Forever Blue (19 page)

     
I stood to the side, drinking him all in. He wore a dark vintage t-shirt and snug-fitting blue jeans, which accentuated his perfectly rounded backside. I was tempted to walk right over and put my hands all over him, but I controlled my urges.

    
“Do you need me to help you with anything?” I asked.

    
“Nah, I got this. You just relax, kid,” he replied, voraciously peeling a carrot. “So how was your day?”

    
I could no longer handle my impulses. I crept up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He smelled incredible, like rich, sweet cologne and peppery shampoo.
 
“Better, now that I’m with you.”

    
His back muscles twitched. “Oh really?”

    
“You know something,” I whispered in his ear, “I’m really not that hungry.”

    
The peeler dropped into the sink with a loud clang. After turning around to face me, Scotty said, “Come to think of it, me either.” 

    
He lightly kissed my forehead,
and his soft lips trailed
down to my eyes.
The blood vessels in my face pulsed with heat when his lashes fluttered against my cheek like a small animal’s heartbeat.
I drove my hand underneath his shirt, feeling the warmth of his smooth chest against my cold fingertips.
He shuddered like a man suddenly aroused
at my touch.

    
“You feel so nice,” I barely murmured.

    
I was not able to stop thinking about the day we almost made love in my bedroom. The memory caught in my head like a thorn on a vine. He had me feeling things I’d never experienced before—love, desire, want—and I needed to have all of him. So what if I was only nineteen. My feelings were as real as the very world I was living in. In no way did I have an agenda when I showed up there that evening. I just couldn’t control myself whenever we were together. My feelings had grown intensely out of proportion, and now the fire needed to be extinguished.

    
Scotty tenderly pushed a strand of hair away from my face and traced the length of my cheek and chin with his fingers.
He looked deep into my eyes and
said, “I love you. You know that, right?”

    
Those three little words meant more to me than anything in the world. If love was supposed to feel this blissful, I never wanted to fall out of it. I ran my hand over his sturdy jawbone and replied, “I don’t think I could love anyone more.”

    
Scotty took my hand, and
led me down the hallway to his bedroom. All that surrounded us was the pitch darkness. I couldn’t make out anything besides the king-sized bed that he sat on. I stood in front of Scotty, towering over him. He pulled my blouse over my head and I followed his lead by unbuttoning his jeans.
Scotty gently swung me onto the bed, and
I lied back while he
studied every inch of me. His hands ran over the bridge of my nose and explored every part of my face like he was seeing me for the first time.

    
I reached up, letting my palm slide down his arms. I was surprised by the indentations in his muscles and the smoothness of his skin. He was practically hairless. I ran my fingers over his ribs as though counting every bone in his perfect body.

    
I was a little apprehensive when he eased me out of my jeans.
I
knew I
wouldn’t be able to turn back unless I
put it an end to it right then, but I had no regrets. I watched him slide out of his black boxers
once my jeans were tossed to the floor.
The hardness of him against my thigh had my heart pounding a million miles a second.

    
He must
have noticed me trembling.
“Are you okay?”

    
I smiled at him through my nervousness. “Just a little shaky.”

    
He pulled me up,
and drew
my face in close. My hair cascaded now onto his shoulders as his tongue slid against my tongue with a roughness that was almost spellbinding.
He tasted a bit like soy sauce, but
I enjoyed the aftertaste lingering on the tip of my tongue like a distant memory. With those ever-so-gentle hands
of his, Scotty eased my legs open and nudged inside me. At the sound of my gasp, he gave me a demanding open-mouthed kiss, and in no time, we became a twist of arms and legs. It was almost as if an angel made love to me: slowly, with great enthusiasm and kindness.

    
A few hours later, I lied in bed curled up against Scotty’s back. I wanted to live in that moment forever, listening to the rhythm of his breathing and watching his chest move up and down. I pressed myself even closer to his body, still feeling I wasn’t close enough.

    
I was just about to close my eyes and drift off to sleep when I remembered something vital. It slipped my mind that I told my mother
that
I’d be home early that evening so I could work on my project. That definitely wasn’t going to happen, but I needed to call and give her a fair warning. At eleven thirty, she would probably still be up. I looked around for a phone and spotted a white cordless beside Scotty on the nightstand. I hated to wake him from a peaceful sleep, but I had to let my mother know I was okay. 

    
“Scotty,” I whispered. I slowly ran my nails down his back, hoping the sensation would wake him favorably. “I need to call my mom.”

    
Scotty
stirred and shifted toward me—his eyes heavy with sleep. “Oh, sure.” He kissed me on the shoulder, stretched over to the nightstand and handed me the phone.

    
I cradled it like a lifeline, unsure of what I was going to say to Mom if she questioned me. I knew I would eventually come up with something, so I dialed my number. It rang several times before it went to her voicemail. I left a message: “Hey, Mom. I’m not going to make it home in time tonight. I’m kind of caught up here. Don’t wait up for me, okay? Love you.” I laid the phone to rest at the edge of the bed and at once curled up against Scotty, craving his warmth.

***

    
I got home around eight thirty that next morning. I felt guilty for flaking out on Mom and torn for
leaving Scotty. I sensed his disappointment when he wasn’t able to make me breakfast in bed. We decided on a couple of slices of toast with grape jelly, and
as soon as I wolfed that down, I was out the door. The further I drove from his place, the more my heart ached to go back and spend the rest of the day with
him. Reality was like gravity—pulling my head out of the clouds and sending me back down to Earth. As much as I wanted to ignore it, I had a life to get back to. My impulses could get the best of me when something left me feeling so tempted. I managed to remind myself:
Scotty is here to stay, Alexa. You have nothing to fear.

    
I expected to walk through my front door and hear the sound of the television coming from the living room. I even anticipated smelling the strong pot of coffee Mom brewed daily.
Mom had been
an early riser
ever since I could remember and didn’t
know the meaning of sleeping in. She woke up at seven a.m. on the dot every morning, alarm clock or not. This time, the sound of silence greeted me. The house felt empty, like its spirit stepped outside that morning and not yet returned.

    
“Mom?” I called out. “I’m home.”

    
I realized I wore the same clothes as the night before, and
I readied myself for interrogation. Whatever her reasoning, the fact was
that
she really had no say in the matter. I was a grown woman, fully capable of making my own decisions when it came to who I slept with.

    
I peered into the kitchen, and to my surprise, the little red light still flashed on the answering machine. I pressed the button and heard the sound of my own voice. I found it strange that Mom
hadn’t listened to my message yet.

    
Next, I checked her bedroom. The bed was neatly made, like she never even slept in it that night. In the garage, her parking spot was empty. I actually wondered if my mother went out and had a wild night of her own with some mystery man
that I didn’t know about, but the chances
of that
were slim. It just didn’t seem like her. A bit vexed, I called Scotty.

    
“Miss me already, huh?” he asked.

    
His comment went way over my head. I had other things on my mind. “Scotty, my mom’s not here. I’m worried.”

    
“Maybe she went out and decided to have some fun of her own last night.”

    
“No. She’s not like that.”

    
“Well, did she leave a note?”

    
“No. Not a trace of anything.”

     
“Maybe she went out to get some breakfast or something. Wait a little bit longer. If she’s not back soon, call me.”

    
“Okay. I love you.” Funny, how easy it was to say the words.

    
“Love you too, kid. Keep me posted.”

    
   I panicked when Mom didn’t show up after another hour rolled around.
I was at my wit’s end with all kinds of grim scenarios flooding through my head. An unanticipated knock on the
door jolted me out of my seat, and relief settled inside me. I knew it was Mom, although,
something screwy was going on. She usually came through the garage. My heart stopped at the sight of two young police officers parked on my doorstep, each exhibiting solemn, perfunctory expressions.

     
The baby-faced blond male cop said, “Miss, my name is Lieutenant Sanders, and this is my partner, Officer Springer. May we come in?” When an officer stands in the middle of your family room in the early morning hours, it’s obvious he’s about to tell you some unpleasant news.

    
From what the police could gather, Mom left the house
around eleven that evening, and
was on her way to our local grocery store. I don’t know what was going through her mind when she decided to take off at that time. She didn’t like to go out past eight.
    
While driving down Jamboree Road at around eleven thirty, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of my mother’s car as she was attempting to make a right turn. The impact was so intense that our little Honda Civic spun like a Frisbee into a light pole. The car split in half, scattering wreckage for miles and killing Mom instantly upon impact. Police and medics arrived at the scene to find groceries strewn around the accident scene like confetti: a bag of oranges in the middle of the road, a loaf of bread alongside the steering wheel of our car, and yogurt splattered on the pavement. Metal and debris covered the road like a blanket of thick soot. The drunk driver somehow managed to get away on foot, unscathed, although his mini-van was in shambles. They finally caught him hiding in a dumpster behind a drugstore.

    
The police told me that the news covered the accident for hours. They wondered why I hadn’t heard about it. Of course, I was otherwise engaged at that time. The thought made me sick to stomach. This would have never happened if I went home when I said I was going to. My mother was dead because of me. At this realization, I went dizzy, like I stood up too fast. The next thing I knew, I blacked out. 

    
I woke up feeling as though someone poured ice water on my face. I opened my eyes and found Scotty pressing a damp cloth against my forehead. The same two police officers hovered over him and peered down on me. My heart stopped beating like my life was on pause.

    
I mustered the courage to utter, “Wake me up and tell me this is all a nightmare. Please wake me up, Scotty. Tell me my mom’s okay.”

    
Scotty swallowed audibly and glanced over at the two police officers as though seeking their approval. Their facial expressions told
me everything I needed to know, and my heart just froze. I felt thrown back in time to that cruel day when I was sixteen where I was
experiencing my father's death all over again.

    
“Listen, Alexa,” Scotty said, taking both my hands, “baby, this is going to be a really trying time for you—”

   
I choked on my own hot, fat tears, coughing out the words, “No. Don’t say it! Tell me it’s not true! I can’t live without her.” My body went limp, as though all my muscles were paralyzed.

    
Scotty scooped me up with the arms. “I love you so much, Alexa. You can’t give up on me.”

     
“All my family is dead,” I whispered into
this shoulder. “I have nobody—there’s no one left.”

    
“That’s not true.” He took my hand and kissed each fingertip. “You have me, kid. I’ll always be here for you.”

***

    
Everything that ensued after that moment happened quickly. I vaguely remember how I got from one place to the next. A few days after Mom’s death, we had a vigil at the church and a short memorial in our back yard. Some people at the grocery store heard about the accident and wanted to pay their respects. The funeral, the reception, the whole day, was blurry in my mind, like water spilled over ink.

    
I stared into my coffee cup, listening to the chatter of the
reception outside the kitchen, and
peered around at my surroundings
in distress.
The mail had piled up on the counter, and dirty dishes festered in the sink. I wasn’t able to keep up with anything since Mom’s death.
I had no energy to deal with it, and I
really
didn’t
care anyway.

    
“If I had come home that night, none of this would be happening,” I announced to Ruth, who sat beside me. What were the chances that she was unlucky enough to watch me grieve twice? The morning I called her to give her the news about my mom, she was on the first plane out to Orange County. I was so grateful to have Scotty and Ruth there with me every step of the way, especially
when it came to making arrangements.

    
“Alexa! Stop blaming yourself. None of this is your fault.” She looked elegant in a two-piece pinstriped black business suit. It made her appear slimmer than she already was. Two white teardrop pearl earrings dangled from her delicate earlobes, and her
hair
was
a pile of silky black curls.

    
I shook my head in argument. “You don’t get it. I let my selfishness and stupidities alter my judgment.”

    
“Alexa—”

    
Scotty walked into the kitchen
before she could finish her thought.
“How’s she holding up?” he asked, placing his hands on my shoulders and massaging them gently.

    
“She still thinks this whole tragedy is her fault.” Ruth glanced at me drearily. “I don’t know what else I can say to make her see otherwise.”