Forever Loved (The Forever Series) (2 page)

“What is it?”

He sighed. “Your parents. They just landed and they don’t want me to pick them up.”

“Why not?” I tried to sit up a little straighter, but my body wouldn’t obey, and I sagged back into a slump.

“I can think of a lot of reasons.”

I held out my arm, the movement sending a shock wave though me. “Give me that.”

“You calling them?”

“I’ll try a text first. They might not answer a call from you.”

“Then let me type it.”

I sighed. “Okay. Say, ‘This is Corabelle. Remember when I told you I was pregnant, and I said to trust me, that I would be okay? Well, I’m saying it again. It will be okay. Gavin will meet you outside baggage claim.’” I no more got the sentence out when the coughs erupted. I couldn’t calm them down, turning to my side to manage the pain and the frightening wetness of each breath.

Gavin clutched me, fear all over his face. “Should I get the nurse?”

“It’s…stopping…” I managed to get out, gasping, forcing my body to relax.

“Your parents are going to kick me out.” He leaned in to rub my back. “I guess they’ll be sleeping here instead of me.”

I curled up tight, relieved the coughs had subsided. “I’m surprised they let you, but I’m glad.”

“I don’t take no for an answer. Not when it concerns you.” His face warmed over with that beautiful grin again, and even though I was exhausted and in pain, my heart sped up, and I felt that need for him that had ruled my youth.

“I never stopped loving you,” I said.

He lifted my hand to his lips. “I think I love you more now than I did before.”

His phone beeped again. He glanced at it and frowned.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I think your dad just told me to go to hell.”

2: Gavin

Corabelle was out again. One minute she was upset at her father, the next, asleep.

The nurse set the cup of water on the side table and said, “Buzz me when she wakes up.”
 

“I will,” I said. “Hey, is she supposed to cough like her guts are coming out? She hadn’t been doing that before.”

“It’s part of the process. At least she’s strong enough to cough now.” She hurried out of the room.

I leaned back in the chair. I was torn between blowing off her parents, who didn’t want to see me anyway, and doing what Corabelle asked. But, my motorcycle was here. I couldn’t pick them up on that. By the time I could get to her place, pick up her car, then jet to the airport, they’d be in a taxi.

I hadn’t planned this well. Corabelle had always been the organized one.

I turned over the phone and texted them the name of the hospital and the room number. They’d be here soon enough. I would smooth things over. We would get back to where we used to be.

I needed to call Bud, tell him I’d be taking off yet another day from the garage. And e-mail the professors, mine and Corabelle’s, to let them know how she was. God, this was a mess. They might not excuse me, but I didn’t care. I had no direction anyway. Not true. Corabelle was my destination. I’d do whatever I needed to do to make things right with her.

Her black hair was a harsh contrast to her pale fragile face. I could still see hints of the girl she once was, the one who sheltered me when I dashed across the alley from my house to hers as a child escaping a difficult father. The last four years without her had been such hell. I hadn’t seen it until I had her back. Nothing made sense without her. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

My stomach rumbled, so I shoved myself out of the chair. The cafeteria food was passable, and one of the staffers always had pity on me and gave me the staff discount. This was my new life, for a while. Eventually I had to get back to work, pay the bills, figure out our next step.

Another text message buzzed me as I stepped into the elevator. I suppressed a snorting laugh when I saw it. You’d never know that I’d once been a favored son, that the same hand that typed these words had once clapped me on the back in approval.

It said, “Don’t be there when we arrive. I mean it.”

~*´♥`*~

I dumped my leftovers in the cafeteria trash and stacked my tray, wiping my hands on my jeans. My hair was all over the place. Corabelle’s parents would think I was a vagrant. Or a mooch. God, no telling. The way they were acting, you wouldn’t know that the first door I ever walked through that wasn’t my own was theirs. Of course, their daughter was the first thing I ever walked away from.

I stepped into the elevator, trying to figure out what to say, how to explain myself. A nurse got on with me, holding an apple, and nodded in my direction. “Which floor?” she asked.

“Four,” I said.

We lurched up from the basement to the first floor and stopped again. The doors slid open, and the time for me to figure out what to say was over, because Corabelle’s parents were standing right outside.

“Oh!” Mrs. Rotheford said, her vivid red lipsticked mouth open with shock.

“Hey,” I said with a wave. I tunneled my fingers through my hair one more time, not that it was going to help.

Mr. Rotheford glared at me from behind heavy-rimmed glasses, different from the ones I’d last seen him wear, now with a line across the centers. I’d thought of them as ageless, but the four years had not been especially kind to him.

“I’ll have you thrown out,” he said with a growl.

The nurse shifted next to me, her arm partially outstretched, as if trying to decide whether or not to push the button to close the doors. I glanced at her. She raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Should I?”

But Mrs. Rotheford grabbed her husband’s arm and dragged him forward, pulling a petite roller bag. “Don’t be ridiculous, Arthur.”

He didn’t resist, and the nurse and I scooted to the corner. The elevator was deep to accommodate hospital beds, so we were not crowded together.

Mr. Rotheford’s shoulders were hunched, and his fingers on the handle of his rolling suitcase were tightened into fists. I couldn’t imagine him manhandling anyone. He had always been such a calm and gentle man, endlessly patient with Corabelle’s teddy-bear classrooms, sitting obediently in a little chair to be her student if she held her playschool on the weekends.

Her mother glanced back at me, her hair an intricate black sweep into a silver comb. She had always been elegant and kind, the sort of mother you might see on television. I knew they had their sorrows, a string of miscarriages after Corabelle, and in the days Finn was in the hospital, I knew her grief was magnified by the thought of all those children, and what tragic genetic code might have been passed on to her daughter. If I was going to make inroads with them, it would be through her.

“You’re all grown,” she said.

I didn’t know what to say to that, but nodded. I could sense the fury growing in her husband. I hoped the elevator reached our destination before he blew.

We skipped two floors to land at the fourth. Corabelle’s parents stepped out first, since they were closer to the door, but paused, not sure where to go. I squeezed behind them and to the side, prepared to lead the way, but Mr. Rotheford’s jacketed arm snaked out and snared me, his fingers grasping my elbow in a vise. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I turned around to face him squarely, man to man in a way I’d never done as a teen. I was half a head taller than him, and he seemed small and sad rather than menacing. I inhaled slowly so I could choose my words. “I’m going to Corabelle’s room. She’s expecting me back. I know you don’t want me there, but she does, and right now, she matters most.”

He let go of me, and I was relieved to have found the right thing to say. I led them down a corridor, past the nurse station, and along another hall. When we stopped in front of Corabelle’s door, Mrs. Rotheford said, “Arthur, maybe you should go down and get some flowers for her.”

“She’s probably sleeping,” I said. “You want me to check?”

Mr. Rotheford pushed past me. “I can see that on my own.”

He opened the door too quickly, and I winced when it rattled. I followed him into the room, and Corabelle was indeed still out, her hair streaming across the pillow like a goddess.

“Baby!” Mrs. Rotheford dropped her suitcase handle and rushed forward, grabbing for Corabelle’s hand. Her husband hung back now, seeming to grasp for the first time that his daughter was actually ill.

He looked around, seeming unable to keep his gaze on his pale child, eyes resting on the flowers I’d brought, plus Jenny’s, and the blue butterfly that now had the word “Finn” written across the body. His shoulders relaxed. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I guessed he realized people did care, and that Corabelle was in good hands.

I sat down in the chair I’d come to think of as home and braced my elbows on my knees. I was bone-tired, I realized. But I’d been there before. I could keep going as well as the best of them.

Mrs. Rotheford perched on the edge of the bed, stroking Corabelle’s hand.

“I’ll go get those flowers now,” her father said. He moved their suitcases against the wall.

Her mother nodded absently, her eyes not leaving Corabelle’s face. I couldn’t imagine that fear, her only daughter in the hospital, but then I supposed I had lived it. We’d had so little time with our baby Finn. Nothing about being parents had ever felt normal for us.

When her husband was gone, she turned back to me. “So what happened?”

“She got caught in the Pacific Ocean and wound up with pneumonia.”

“You said that on the phone. I mean what really happened?”

My jaw clamped tight. I wanted Corabelle to have this conversation with them, not me. “She was awake earlier. I think she’ll be able to talk to you about it soon.”

The door opened, and one of the doctors came in. “I see we have new visitors,” he said. “I’m Dr. Snow.”

Mrs. Rotheford let go of Corabelle and turned to the doctor. “I’m her mother, Maybelle. How is she doing?”

“Well, we don’t recommend any more arctic swims.” He rounded the opposite side of the bed and leaned over to watch one of the monitors. “Now that she’s awakened, she’ll recover quickly. As long as she takes it easy, we’re through the worst of it.”

“Will she be okay?”

He consulted his iPad. “Pneumonia can be tricky. We have to watch for relapse and secondary complications. We did have to suction fluid from her lungs.”

“Oh my God.” She pressed a hand to her throat.

“She’s piped full of antibiotics. She’ll feel pretty bad for a day or two just from that. But she’s young and healthy. She’ll come out of this just fine.”
 

“Thank you,” Mrs. Rotheford said. “She’s all we have.”

The doctor pulled out a stethoscope. “From what I understand, that young man is the one you should be thanking. He pulled her out of the water and got her breathing.”

I stared at the floor, but I could feel her gaze on me.

“I’m still not clear what happened,” she said.

“She came in with a low body temperature, fluid in her lungs. Apparently she almost drowned.”

I glanced back up. The doctor was listening to her chest. “We kept her overnight due to the fluid, and her temperature spiked, signaling an infection.”

He moved the stethoscope back to his neck. “Corabelle, I’m going to ask you to wake up now. Open up for me.” He leaned in close to her face. “Corabelle? Let me see those eyes.”

She shifted, blinking, but as soon as her eyes opened, her forehead creased with pain, and she closed them again.

“Light hurts, doesn’t it? We’ll get the pain meds in you.” He held her hand with his gloved one. “Can you squeeze?”

She tightened her grip on him.

“Good.” He let go. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Corabelle.”

“I’m Dr. Snow. I hear you decided to wake up earlier.”

She nodded.

“You have family here. Your mom.”

Corabelle opened her eyes again. “Mom?” she croaked.

Mrs. Rotheford leaned over on the bed. “I’m here, baby.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s downstairs.”

“He was awful to Gavin.”

Her mother glanced over at me. “We’ll take care of that, darling. Don’t you worry about it.”

Corabelle turned her head. “Gavin?”

I stood up. “I’m still here.”

“Don’t let him chase you off.”

“No chance,” I said, but in the silence I felt we were all thinking the same thing — no one had to chase me four years ago.

Corabelle started another wheezing cough like she had when she woke up earlier. The doctor eased her on her side to listen to her back.

“She’s got a ways to go,” Dr. Snow said. “I’ll get the nurse down with something for the headache.” He helped her settle back on the bed. “If you can keep the bed up a bit, you’ll breathe a little easier.”

Corabelle nodded, her eyes watery from the coughing.

The doctor stepped away from the bed. “I’ll be checking on her again. Nice to meet you.”

When he was gone, Mrs. Rotheford sat next to Corabelle. “Thank God you’re all right.”

Corabelle took a couple deep breaths, then said, “I’ll be fine, Mom. Gavin’s back.”

“I see that.”

“He’s been good.”

“I’m sure he has.”

“Please don’t be mad at him.”

Her mother hesitated. “I won’t.”

“Talk to Dad.”

She pursed her red lips. “He can be stubborn.”

Corabelle glanced at the door. “Where did he go?”

“I made him go get flowers. He was being obstinate.”

Corabelle smiled. “We should keep him on errands.”

The nurse came in. “I know you want these now.” She held up a cup with two pills and another with water. “Let’s get you up a bit.”

Mrs. Rotheford moved out of the way as the nurse helped Corabelle take the meds. “So glad to see you up and around.” She glanced at the clock. “We’ll see how you’re doing tonight and maybe give you a little walk, see if we can take that catheter out.”

Corabelle’s face flushed red, and I knew that was for me, not her mom. Hell, I didn’t care what sort of tubes she had or where they went, as long as she was all right.

The nurse hustled out, passing Mr. Rotheford carrying the most absurdly large bouquet, one that dwarfed the ones Jenny and I had brought. I bit my lip to avoid laughing. Whatever made him feel better.