Chapter Twenty

I never did see Mark again.

I graduated from high school with honours and colleges were falling over themselves to offer me a place. I decided to study English Literature and when I started looking through all the college brochures, one stood out. It was the college of Berkley, California. The reason that it stood out was the front cover had a picture of a deserted beach and far off in the distance, there was a wooden beach hut.

"You ever think about just getting up and leaving, Ally?" Mark asked me quietly "About living on the coast somewhere where it's always sunny and you don't know anybody else?"

That was how I ended up in California.

I loved the sun. I loved the easy going nature of life and I told myself that even if Mark wasn't here, I was living the dream. It was warm most days, the coast was beautiful and there were no bad memories. Every once in a while, I spotted a golden haired boy and my heart would skip a beat but whenever he turned around, his eyes were never golden to match.

I dated casually but infrequently throughout my first two years. In the third year I met a guy and it was serious for a while, but then Mom got sick.

Spending every spare minute dashing to the airport put a strain on things but in comparison to my Mom having cancer, I didn't feel too bad about it coming to an end. Some things were more important.

I sat by Mom's bedside day after day, studying through the night and playing nurse in the day. Mom was only worried I would mess up my college degree but I wasn't going to let it slip. I remembered all the hours she'd worked to put me through college and I wasn't going to let her down. However, throughout this determination I suddenly became very afraid that I'd lose her.

Mom slowly went into remission and I returned to California. The cancer scare was enough for me to fly home whenever I got the chance though. She was the only family I had and she was getting older now. Somebody had to take care of her.

After graduation, I decided to go on to law school. I was tempted to stay at Berkley since they had a great law program, but I missed my Mom and wanted to be closer to her. Washington State University in Missouri was only a six hour drive making it quicker and cheaper to visit my Mom. Sometimes she came down to visit me too and we became closer than we had ever been.

I had to get a bar job to put myself through law school and I found a new respect for my Mom and how hard she worked. My Dad had died and left her with nothing except a mortgage and a one year old baby girl. Mom didn't collapse like a lot of people would have. She worked every hour God sent, raised me as best as she could and paid off every single cent of that mortgage singlehandedly. Now that took some doing.

I heard from Mom that Bryon went off to Chicago to study business after high school and had done well. He went into consultancy straight after college. His Mom still lived next to my Mom and whenever I visited, I'd wave and say hello. Bryon never came home at Christmas time, he never showed up there ever but I know that Mrs Douglas visited him a lot. I guess the memories of Tulsa still burned him.

There was still no word of Mark.

I had dreams sometimes about him sitting in a jail cell with his knees pulled up to his chin, tears filling his yellow eyes. I'd wake up my face wet with my own tears and then I'd scold myself for crying over someone who didn't care for me anymore. It was a lifetime ago so why did it still hurt so bad?

I met up with Barbie, Darcy and Ellen now and then when I was home. Darcy ended up hairdressing in a salon downtown and Barbie married some banker type and moved across town to what used to be considered Soc territory. Ellen became a nurse and it was my Mom that actually got her a job at the local hospital. They'd run into each other when Ellen had been going for an interview and Mom had kinda swung it for her.

I heard from Ellen that Joey had moved in with a girl he'd met at medical school and they were engaged to be married. I felt happy that he'd found someone and I was happier still when he became a fully fledged doctor. He deserved it. I hadn't seen him since that day he'd caught me and Mark kissing but I liked to think he didn't hate me.

Two-Bit took on odd jobs around town but most of his employers were lonely housewives who were much more interested in his banter and the twinkle in his eye than his DIY skills. He didn't sound like he'd changed much.

I heard Ponyboy and Cathy Carlson got engaged but I hadn't run into either of them.

I studied hard at Washington and after graduating, I landed a job at a top Missouri law firm. Life was good. I had a fancy apartment and a cat named Hemmingway and I drove a sports car. It contained the same car radio that emitted the bulletin, telling me Mark was dead.

"Today two teenagers entered a life threatening situation after they picked up an escaped felon at the side of the road in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mark Jennings, age twenty seven, had been serving a five year sentence for drug offences in an upstate juvenile detention centre. Police branded him as extremely dangerous. The two boys who picked him up, brothers Mason and Texas McCormick, were held at gunpoint until a traffic cop tried to pull them over. The car ploughed off the road and Jennings was shot dead while trying to escape. "

After I had finished being sick, I sat and cried. I cried for two hours straight and the sun was beginning to set before I felt capable of driving again. Back on the road, I kept the radio off and stared solemnly ahead, trying to keep my mind as blank as possible. I guess I was in shock.

Mom was out on the front porch swing when I arrived home. I guess she had heard the news too.

She looked older, her once glossy brown hair was streaked with grey and she was thinner since the cancer, thinner than ever before.

As soon as she saw my face she said;

"I guess you've heard."

I nodded and she moved over to make space me for me on the swing. She put an arm round me and I leaned my head against her shoulder.

"Did you hear everything?" She asked. "About Bryon?"

I sat up and shook my head, not knowing if I could take anymore. The world seemed to be blurred around the edges like a dream sequence in a movie.

Mark was dead, Mark was dead. I still couldn't believe it.

"Three weeks ago Mark broke out of jail and went to Chicago to kill Bryon. He had a gun and it was loaded."

I stared at her and moved my mouth but no sound came out.

"Bryon reckons he had a change of heart at the last minute, that he couldn't go through with it. While he was hesitating, Bryon grabbed for the gun and it went off."

"Is Bryon dead too?" I gasped, my voice sounding strange and unfamiliar. I could have been sixteen again, sitting out on that porch the day I found out Mark had gone to jail.

"No." Mom shook her head. "He was hit in the chest but he's okay. He got to hospital and they fixed him up. Mark was on the run though and for some reason we don't know he was trying to hitch a ride back to Tulsa. That's when he held up those kids with the pistol and that's when the police gave chase and you know...shot him."

"Is Bryon still in Chicago?" I asked. Mom shook her head again.

"No, he's home with his Mom."

"Next door?"

"Yes, hon."

Everything felt surreal. I hadn't seen Bryon since he'd left for college and on the day I found out Mark was dead Bryon was in the very next house. I rose automatically and started to head down the front steps as if on auto pilot. I suddenly remembered I hadn't seen my Mom in almost a month and I stopped and looked back at her. She got it though.

"You go, I'm not going anywhere," she said to me.

I walked down my Mom's front path and opened up the gate to the Douglas house. Little had changed. So little, it was almost surreal. Same chairs on the porch, same dustbins by the side of the house. The place obviously hadn't seen a lick of paint since Bryon had left.

I knocked without hesitation and remembered the last time I'd been here, when I'd attacked Bryon in the doorway.

Mrs Douglas answered.

"Ally!" She looked genuinely pleased to see me but her face was heavily lined. She looked exhausted and it was obvious she'd been crying.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. She had loved Mark like a son. In the same month, both her boys had been shot, one of them dead. It was too much for someone to take in such a short space of time.

"I-I-" I suddenly didn't know what to say to her. Should I say sorry for her loss? Did she now not care about Mark since he shot Bryon? I lost the power of speech.

Mrs Douglas saved us the awkwardness by reaching out and hugging me. I thought about how she'd taken Mark in and how he had thought so much of her and everything fitted. She was a nice lady.

"H-how's Bryon doing?" I stammered as she stepped back.

"He's inside," she said. "Why don't you go on in and say hello?"

I hesitated and she stepped out past me onto the porch.

"Is your Mom home?" She asked me.

"Yeah, she's out on the porch," I answered.

"Well, I think I'll go over and say hello." She headed out past me and down the front path.

I watched her go. I guess it was her subtle way of giving Bryon and me some privacy but by doing it, she'd given me no choice. I had to go in and I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Taking a breath, I pushed open the old door and looked in at the living room. Bryon wasn't there. He had to be in the bedroom. The one he used to share with Mark, somewhere I really didn't want to go. None the less, I suddenly found myself knocking on the door.

"Hello?" came a hoarse voice.

"Hey, Bryon." I came inside and breathed a sigh of relief that the room had changed. Instead of two single beds there was a double one, and the once indestructible Bryon was flopped down in it under the covers.

"Jenkins." Bryon struggled to sit up, looking surprised to see me.

"Hey." I came and stood at the foot of the bed.

Part of me wanted to scream at him for what he had done all those years ago but looking at him, I could see he'd paid the price. He was pale and tired looking, defeat written all across his face.

"You heard, huh?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed and nodded.

"Son-of-a-bitch almost killed me but I can't help but feel sorry he's dead," Bryon suddenly blurted out.

I looked at him carefully.

"He cared enough to come look for you," I said. "He musta cared if he didn't kill you."

Bryon looked down at the sheets for a second before looking up at me again.

"He came to my apartment in the middle of the night. I woke up and there were his yellow eyes glowing in the dark. He put the gun to my chest and he told me he was there for payback."

I closed my eyes but was unable to stop the tears slipping down my cheeks.

"I guess I oughta thank you, 'cause it was you that saved my life," Bryon went on in the same empty tone he'd used since Mark had been arrested.

"What do you mean?" I whispered, choking back sobs. That was when Bryon began to talk.

"Mark stood over my bed, his eyes hard and cold as he pressed the barrel of the gun into my forehead. The pressure he used was unbelievably intense but the pain seemed far off and distant, like it belonged to somebody else.

'This is it, then Buddy. I guess you never knew I'd be your undoing but then I didn't know you'd be mine.' His eyes felt like they were burning a hole through me.

'Think about what you're doin', Mark,' I said desperately. 'You do this and you're gonna see my face every time you close your eyes.'

Mark laughed, a cold hard laugh that seemed not to belong to him. At least not the Mark I had known.

'I see your face anyhow, Douglas. This makes us even. I don't feel any guilt these days. Not no more.'

You suddenly flashed into my brain, Ally. I remembered the hurt on your face when you came round here after he got hauled in. I remember the way your eyes used to follow him round a room when we were kids. There was never anything but sincerity towards Mark on your part. That was when I knew you were my last hope of survival.

'What about Ally?' I suddenly pounced on your name and he froze, his smirk disappearing.

'What about her?' He snapped. 'That was a long time ago.'

'You do this and she'll hear about it. She'll know you murdered someone. She'll know you murdered me.'

Mark's eyes glinted without warmth in the dimness of my room. I could see his hand wavering ever so slightly and it gave me hope.

'Don't do this to her, Mark. You did enough to her alright? Your parents fucked you over and then so did I, but not Ally. She was probably the only person who ever loved you unselfishly.'

That got to him. I know it did. He didn't look so sure of himself anymore and for a second I saw the old Mark.

"How's she doing?" he said, in a small voice, a world away from the hard killer's voice he'd been using.

"I hear she's doing real good. She went to law school. She's a lawyer now."

Mark lowered the gun. It was just for a second, but I couldn't take any chances. I lunged for it and in the struggle it went off.

As I hit the ground, I could hear him cursing, hear him muttering. He was looking down at me and I mumbled:

"Get it over with," expecting nothing but a second bullet.

In the last look I got of him before I passed out, he was crying like a little kid, nose running and everything.

He could have finished me off then. He could have finished me off but he never did. He just left."

I cried like a kid myself when Bryon was done. Eleven years of thinking he didn't care. Eleven years of feeling like it hadn't been real. Eleven years of stopping myself from tracking him down. Eleven years of waiting for a letter that never arrived.

Bryon was quiet as I cried myself out. He was different from how I remembered; quieter, more thoughtful. He had lost the arrogance of youth and the enthusiasm for life. He was empty and numb and tired but he had freed me and I owed him.

"You going to the funeral?" I asked when I had finally quietened down.

Bryon looked at me thoughtfully.

"He almost killed me, Ally, but in most ways I been dead since he left."

I drew a breath. The first fully liberated breath I had tasted in a long, long time.

"Not anymore, Bryon. You gotta let it go. We both gotta let it go. It's over, he's dead, you've paid your dues."

Bryon shrugged indifferently but I saw a glimmer of hope in his dark eyes. A hope that one day the burden he had carried for the last decade would be taken away.

"I'll find out when it is," I said, "and we'll go together, me and you. I'll try and round up some of his old friends. We'll give him a proper send off."

Now I had a plan I felt a little better. Bryon had seemed to regain some colour too.

"Doc said I can get up tomorrow. Maybe I could give you a hand." He shrugged.

I grinned at him.

"Jesus, if Mark could see us now."

Bryon Douglas then grinned his first real smile in eleven years. At me of all people.