and then went down to take something to eat. Jenny wasn’t awake yet; we had slept late. I went back up and turned on my computer. It had been a while since I hadn’t wrote in my “book” and I have to say there were a lot of times when I had wanted to. I put on my headphones and music then wrote for a long time.

I didn’t stop until Jenny knocked at my door and came sit next to me on my bed. She searched something on her phone and laughed before putting on the song My best friend’s brother that was on Victorious when we were younger.

“Jenny!!”

She laughed again and sang the chorus along.

Yeah! My best friend’s brother is the one for me!

A punk rock drummer and he’s 6’3

I don’t want to but I want to, cause I just can’t get him out of mind! And

Yeah! My best friend’s brother is the one for me!

BFB! BFB!

My best friend’s brother, my best friend’s brother!

I hit her with my pillow and she fought back. We screamed and attacked nicely each other with pillows until someone rang at the door.

“I’ll get it.” I said, out of breath.

“This war isn’t over.” Jenny warned with a smile.

I shrugged and went down to answer. Damon smiled when I opened and I noticed it wasn’t the smile “I’m glad to see you”. It was more like the smile when someone thinks you look funny or something. In fact, he was about to laugh. I looked in the mirror and blushed. My hair was completely messed up and my pajamas were not really in place.

“You look cute.” Damon said.

I punched him nicely in the arm and blushed again.

“Jenny and I were sort of having a pillow fight…”

“Why didn’t you call me! I would have wanted to see that!” He teased me.

“Idiot.”

Damon smiled and put a strand of my hair behind my ear before kissing me. Well, apparently, my horrible look wasn’t making him run away. That was a good thing. I let him in and Jenny and him talked a little to get to know each other.

We ate lunch together and then Jenny had to go back upstairs to study a little. She was preparing some exams and I realized I was glad I wasn’t in college anymore. I didn’t have any of those exams to worry about, or the deadlines for this or that work to turn in. I was… free. I totally got why Seth didn’t want to go to college! I mean, even if it’s great to go to the parties, to meet new people and all of that, traveling with the guy you’re in love with is so much better!!

Damon took out the list and started reading it to try to find something to do. Then he stopped and showed me the thing he had decided to do. Find Kara and Go to the cemetery visitSarah, Mila, Andrew, Jake and Alex. I stayed frozen for a second and looked up to catch Damon’s look.

“I know we never really talked about it since we found each other again…” Damon started. “But I have to do this. If you don’t want to come with me, I totally understand. But I’m going.”

I hesitated for about a second but then said I’d come with him. I had never gone to the cemetery to see my friends after the crash. I just wanted to try to forget this tragedy. I’m not saying I don’t think about Jake, Mila, Andrew, Sarah and Alex because I do. A lot. But I had to move on and going to the cemetery wasn’t going to help me do that. And then, we moved out of town so I wasn’t going to drive there. So I didn’t. It was wrong, I knew it, but the idea of going there freaked me out a little.

“I think we could start by looking for Kara before going to the cemetery. Let’s try to find her on Facebook.”

“Ok.”

I went up to take my computer and Damon tried finding Kara on Facebook. Neither of us had her as a friend. After some searching, he managed to find her and sent her a message to tell her we wanted to see her again sometime and to ask her when and if she could. She was maybe in a college at the opposite of our home. But I was sure we would find a way to see each other. Damon and I had to travel across the country according to the list anyway so even if she was far away, it was going to be possible.

She answered late at night but I was still awake, working on my book. So I opened the page and texted Damon to ask him if he was sleeping or if he could come by. Just two seconds later, he knocked at my door and we went upstairs in my room. We read the answer together. Kara was writing she was in college but that she was coming back in Norwood in three days so maybe we could meet then. She even wrote she was excited to see us. I have to confess I kind of feared seeing her again. When I think about Kara, the first thing I see is those scary eyes of hers when she was watching the crash. But I know that getting Damon back as a friend (and more) was the best thing that had happened to me. So maybe it would be the same for Kara.

I remember we all used to be so close! I remember us promising we would stay friends forever, and we’d go to the same retirement home. I remember how the girls and I used to have those slumber parties, where we would confess each other everything like which boy we had a crush on, or how far we had gone yet with one. But I had never admitted (to myself and others) that Damon was more than a friend to me.

I wish I could talk to them right now. About the situation with Damon. I could predict what answer each and every one of my friends would have given me. Like, for example, Mila, who was a totally romantic and naïve person, would have told me to go for it and to marry him before it’s too late. On the contrary, if I had asked Sarah if I should be friends with Damon again when he had moved to the house next to mine and asked me if I wanted him back as a friend or if it was just worthless and painful cause he was dying anyway, she would have recommended that I shouldn’t grow closer to Damon before it’s too late.

But they weren’t there. They had been gone for five years now but it was still hard for me to talk about it. Writing was much simpler. I had had to do a lot of therapy sessions after the crash but I don’t know if it actually helped me. I still have nightmares about it and I still cry sometimes when I think about it or see the images back in my head.

Anyway… No need to talk about the past when my best friend in the present had done it with my brother. Again, ewe. Jenny put the song back and sang and that stupid Damon joined her in the chorus.

“It’s not funny! It’s gross!” I said.

Damon wrapped me in his arms and whispered in my ear “you did things way more gross than that, remember?” I blushed and punched him nicely while he was laughing.

“You guys are so cute!” Jenny exclaimed when Damon was kissing me. “I call dibs to be the bridesmaid at your wedding and also to be the godmother of your first child.”

An awkward silence followed that. Damon was looking at me, a little like he was sorry or something and I was trying to find a way to tell Jenny. I think Damon felt we needed some time alone to talk.

“I’m going to have to go back home, I have stuff to do but I’ll come back a little later ok?”

I nodded. He kissed me then went back home.

“Did I say something wrong?” Jenny asked, a little confused.

“I need to talk to you.”

“No, please Leah, don’t tell me you’re pregnant!” Jenny exclaimed while we were going upstairs in my room.

“No! I’m not! It’s about something else.”

We sat on my bed and I swallowed hard. How the hell was I supposed to tell Jenny something I had trouble realizing myself?!

“So, Jenny listen… The thing is… Damon… He’s sick.”

Jenny glanced a look at me like “so what?” and I tried to hold my tears in.

“It’s more serious than the flue. He’s um… God I can’t… I can’t say it...”

“What?” Jenny asked, a little impatient and not really getting the point of this conversation.

“He’s dying. Damon is dying.”

As I said those words out loud, it’s like they were making more sense suddenly. Damon was going to die. To disappear. Forever.

“Oh my god!” Jenny said while putting a hand on her mouth, shocked. “Oh my god! Leah!”

And then I started crying and she took my in her arms to hug me for a long time while I was letting go of everything.

When I finally calmed down, I sat and wiped my eyes that had turned to black from the make up. I looked like a depressive panda.

 “Leah, I’m so sorry…” Jenny started.

“I know. It’s ok.”

“It’s not. And I made it worse with my stupid idea of being the godmother and…”

“Jenny.” I cut her. “It is not your fault.”

“I’m there for you, you know?”

“I know, thanks.”

She hugged me. I was lucky to have a friend like her. I told her I needed some alone time so she left while saying she had to get back to her studies for the exams but that she would come back really soon to check on me. So I lay in my bed and put on my headphones to try to think of something else than loosing Damon. Saying that I didn’t manage to do it is a euphemism. I started crying even more than in Jenny’s arms and then hitting my pillow with anger. Because life was so damn unfair.