The Day I Lost You: A Novel Read online

  THE DAY I LOST YOU

  A Novel

  A. G. Wallace

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  When it all comes crashing down, the memories come back in flashbacks and echoes. In your mind you play every moment over and over again, trying to find signs and hints of what’s to come. But there were no signs. You never see it coming. It was perfect until it wasn’t. You replay every conversation, every stolen kiss, every promise. Recall every touch, every word, every laugh, hoping it will make sense. Hoping it would change things, make everything the way it was before. Before he left. All the promises, the plans, the I love you’s. Nothing was real. If it would have been, it wouldn’t have come to this. It was all an illusion. A play. A lie. An act. Once you realize it’s all over, something breaks inside of you. Is it the heart? Because breathing gets brutally hard and there is this heaviness pulling you down. It seems like you will never be whole again, like something inside you died. You’ll never be you again. So, the worst part wasn’t losing everything, it was losing myself. You think that a love like this lasts forever. A love that consumes you, makes you whole. The kind of love people write songs about. But if you’re moving too fast and burning too bright, you will get wounds. And damn, I will never heal mine.

  Chapter 1

  “Are you sure you have everything, honey?” mom asked for the third time since we stepped out of the car at the airport.

  “No, you know I’m never sure,” I hugged her and laughed. “But it’s not like we have time to drive back home.”

  “You can always catch a plane next week…” she said with a hopeful but sad smile. Her eyes travelled to my dad’s, who was standing behind me with his arms crossed over his chest. “Won’t you say anything, Owen?”

  Dad gave her a weak smile and shook his head. They didn’t want me to leave. And deep down I felt bad for leaving so far away from home. But college should be the time when I can be selfish, so for once I’m doing what I want.

  Last year about the same time, my brother was standing at the airport saying goodbye to us and I remember thinking, how everything is going to change now with him halfway across the country. But Berkeley was a great college and everyone was very proud of him. Now it’s my time. I knew they were proud of me, but as I am their little girl, it was harder for them to let me go.

  The fact that I would attend the same college as my brother made it a little easier on them though, because they knew I will have him to protect me there. I didn’t want to go to Berkeley just because Kyle was there. They had a great program for journalism and when I visited him last spring, I fell in love with the place.

  I was very lucky to get accepted because everyone knew that the chances to get into one of the best universities in the country were very slim. Only fifteen percent got accepted this year. And my best friend and I were one of them.

  “Hey, girl, are you ready?!”

  Darcy jumped on my back, her long black hair all over my face. She was glowing and you couldn’t see that she hasn’t been sleeping the entire week out of excitement.

  Darcy was my best friend since kindergarten. I remember the first day my mom dropped me off there and she came straight to me, took my hand, and told me not to be scared. I moved to Florida a few days before that and I didn’t meet any kids my age yet.

  “We’ll be best friends forever and always,” were her words before mom came and picked me up. Later that day we figured out that she lived just a few houses down the street from me and our dads were new work colleagues. We were inseparable from that day on.

  A few days after her twelfth birthday, her mom passed away. She had cancer. Her dad never fully recovered, and their relationship was very cold from that day on. He was always good to her, though. He let her go out, cooked for her, bought her a car, never yelled at her. Sometimes she would pick a fight, just to see an emotion from him, even if it would only trigger anger. But he never got angry.

  Darcy was beautiful. She is beautiful. Like the beauty, you only see on television and seems unreachable. Since her mother passed away, she went running every day to train away her emotions and the frustrations with her dad. That gave her a bomb body. When we started high school, she grew out her night-black hair and learned how to do makeup perfectly. She was the prettiest and the most desired (by boys and girls) in school and she still stayed my best friend. We weren’t any kind of it-girls or like the ones you see walk in slow-motion down the hall in movies. We were just us, minding our own business.

  Her mother left her a lot of money, and she saved it all for college. Ever since we watched Legally Blonde, she wanted to become a lawyer and now she’s coming with me to California to attend Berkeley Law. Besides the fact that she was the prettiest girl I knew, she was also smart as hell. I mean, I still had a better GPA, but she also had a social life since the boys were falling to her feet.

  So here we are now, finally through high school, waiting for life to really begin. I turned around to look at her. We didn’t really need words to communicate. I knew what she was thinking and I shared her excitement.

  “Kyle promised he’ll pick you two up at the airport,” mom interrupted my thoughts. “Did he talk to you, Ju?”

  “No, but I’m sure he’ll be there if he promised,” I told her with a smile to ease her worries.

  “We have to go now. We don’t want to miss our plane!” Darcy dragged me by my arm now. “We’ll be back for the winter break!” she screamed again.

  “Take care, girls. We’ll miss you!” mom said on the edge of tears.

  My parents loved Darcy, just as much as I did and after she lost her mother, my mom took care of her like her own daughter. For a while, she basically lived with us.

  Mom was home most of the time, since she had her own jewellery business and she did the designs from her home office. She was very successful and I loved to brag about her talent. My dad was a general surgent at the Orlando hospital and sometimes he wouldn’t be home for days due to the tight work schedule. But when he was home, he was the best dad any girl can dream of. He took time for us and even though he had a lot of things to do, he was never stressed around us. Family meant a lot to him since he lost his parents before Kyle and I were born.

  My parents started dating in high school. They were each other’s first kisses, first loves and went to prom together. Even though they didn’t go to the same college afterwards, they remained together. They had my brother when dad got his first job at the hospital in Atlanta and a year after that I came along. We all lived with our grandmother for a few years before she passed away. Then my dad got a great surgent job down here, and we moved to Florida since it became too painful for my mom to live in grandma’s house. I don’t remember much about the time before we moved, but I know mom was sad for a long time. She must have missed grandma.

  I hated seeing my parents sad, but I knew they’ll be fine without us at home. They had each other. I hoped that someday I’ll fall in love with someone great, just like they did.

  I never was in love before. Sure, I dated in high school, but never for a long time. I was starting college and was still a virgin. According to Darcy, I’ll go to hell with her anyways, so she didn’t understand what I was waiting for. Funny, I know.

  It’s not like I didn’t want to get it over with or that I didn’t have the opportunity before. But boys at our school were all assholes or idiots. Sorry, not sorry. I don’t want to judge the whole population by a few stupid examples, but damn.

  I went to senior prom with Jason, who I was dating by that time for two months. He picked me up, got me flowers, charmed my parents. It seemed perfect. Later that night I caught him making out with a year younger girl from our school in the parking lot. I wasn’t heartbroken or anything, but it sucked that everyone knew how easily I got replaced.

  Darcy didn’t have a boyfriend either, although she had a lot of boys to choose from. She lost her virginity in freshman year, while I got my first kiss in sophomore year. I never understood why she dumped Jimmy a few months ago, they dated for almost half a year and she seem to like him. Then out of the blue, she never spoke about him again.

  I was happy we were going to start our new chapters with no boys on our backs. But I guess it won’t last for long. We’re going to college after all. Darcy’s words, not mine.

  We’ll be living in our own apartment with another girl in a popular student’s area and I could already see that Darcy would drag me out to parties every chance she will get. I promised h
er, that I would be more outgoing and try to ease up, but I doubted that I would become a social butterfly. I didn’t need a big group of friends and I clearly didn’t need a boyfriend. I’d always have Darcy and I would be busy with classes.

  I was excited for my life to change, but at the same time, I liked things the way they were before.

  We weren’t even on the plane yet and I already felt a little homesick. It was like saying goodbye to the life we knew till now. This was a new beginning.

  Ready?

  Start.

  Go.

  Chapter 2

  “Don’t you dare to cry, Ju! You have me and your brother and Sarah will be there too. She moved in last week, I heard…”

  Sarah would be our new roommate in Berkeley. Darcy and her met online through a seniors-chat for future students and she was looking for a room. Our new apartment was near campus. It was expensive, so an extra roommate was what we needed. They renovated the study into a third bedroom and Sarah took it happily. I wouldn’t mind the small room, but I have had a bad habit of buying too many books and plants, so I took the big one without arguing.

  “I hope we will get along...” I said more to myself than out loud, but she heard me.

  “Of course, we will. Do not doubt my skills. Also, she cooks, so we won’t starve,” she laughed.

  I recalled the time in middle school when we wanted to make Kyle a birthday dinner. We started preparing at 2 pm in the afternoon. By 6 pm, the meat was burned, the potatoes had no flavour and the cake was a pudding. After almost burning the house down, we ordered Chinese takeout with our parents coming home. We never really tried the whole big fancy cooking thing again after that.

  The plane was full and as the engines started, I already had my playlist ready. I loved traveling in general, but leaving home for a long time, always made my stomach turn.

  *

  Late afternoon we were heading down the stairs at the airport, tired but excited. I looked through the mass of people and by the glass door there was the tall idiot I was searching for.

  I looked at Darcy and we both started walking in his direction with big smiles on our tired faces.

  “Hey, stranger,” he pulled me into a bear hug and I dropped all my luggage.

  “Hey, big bro, happy to see you,” I laughed as he put me down.

  He gave a smile and a quick nod to Darcy. For a second, I had a weird feeling of awkwardness in the air, but I shook that thought as fast as it came.

  Kyle put all of our bags in the trunk of his jeep and we were on our way.

  “You must be starving, girls. Want to join me for dinner?” he grinned at me. The politeness seemed weird, because he was no gentleman as far as I remembered.

  “YES, FOOD!” Darcy cried out dramatically and I looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  “You just ate on the plane, like, ten minutes ago.”

  “What? That was just a snack. I’m starving,” she blushed and I rolled my eyes.

  Darcy acted weird and she knew I sensed it. She hit me with her elbow and from the side I caught Kyle smiling at us. He seemed a bit tense, then he focused back on the road. There was a long silence. Maybe I imagined it, but they both behaved awkwardly.

  “I can make something at my place, or we can go out,” he started again, only looking at me this time. I really acknowledged him now, finding a few new lines from tiredness and aging on his face.

  I really missed Kyle. I haven’t seen him since June, because he was traveling cross country with his friends during the summer break. And for the few days he was home, we didn’t get to spend much time together.

  Kyle was tall, handsome and funny. He was twenty years old, very sporty and it was no secret that girls adored him. Some may say he had a great sense of humour and was very charming, but as his sister I really didn’t think about that a lot. Like, never. Since he was very protective of me, he made my dating life very hard. He scared away all the jerks at school, so there really weren’t any boys left to pick from. He was friends with Jason while we dated, then he’d beaten him up later when he hurt me. Most of the guys respected and feared him too much, so they didn’t even try to talk to me. It hadn’t bothered me as much as I make it seem now. I still had plenty of opportunities, just wasn’t really interested.

  Apparently, Kyle didn’t date anyone since he moved away from home, but he was still the popular kid in his group of friends. His light brown hair was growing out now and I was scared that he will go for a bold cut again soon. I hated when he did that. We had the same hair colour and same eyes. Dark blue with a hint of green. Some people thought we were twins when we were younger, that always made me cringe. Did I look like a boy?

  “Julia?” I heard Kyle, pulling me out of my thoughts.

  I zoned out again.

  Since I liked the idea of catching up, I agreed that we join him in his place to eat, before we head to our apartment.

  “You should leave the bags here. No one besides my guys will be here tonight so it’s safe,” he jumped out of his car and guided us to the door, “Tim should be upstairs, but Paul is probably still at the fitness park.”

  “Can’t wait to meet them, I hope they’re cute,” Darcy whispered to me, but Kyle heard her and raised an eyebrow.

  “There is a party and a bonfire tomorrow night at the beach, you should come.”

  I was not sure if he was talking to me or to Darcy. But I was sure that she would most definitely be there. She was already planning her outfit in her head.

  I really hoped that they weren’t flirting again. As far as I remembered, it didn’t end well last time. Darcy was my best friend and Kyle was my brother. I loved them both, but no matter how much I loved Kyle, he was always kind of a player. Not just the soccer type. Sooner or later, it would end and go down in flames, with me in the middle. They were both bossy and determined in their own ways, too much alike and I was scared that one day they will cross the line. They flirted when Kyle started senior year. They thought I didn’t know and neither ever mention the other one to me, so I didn’t know if it was just as a joke or something more.

  He held the door open and loud music blasted in our faces.

  “Tim! I told you to use headphones!”

  Nothing.

  “Timothy fucking Smith, turn off the music!”

  Then it became quiet and a tall boy with a wide grin appeared in the hallway.

  “Well, I’ll be damned, if it isn’t the little Julia Williams, the legend herself,” he came to me and lifted me from the ground in a hug.

  “Just Ju,” I corrected him.

  “Slow the horses, Tim, I am watching you,” said Kyle with a smirk.

  “I’ve heard so much about you, girl, your brother was bragging in pride all week. You coming here after him and all that. I feel like I already know you,” he kept on talking and we all laughed.

  “And you must be Darcy, right? The bestie and the roomie, I am honoured.” He turned to her and bowed.

  We looked at each other. She was just as confused as I was.

  “Don’t take him seriously, god knows what he already smoked today,” Kyle said under his breath.

  “Hey, don’t make me look bad in front of these pretty ladies,” he punched him in the arm playfully and they did a little wrestling dance.

  Kyle loosened the grip on his roommate and turned back to us. “What do you want to eat? I can make some fries and burgers or we can just order in and chat?”

  “Burgers will be fine.”

  “I take the fries as well, I’m starving.”

  Tim came back from his room with a bottle and four red cups. “To celebrate the arrival, we have to toast. It’s a rule.”

  “You will make me drink with my sister the first night she arrives? You must be crazy,” Kyle punched him again.

  “Bro, you have to stop punching me, the girls will think I’m a loser.”

  “You are a loser, loser,” and they were fighting again.

  Darcy stood up and grabbed the bottle. “Well, one shot to celebrate our first day, won’t hurt anyone,” she hit me with her hip.

  “That’s my girl!” Tim smiled and Kyle raised an eyebrow looking at me.

  “Well, the hell, I’m in.” I put my arm around Darcy and we toasted. Loosen up, Ju.