She Can't Be Really Gone
Disclaimer: The author retains no rights to the television show Wizards of Waverly Place. What she does own is whatever her imagination produces for you all to read.
Author's Note: The following story is loosely based upon She Can't Be Really Gone by Tim McGraw. It's slightly sad and I hope not too much out of character but I had the idea and I ran with it. Enjoy.
Have you ever had someone tell you something that so drastically shifts your life that it's hard to believe that things will ever return to normal? Something so horrific that it takes two more times for them to speak it for their words to register in your mind? Have you ever been told something that makes you wish that you could have lived in a state of blissful ignorance instead of receiving the information?
I have. And since hearing the news, I have wished for nothing more than the power to reverse time for more than just a few minutes.
There are some things in life that I have always carried a steadfast belief in. My parents always granting me unconditional support and love is one of them. Alex always finding a way to get under my skin and Max never being able to stay on any decision longer than a day are two others. But the last…the last is one that I never realized I held until it was irrevocably shattered on one unseasonably cold June morning.
I always believed that Harper Finkle would be skirting around the edges of my life, never completely leaving it even after we had both moved on to start families of our own. She had been a constant in my life—one that I begrudgingly admit that I found comforting in its consistency even though I voiced otherwise—and I believed that to never change. How could it be any different when she was my sister's best friend and a second daughter to my parents?
Oh, how totally and absolutely wrong I was.
The day everything changed felt like any other day. I had recently become a college graduate and I was back at the Sub Station, working the same job I had growing up while I finished submitting my résumés for various entry-level positions. I had the morning prep shift as none of my other family members are early risers and it let me off by noon, which was something I needed to have time to mail my résumés and attend any interviews that may arise. It was the perfect arrangement for my parents and me as well as my brother who had finished high school and tended to sleep until one.
It was nearing ten and I was halfway through with what needed to be done for the lunch and dinner rushes when she entered. My sister, Alex, barreled into the sandwich shop, knocking over an elderly couple on their way out. She would usually mutter some kind of apology for the behavior but on this day, she barely gave them a second glance as she rushed behind the counter. However, it was not the way she entered that gave me pause and caused my stomach to flip and then drop. It was her face.
Pale cheeks that usually held a year-round summer tan were adorned with black streaks. Her watery brown eyes were too wide to be deemed normal as they stared unblinkingly into mine. And while all of that would have gotten to me being the overprotective brother that I am, I would not have gotten that devastated feeling that had blindsided me the moment she ran inside. What it was about her face that had given me that feeling was the bottom lip that would not stop quivering despite the fact that she was biting it so hard that I viewed drops of blood.
"Alex?"
She took a shuddering breath in. "It's Harper. Her mom…oh God, her mom…" she whispered before breaking into a fresh round of tears.
In my life I had only ever seen my sister so broken twice. The first time was when she was four and her pet guinea pig died. The second was twelve years later when she made a wish that almost erased our entire lives. My sister was one of the strongest people I had ever met and to see her as she was standing before me made my heart ache. I wanted to reach out but I knew that she would shut herself off if I did so.
"What about Harper's mom? Is she okay?"
Alex shook her head. "She's fine. It's Harper who's not. Justin—" She broke off and started to pace the length of the kitchen, her eyes barely meeting mine. "Oh God, it's bad, Justin, it's really bad."
My stomach sunk further. "Alex, what's bad?"
She stopped pacing long enough to let out a gut-wrenching sob. "There was a car accident. She was riding with her roommate and a few of their friends on the way back up here for the summer. They…they were just ten miles from the state line when…when…"
My sister did not have to finish for me to know what she was telling me. But the problem was, my mind refuse to grasp the gravity of the truth revolving around the situation. I refused to allow it to do so. "Well, which hospital is she in? I'm sure I can cut out early and we can go visit her. You'll feel better once you see that the injuries are minor and she gives you her usual brand of sunny optimism."
Alex would not stop shaking her head. "No, she's not just injured. Her mom called me. Justin, the car hit her side. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She's gone. My best friend is dead."
With that, she collapsed and started rocking back and forth on the floor while I was the one who could not stop shaking my head. There had to be a mistake. This had to be the universe's version of a practical joke or some kind of test that the wizard council was administering. Any minute and Harper would come out of hiding with her semi-permanent grin, yelling surprise and wondering why Alex was sobbing. Any minute and I would wake up in my own bed, wondering what I ate the night before to give me such a nightmare.
"No, no you're wrong. Harper is not dead. We met future Harper, remember? She was very much alive in that Paint a Plate warehouse, remember? Don't you think we would have noticed if she was a ghost?" Denial was quickly becoming my best friend.
Her head whipped up, eyes flashing with fury. "Stop it, Justin, just stop it. It's not a mistake and I'm not wrong. Her parents identified the body, okay? Harper Finkle, future and present, is gone so deal with it," Alex screamed, bringing the rest of our family running from various parts of the building. Her voice became shaky and quiet. "We all have to deal with it."
I could not help my head that kept shaking back and forth and the repeated mumbling of "no…no, you're wrong…she's not gone…" falling from my lips. I felt as though I had entered some kind of nightmarish realm that had no indication of an exit. How could a day that was like any other shift so greatly in only a matter of minutes? With my sister still crumpled in a heap on the floor and the rest of my family staring at me with unspoken questions in their eyes, my breathing became labored and the feeling of suffocation set in.
Therefore, I ran.
The clouds were swirls of cotton candy pink and sherbet orange and the air held the lingering heat that the end of summer always drapes the earth with. A young woman and a young man stood in front of a neighborhood sandwich shop, her emerald eyes held the optimism of unrequited love while his were crinkled with the trepidation of things better left unsaid. The light from the shop shining on her auburn hair gave it the illusion of a halo and her creamy skin was ghostly white in the fall of twilight, causing him to shift awkwardly to keep from outstretching his hand to feel if there was still the warmth that came with living.
They had a short time left before their departure to things much greater than what was outside their bedroom window, him at NYU for a final year and she would be three thousand miles away in California. If they were in a movie, this would be the moment when the audience held a breath as the scene carried out. Would they say all those little things that were so easy to speak but mattered so much? Or would they walk away with the unvoiced words still hanging in the air, leaving regret behind in their wake?
"So, I hear California is nice this time of year," he said, toeing a leaf that had fallen to the ground.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess so. But nothing beats autumn in New York, you know?" she responded quietly, the optimism dimming from her eyes. Of all the things she had hoped he would say, mentioning the weather was not one of them. "I bet you're excited for senior year to start. Only one more year and you'll be a…what was it that you were studying?"
"Architecture but with an emphasis on structural engineering," he replied. He wondered if his answer sounded as monotonous to her ears as they did to his. "Are you coming back for the holidays?"
The young woman shook her head with a sigh drifting from her lips. "We can't afford it this year if I want to go to Mexico for spring break."
He added the months up in his head, realizing that it would be just fewer than seven before they met again and realizing that he was somewhat discouraged by the figure. "Well, maybe we can think of a more magical means of transportation so you don't have to miss having Christmas with your family."
The young woman shook her head again but let out a chuckle instead of a sigh. "That's an idea. One I don't think your parents would appreciate but it is three months away so nothing really has to be decided." A horn blasted its noise, causing her to jump and their moment to come to an end. "I better get going if I want to make my flight. I'll see you in April, if not sooner."
She stepped forward and raised her arms a few inches as though she were making to give him a hug goodbye, letting them drop listlessly to her sides upon spying something in the expression on his face. He reached his hand out as she brushed past him as if to stop her, thinking twice about his intended action and letting it hang in the air between them. She never glanced back over her shoulder as she slid into the cab and slammed the door shut, even though she wanted to do nothing more. He never moved from his position on the sidewalk as the cab entered traffic and turned the corner, even though he wanted nothing more but to run after it.
If they had been characters in a movie, the audience would have cried out at their stupidity and cried later at the loss of second chances.
I woke up hours later from the memory turned dream as the shadows of night played against walls that were not my own, in a bed that smelled of cinnamon and laundry detergent. As I sat there, cocooned in a frilly duvet, I let the events of the day painstakingly rush back to me with agony. Visions of my sister rushing in and my family looking at me with so many questions swam before my eyes. My sister's voice telling me the stone cold facts about the girl that we all loved and my steadfast denial at the news resonated in my ears. My subsequent departure from the sandwich shop and the desire to be closer to what we had lost, leading me upstairs to the loft in which I had resided my entire life and through the door that led me to what had been her domain.
Harper Finkle was no longer a presence on this planet. And we all had to deal with the aftermath that came along with that fact.
I flicked the switch to the lamp on her bedside table, letting the yellow light cast its brightness over the shadows, and proceeded to dislodge myself from the covers on the bed. I had never actually been down to the basement after its conversion into living quarters until that moment and as my eyes swept over my surroundings, I was shocked to find how little the room reflected the individual I had known. Where were the bright, sometimes garishly so, colors that were associated with her persona? Where were the many productions she had acquired from the Paint a Plate place that she had frequented as a teenager when she was not accompanying Alex in another scheme or hanging around the Sub Station?
The personal touches that were few and far between were all that gave me any idea that I had chosen the correct place to lay my head. And every one that I glimpsed, a flash associated with the memory of how it came to be in her possession came before my eyes.
A sombrero hanging on the rack on the back of the bedroom door…
It was halfway through their weeklong vacation to sunny Mexico and instead of lounging by the pool or the ocean like they had originally planned; he had been dragged out of his hotel room early in the morning to assist with the search for souvenirs. Twenty shops and kiosks later with two girls shrieking gleefully over each of their finds, Justin had to wonder how he had let his parents talk him into chaperoning the girls' trip in the first place.
They were currently inside the twenty-first shop of the day, one they would have bypassed if not for Alex spotting something in the window, when he wondered if it would be possible to talk one or both of them into returning to the hotel. The only retribution that he had was that while Alex had not found anything like she thought she would, Harper most definitely did. "Harper, you can't be serious. I refuse to be seen with you if you buy that," Alex told her friend, hands on her hips and an expression of disgust on her face.
"Alex, it's perfect. I'm running out of sunscreen and you know how I burn. This will block the sun out," Harper replied, the logic in the statement undeniable.
She let out a groan of frustration, knowing that Harper was right and hating it. The truth of the matter was that she would rather sacrifice a few hours with a dorky hat than spend the rest of the vacation with her brother while her best friend suffered alone, "Fine, but can't you get one of the other ones instead?" Alex asked, chasing after her friend who was already halfway to the register.
Justin chuckled upon hearing the question. On a wall that held a hundred plain brown sombreros, Harper had found the only one that was colored with various bright purple and pink designs. It also did not help that it was twice the size of all the others. However, after she paid and placed the sombrero atop her auburn head, despite the fact that it greatly clashed with everything else, Justin had to admit that there was no better person the hat was meant for.
Later that night, the area of Mexico they were vacationing in was bombarded with rain and the winds had kicked up. The hat, originally intended to block out the rays of sun, was used to block the unseasonable weather. And as the trio made their way to their intended dining destination, Justin had to chuckle again as he watched his sister beg for the same hat she had despised just a few short hours before.
The shoes lined up neatly in front of the closet doors, a red pair of boots sticking out above all the others…
There were not many things that surprised twenty-one year old Justin Russo but this was one of them. On one of the top three busiest shopping days of the year, standing in a crowded mall and cursing his bad fortune for having to wait until the last minute to do his shopping, he felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle in the way it does when one feels they are being watched. Turning away from the selection of perfumes that he was deciding on for his mother, his breath caught in his throat as his jaw dropped and he had to tighten his hold on the bags that he carried upon viewing the sight before him.
Not ten feet away, dressed in a white cowl-necked sweater paired with dark denim jeans and her hair in soft waves, stood Harper Finkle. Cheeks touched with a golden hue from a season in California and the red boots on her feet adding a few inches to her height, she was every bit the girl that he knew so well yet so much the woman that was quickly becoming a mystery to him.
He cleared his throat twice as she drew closer, the scent of cinnamon from the candies she loved so much wafting up to his nostrils. "Nice boots," he commented, mentally slapping himself for starting their interlude in such a fashion.
For a moment, she appeared as though she knew nothing of what he was talking about. Then, her eyes glanced down at her feet covered in fire engine red leather and the golden tones of her cheeks were replaced with an endearing shade of pink. "Oh, thanks," she giggled. "I saw them in a store window this morning and they just called my name. So, what is Justin Russo doing in a mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year?"
He ran his free hand through his hair. "Uh, well, between my internship and finals, I kind of lost track of the days."
She breathed out another giggle. "It happens."
He opened his mouth to utter a response but a thought suddenly occurred to him. "I thought you had to stay in California this year for the holidays."
"That was the plan but my roommate had an extra plane ticket to her family's home in Boston. It was meant for her boyfriend of, like, a year but they broke up last week and the ticket was non-refundable. So, one very expensive cab ride later and here I am," Harper informed him. She cringed, the rosiness of her cheeks deepening. "I'm rambling, aren't I?"
Justin smiled. "Just a little but it's nice to know that some things never change. One question though, what are you doing in a New York mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year when you should be spending it in Ohio with your parents?"
"Well, everything was so last minute that I barely had time to pack a carry-on. My parents have shows lined up from now until the New Year and I couldn't think of any other place I'd rather be. So, since I hate arriving anywhere empty-handed and the presents I already had were shipped off before coming here was a plan, I figured I better get to shopping. It's really just a few items," Harper explained, raising the bags she held as an indicator.
"You know, if you're willing to take a break, we could go grab a bite to eat. It would give me some time to decide between perfume and jewelry for my mother and it'd be nice to catch up," Justin suggested. For some reason unbeknownst to him, he did not want to wait twenty-four hours to see her again. "Only if you want to and have time, of course."
A soft smile fell upon her lips and she gave a small nod. "I'd like that."
The toe of my foot hit something on the floor and I bent to retrieve it. With barely a corner to mark the page at chapter twenty-one was the two of hearts…
A seventeen-year-old Harper Finkle had positioned herself in a corner booth in the back of his parents' sandwich shop, fully engrossed in a paperback while a deck of playing cards lay scattered across the table. It was not unusual to find the teenage girl sitting at a random table—even on a Tuesday afternoon, an afternoon that was reserved for wizard lessons—as the shop had slowly become more of a home than her own in the course of her friendship with his sister. However, what was unusual was that she did not seem to be waiting for his sister and she had not let her presence be known to him. In all the years that Harper had held onto her unrequited crush, never once did she not make certain that he was aware of her presence by saying or doing something off-the-wall to garner his attention. And while she had dialed down the level of crazy since moving in, she still made it a point to subtlety let him know that she was there.
Finding it strange that she would fail to let him know that she was there, he made his way over to the semi-private table that she had chosen for the afternoon. He found it even stranger that he had come to stand not six feet from the table, in what would be her direct line of vision, and she had yet to comment or even grant him the courtesy of looking up from her book. And while these actions would cause him to cheer and dance in delight at being ignored by the girl before him on any other given day, he found himself to be perturbed at her lack of consideration.
Clearing his throat in hopes that it would gain the missing amount of attention from her direction, he slid into the booth across from her own and silently waited for her to notice him. And in doing so, he allowed himself to notice things about the young woman that he had never allowed himself to notice before.
She was no longer the gangly child who was taller than her classmates like she had been at nine and ten. Although she had experienced a final growth spurt just recently, her fellow classmates had as well, landing her height somewhere in the realm of average. And the few extra pounds that she had gained due to whatever shift was made in her body's chemical makeup had left her with a healthy curvaceous figure that a good majority of women would have killed for. That, along with the emergence of cosmetics in her life and the odd day where her wardrobe bordered on normal, she had started her transformation into the type of woman that guys ventured a second look at.
Brushing a cinnamon-colored lock of hair away from her face and behind her ear, a startled Harper jolted ever so slightly as her eyes came across her observer for the first time since he had taken a seat. She let out a nervous chuckle as she placed one of the playing cards in the novel and set it down on the table. "How long have you been sitting there?" she asked him, her emerald eyes regarding him with caution.
She had always been anxious around him, sometimes to the point that it made conversations between them awkward and unnecessary. But never before had she stared at him with such trepidation that he wondered if she would run like a hunted rabbit at any given moment. He shrugged and cleared his throat. "Not too long," he informed her. "Just since wizard lessons ended."
Harper glanced down at the pink watch that adorned her wrist and gave another jolt. "Is it that time already?" she demanded in an oh-shit-I'm-late manner, sweeping the playing cards into a neat pile before depositing them all in her book bag. "I told Zeke I'd meet him at the library a half hour ago. Apparently, he has some surprise for me."
"Oh, I didn't know that the two of you were still an item," he said. As far as he knew, it was a cardinal rule that high school romances were supposed to end once either one or both of the involved parties no longer attended the same school. For some reason unbeknownst to him, he felt the burn of jealousy bubbling in the pit of his stomach.
Harper broke out into a grin that seemed to brighten her entire face. "We're not. We're still really good friends but anything romantic ended for good about six weeks ago," she told him, standing and lifting her bag onto her shoulder. "Will you tell Alex that I'll see her tonight?"
Justin simply nodded his head instead of voicing an answer, watching as she danced around various customers in her haste to exit the shop. His eyes lingered even after the glass door swung shut behind her form and he found that he had to force his eyes away, letting them drop on the novel that she had left behind. Taking it into his hands, he ran his fingers over the well-worn cover and the pages that no longer sat neatly from being read so often.
"Alice in Wonderland," he murmured. Cracking open the cover; he noted the inscription for the first time. "To my own little Alice: To help you always have dreams filled with white rabbits, mad hatters and tea parties. Love to you for always, Nana Franny."
"My mother bought that for Harper the year that we moved to Waverly Place," a male voice broke into my recollections. I looked up from the book in my hand to find Harper's dad standing on the staircase. "It was the first full-length book that Harper learned how to read. When we would visit her, they'd read a chapter a night together and even when there were a hundred other books to choose from, they simply started over when they were finished. When my mother passed on, it helped Harper transition knowing that she still had a piece of her grandmother nearby."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come down here. I'll just go so you can have some time alone."
Mr. Finkle simply waved away my apology and signaled that I should take a seat instead just as he had done. "I know what you meant to my daughter. I also know that despite your claims, she meant a great deal to you too. When you lose what matters, it's not always best to spend time cut off from others who feel the same."
"Mr. Finkle, I—"
"I loved my daughter, Justin. I know she didn't always believe it and her mother and I hardly gave her reason to but I did."
"I know, Mr. Finkle. She knew too."
He smiled mirthlessly at me as he shook his head. "Thank you for saying so but I'm not at all certain that that's true. You see, I didn't start out my life with the dream of performing like her mother did. But the night we met, I gave up my straight-laced upbringing for a bohemian existence. We married pretty young and never planned on having children, deciding that there was no better life than touring the world and living by our whims. So we were definitely not prepared for Harper's arrival into this world. However, we embraced her entrance into our lives and were a bit shell shocked when she made it clear that in no way, shape or form did she want to spend her life performing. Because of that, we never were capable of showing her that we truly wanted her in our lives. So, I guess, we're paying for our inability to function as parents by no longer being parents."
Finding nothing to say that would comfort the man; I merely settled into thoughts encompassed of what ifs, what could have been and if I had only done that differently. And thoughts of what Harper would never know now that she was gone. "I can't believe she's really gone, you know? I keep expecting her to show up at the Sub Station."
"I know, Justin. When we got the call this morning from the hospital, I thought that they'd made a mistake. It couldn't be my little girl that they were talking about. She was going to come down to Ohio for the fourth of July. How could my daughter, a girl so full of life, be lying in a morgue? But I saw her, Justin. I saw my little girl lying on that table and she's never coming home," Mr. Finkle said, his voice sounding choked near the end of his speech. "Why don't you take that book with you? She'd want you to have it."
With that, Mr. Finkle stood and made his way out of what had been his daughter's bedroom. As he paused at the top of the stairs, I could not help but see the man in a different light. He was no longer the husband suspected of cheating and the father that kept his daughter at arm's length because she would not share his dream. He was simply a grieving parent who had lost his only child too early and a man who had aged too many decades in just a few short hours.
Just by watching him, the truth of the day finally hit me. Harper Finkle was no longer returning to Waverly Place, no longer returning to reclaim this bedroom and would no longer cast her shadow in the entrance of the Sub Station. She would no longer spend her time following me around like a schoolgirl with a crush or scheming with Alex or laughing at one of their inside jokes. She would no longer be there to commiserate with my mother over how it was to be a mortal in a world of wizards or make her I hate magic tee shirts.
And I already missed it.
Have you ever been told something that would alter your life so greatly that you feared things would never return to normal? Have you ever wished that you could remain in blissful ignorance instead of learning such news? Have you ever wished that you could turn back the clock so that the event in question never had a chance of happening?
I have. My name is Justin Russo and today I lost the one thing in my life that I always relied on having. And my life will never be the same again.
The End