A Little Bit

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Eli

My car sputters and coughs the whole way up the hill, only growing quiet when I finally put it in park.

“Sorry, old girl,” I say, petting the dashboard. “I know it’s a long way up here.”

I hope that makes her feel better as I exit the car, grabbing the single daisy I picked from my mom’s house.

The swing comes into view, hanging from the oak tree like it has for years. Since we were kids. Once I reach it, I wrap my hands around the rough rope on either side and sit on it, hearing the wooden seat creak under my weight.

“You better hold my ass up,” I mutter under my breath as I take a cautious swing, making the oak leaves above me tremble.

“Okay. Maybe no actual swinging,” I say while digging my feet into the hardened clay below me, forcing the momentum to stop.

Swinging my backpack off my shoulder, I take the blunt I rolled for this occasion out of the front pocket and spark it up.

I deeply inhale and hold it while my eyes run across the horizon in front of me. Right down the hill, there’s a maze of suburban cookie-cutter houses that weren’t there when we first started coming here. In the distance, you can see the skyscrapers of downtown.

It really is beautiful up here, especially at this time of day, where the sky is a mix of gold and pink, little splashes of blueness from the day coming through, saying goodbye before blackness takes over in a few hours.

I can see why she liked it.

I exhale, letting the smoke obscure the vista for a moment. “Hey, Char. You get my voicemails?”

No one answers. Of course no one fucking does.

I like to think that some of her ashes stayed around after we emptied them up here. That they got caught in the dirt and nourished something, and that when I come up here, I’m not talking to nothing, hoping they didn’t all just get carried in the wind and make people sneeze in the neighborhood below.

“I’m still sorry I missed your last call. I know I always say that when I see you but…” I shrug and let my voice trail off, wrapping my jacket a little tighter around myself.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, standing up to lay the flower I still have clutched in my hand against the tree, before sitting back down.

I’m quiet for a few moments, thinking about how I can put what I’m feeling into words while the sun continues to dip below the horizon, stealing all the pretty colors from the sky. “Something is happening,” I begin, my words hesitant and unsure. “I don’t really know what to do. I’ve been trying to keep him at arm’s-length, but… I don’t know. I keep getting this weird feeling. It’s like this rush of warmth. And then I’m immediately swamped with dread after.”

I dig the toe of my boot into the dirt, taking another hit of the blunt and letting it out. “I don’t know what it all means. I wish you were here to help. You said you would tell me what was real.” My voice cracks at the end without my permission. “Shit. Sorry,” I whisper so my voice doesn’t show the pain anymore while I blink furiously. Doesn’t seem to matter. A tear leaks out of my eye anyway. I quickly wipe it away, like if it’s only there for a second, it means you’re not crying or something. That you’re not actually sad unless that shit stays on your face for a while.

Taking a steadying breath, I bend down, putting the blunt out in the dirt and holding onto it while I wrap my hand back around the rope of the swing. “I have this… idea. It’s honestly so stupid.” I let out a ragged laugh at myself. “But I think he’d really like it, and for some dumb-ass reason,” I pause, looking out at the horizon, “that makes me really happy.”

My phone vibrates, interrupting my talk with the wind. I grab it out of my pocket and check the screen before answering. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, bud. I’m still seeing you tomorrow?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah. Just stopped off at the hill tonight.”

“Ah,” he concedes. “How is she doing up there?”

“Same old. Same old.”

“Okay, well… I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell her I said hi. Oh, hey! How’s your mom doing? She’s good?”

After it happened, my parents never really recovered. Not together, anyway. They each grieved by themselves until they became so far apart it was like living with two strangers.

Divorce happened soon after. I was fifteen by the time they made that decision, and I wasn’t one of those kids who cried and cursed them for splitting up. They were better apart.

“She’s doing okay. Says she’s going to visit me soon, that she’s working on it with her therapist.”

He sighs. It’s heavy and sad. “Yeah. I should do that too, huh?”

I run my fingers over the bark of the tree, tracing over the letters I carved there all those years ago. CJ . Charlotte Johnson. “I honestly understand why you both are hesitant to go. I’m not upset at all.”

“You’re such a good kid, Eli.”

I smile. “Thanks, Dad. I’m just wrapping up here. I’ll be there in the morning.”

“Alright. I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

I hang up the phone and sit in the silence for a bit. The chill is really starting to set in now that the sun is rapidly disappearing.

Standing up, I walk toward the edge of the hill, looking down at how it rapidly drops off. “So, what do you think?”

Silence .

“Oh, so I have to make up my mind on my own?!” I say sarcastically, raising my voice at nothing. “Seems incredibly unnecessary when I have a wise, older sister to guide me.”

Silence .

“Okay. Well I’ll be calling, Char.”

I turn away, walking back to my car and rolling the idea around in my head.

When I reach my car door, I unlock it and turn back to the tree for one last second. “I should just do it, right? Just give in?”

Silence .

I shrug my shoulders and deposit myself in my car, turning the old engine over and backing out toward the exit, already calculating how to pull it off.