Relative Fiction | ✓

29

Apparently, there were two meanings to the phrase live your life. You could live, as in breathe and eat and be a functioning human. Or you could live, as in eat the cheese fries, climb the mountain, tell the girl you love her. After 21 years, I figured it was time to start living my life.

I started taking business classes at the community college, and after a year I planned on transferring to USC to major in Fine Art. I grew my hair out again. I still smoked, but I was down to a half a pack a day. Maybe someday I'd quit fully, or maybe not. Everything I did, I did because I fucking wanted to.

Eventually, that included going to see AJ.

"Are you sure you wanna do this?"

Hunter put his car in park in front of the stone driveway of AJ's cousin's vacant house, crisp white against the grey of the sky. All the lights were off.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I have to."

When I slid myself out of Hunter's car, I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans. The September air was still hot enough to make me sweat, but I shivered as I walked past the side of the house and down the stone walkway to the her orange front door of the guest house. I learned a lot about myself in rehab, including my desperation for closure, but maybe this time it wasn't about closing one book and starting a new one. Maybe it was just about the next chapter, and instead of burning the old pages, keeping them and reading them back when I felt like I needed to.

I thought about what would happen if she didn't answer, or she told me to get lost, but then I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the note she left tied to hydrangeas that were delivered to me my last week in the hospital.

Not for your grave this time. Love, Antonietta Jane.

I shoved it back in my pocket and knocked on her door before I could second guess myself. The door swung open almost immediately, and I felt the air get knocked out of my lungs at the sight of her. Her hair was tied back and her cheeks were red, but when she looked up at me, she smiled, and the world stopped turning.

"Hi," she said softly.

"Hi," I breathed out. "Can I uh...can I come in?"

She nodded and moved aside, and I was greeted with a forgiving blast of air conditioning as I walked into her front hallway. There were less boxes packed up in the corner, and a new book was on the coffee table in the living room, but there were two suitcases open in the middle of the floor.

"I...uh...are you going somewhere?" I nodded towards the suitcases, desperate to fill the silence with words other than the things I wanted to say.

She sighed and leaned against the kitchen island. "Yeah, I'm going up to New York. Just for a week before I really start school again. I'm...I'm going to look for my dad."

"Really?" I asked.

AJ nodded and walked back towards the living room, sitting down on the couch and gesturing for me to join her. I lowered myself next to her, and part of me was worried if I got too close, I'd spontaneously combust. The other part of me couldn't help but want to be close to her in every way imaginable.

"Yeah," she sighed again. "It's funny, I feel like I've learned more in the last few months than I have in years. Like...Fourth of July at the beach is way better than in the city, Venus Fly Traps hate direct sunlight, and if I'm writing a book about someone, I should probably tell them."

I winced and looked down at my sneakers. She put her hand on my jittering knee, and when I looked up at her, I fell into the ocean of her eyes all over again, but this time, I think she fell in with me. Her nose reddened and she shook back a tear.

"Most importantly though," she continued. "I learned that you should never give up on the people that matter, even if it's harder to hang on. Kai...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, I never meant for it to be the way it turned out. I became so torn between wanting the future I thought I deserved, and a future with the boy I fell in love with."

My heart exploded in my chest. "You...did you just say you loved me?"

AJ smiled. "Well, technically I'm just returning the sentiment, since you did say it first. Something about being a stupid junkie that fell in love with me."

"Yeah, well...I didn't exactly handle it the right way either," I said as I rubbed the back of my neck. "And I guess I still have a lot to learn too. But I'm trying, I really am."

"I know you are."

I reached into my backpack and pulled out the manilla folder Hunter gave me with AJ's manuscript, gently placing it in her hands.

"So, I read it. All of it, if you can believe that. Now, I'm no book expert, but uh...I think it's missing like...a whole ending?"

AJ laughed as she flipped through the pages. "Yeah well, I had a lot of trouble with that. On the one hand, it could be boy gets girl and they both live happily ever after. But I felt like that was kind of unrealistic. On the other hand, boy and girl could go their separate ways and move on, but that's almost...too sad."

"Well, maybe when you get back from your trip, I could uh...I could help you figure that out?" I bumped her knee with mine. "I mean, I think boy and girl have a lot to work on, and maybe there is a happy ending somewhere...but it's just for them to read, and not anyone else."

"I think that just might work," AJ nodded and handed me the folder back. "It's all relative fiction anyway."

END.