Gorgeous Misery (Creeping Beautiful)

Sunflowers don’t really smell that great but they are super pretty. So I didn’t complain. I sniffed.

Two hours later that guy was dead and we were heading back to the airstrip to go home and when I got out of the truck, I left the flower behind. But Nick picked it back up, handed it to me, and said, “Happy birthday.”

It was a throwaway comment. Or a joke. I dunno. It didn’t mean anything that year because that was the first time. But when I turned seven, there Nick was again handing me a single sunflower on my birthday. When I turned ten, I was living with him and his daughter Lauren while Chek did other things. I was actually the babysitter because Lauren was just a tiny baby back then. We were at a resort on the beach in South Carolina that day. I remember being unsure if I was happy or not because Nick was sending me back to Chek for work. I guess he was OK with baby Lauren by then and Chek needed me for a job. But I had grown used to being part of Nick’s little family. I liked it because I didn’t have to work, all we did was play.

Nick sent me back to Chek with a little bouquet of sunflowers that year I turned ten, but today, it’s just a single flower.

I’m on autopilot right now. Numb. So I don’t say anything as I push past him and I don’t take the flower. I just go over to the dining table next to the kitchen and dump out my bag filled with birthday cards.

He closes the door and comes over to me, still holding the sunflower. But then he sighs, gets a glass of water, plops the sunflower in it, and sits down across from me and starts opening envelopes.

Because this was my ritual with Chek, and now Chek is dead and all I have left is Nick.

I don’t know a single person who sends me cards but they all come with a picture. Sometimes, maybe, it’s of the person who sent the card. But sometimes it’s a picture of a dog, or a mountain, or a kid, or a balloon. They can send a picture of anything they want, so that’s what they do.

I don’t actually know how Chek did this whole birthday card thing. Like… is there a service out there or something? Some start-up business in someone’s garage where you sign up to get birthday cards delivered and you pay by the dozen? I dunno. But every year, starting at age six, they came. And the people sending them always knew how old I was. They wrote it special just for me. Happy sixth birthday, Wendy. Happy tenth birthday, Wendy. Happy fourteenth birthday, Wendy.

Actually, they all start with ‘Dear Wendy.’

Dear Wendy. Happy seventeenth birthday. I hope you have a lovely day.

I hope your cake is tasty.

I hope you get lots of presents.

I hope, I hope, I hope.

There was always a lot of hope in the cards. It was slow, and easy, and good.

We sit here, Nick and I, at the table. And we open the cards.

It’s nice, I think. That he’s here. I like him.

But he can’t stay.

Or maybe I can’t stay.

I’m not the same girl he knew when I was small.

I’m not even the same species as that girl.

Somewhere along the way something happened to me.

Or maybe it’s not that. Maybe somewhere along the way I just stopped pretending that he and I were something special. That we were family.

Maybe somewhere along the way I just came to terms with what I am.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, so did he.

CHAPTER FOUR - NICK

THE CURE, PART 1

Our fight on New Year’s Eve morning two and a half years ago wasn’t a spectacular fight, but it was a serious one. Even now I can picture her leaving in my head. I know what she was thinking. She would’ve been in her truck, rambling down some back-country Kentucky road, trying to find a highway as she racked her brain about that stupid cure.

I have no idea where she went because she doesn’t share things like that with me. Wendy is a loner. And she thinks that she will always be a loner because of her “sickness”. She thinks she has a disease so she thinks she needs a cure.

We cannot be together for real until she has her cure.

She is so fucking stuck on this cure.

And that’s what I was gonna tell her that morning before she got all pissed off and left. I didn’t have the cure—still don’t have the cure—but we’re on the right track.

Getting this cure has been a big-ass job. It took time, and patience, and perseverance.

But that’s what’s so perfect. Wendy and I have this in common. We are very, very patient. And give up? We don’t even understand the meaning of those words.