Forever Loved (The Forever Series) (23 page)

She folded up the note he’d given her and stuck it in her skirt pocket. “I might do him. Once. Twice if he is worth it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s about as far as it goes with me.”

“Since the baby.” I got that. I hadn’t dated either until Gavin returned.

“Since forever. I was screwed up before, and I’m more screwed up now.” She picked up the stacks of paper and moved them to the counter. “Some therapist, eh? Or ‘art teacher,’ I guess.”

“He insulted you.”

“He called it like he saw it. I’m not exactly more than a glorified babysitter.”

“You seriously think so? I saw you with Albert. You were brilliant.”

“So I have a few moments. I’m not going to interest Dr. Darion any longer than anyone else.” She came around the table. “Anyway, time to get you back. You ready? Gavin’s probably already tearing the hospital apart looking for you.”

“You don’t have to take me up.”

Tina came up and threaded her arm through mine. “Of course I do. Because if Gavin isn’t behaving, I’m the only one scrappy enough to actually make a dent in that pretty face.”

We headed back down the halls, past the cheerful paintings and rooms full of critically ill children, and once again I remembered that we all had our difficulties, our challenges, our heartaches, and our tragedies. The most important thing was letting people in, allowing others to be there for you, and no matter how dark things got, to harbor that one last light.

29: Corabelle

“There she is!” My mom’s voice carried over the general hubbub in my room as Tina dropped me off at the door.

Inside, my parents, Jenny, Gavin, and a nurse waited.

“Go on another jaunt?” the nurse asked, leading me back to the bed to sit down so she could strap the blood pressure cuff on my arm.

“I’m feeling fine,” I said.

“Your last X-ray looked very good,” the nurse said. “I think we’re going to send you home with the last round of antibiotics. We’ll want you to follow up with your regular doctor in three days.”

“Okay.” The cuff swelled against my arm. I felt surrounded by people. I looked over the nurse at Gavin, standing in the corner, his face unreadable, his arms crossed.

Jenny bounced around the room, picking up books, gathering the trinkets and gifts that had accumulated. “I guess we didn’t have to do much packing after all!”

“I loved your little apartment,” Mom said. “So cozy.”

The nurse released the cuff.

“Can I go back to class tomorrow?” I asked.

“I’d hold off a couple more days. We can get a letter for you.”

“She’s not going to obey you,” Jenny said. “That girl’s got a hard-on for school.” She clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes like saucers as she stared at my parents. “I mean, she loves class.”

“Then you make sure she wears one of these,” the nurse said, tugging another hideous blue surgical mask from a box under the sink. “I leave it to you to make sure it happens.”

Jenny accepted the mask by the string, holding it like it was a dead rat. “Whatever you say, nurse-lady.” She turned it around. “Maybe I could break out my BeDazzler. It could use a few accessories.”

My father harrumphed and even the nurse barely held in her laugh. “We’ll be back with some papers and discharge instructions.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

The room felt more manageable when she left. My father clapped his hands. “So, a celebratory dinner?”

My mom hopped up from the sofa. “Arthur, she can’t be out in public. The germs!”

“So, celebratory takeout at your apartment?” Dad amended.

“You want me to go get your car?” Gavin asked.

“I have mine!” Jenny said. “And Gavin has his Harley.”

“His what?” My dad’s voice echoed off the walls.

“Uh-oh,” Jenny said. “Sorry.”

Mom passed Dad a duffel bag. “Arthur, leave it be. Hold this while I pack Corabelle’s things.” She began taking the items Jenny had collected and stuffing them in the bag.

I stood up and walked over to Gavin, both wanting him alone and not wanting the bustle to end, an easy distraction from the difficult morning. I felt better than I had walking out of the lab waiting room. Between Tina and Dr. Darion, and Jenny’s flubs, I could see life was moving on, going forward. It never did completely stop, no matter what was happening, what life drama was unfolding.

He held on to me as we watched my parents and Jenny pack, his arms tight on my waist, my head tucked under his chin. I was surrounded by people who cared. We created this web, interweaving, and somehow I had to trust that it would not let me fall.

30: Gavin

Corabelle paused on the last few steps of the stairwell, holding her chest. I stood behind her, pretty pissed at myself for letting her talk me into this.

“There will be about ten people lined up to kill me if anyone knows I let you come here,” I told her, my hand pressed against her back. “And I’m not sure who would make it more painful — your dad or Jenny.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just get winded sort of easily.” She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “It makes me happy just knowing we get to go up here.”

“If it’s cold and windy up there, we’re not staying,” I said. “Deal?”

“Deal.” She pulled on the lever to the door to the roof.

Amy, the TA, stood over a shop light, handing out assignments to the other students. When she saw us, she waved. “You’re back!”

The roof was littered with students staring at the sky. The city twinkled beyond the ledge until the light ended in the Pacific, roiling like a black menace in the pale glow of the moon. I thought of how easily it could have swallowed Corabelle up and shuddered.

“What have you got for us?” Corabelle asked, taking a sheet from Amy.

“Pretty easy. Find the Cepheus constellation, locate the Delta star, and estimate its brightness based on the known magnitude of Zeta and Epsilon.”

Corabelle turned to me. “I hope you’ve been paying attention.”

Amy laughed. “I wouldn’t bet on that. But it’s all on the sheet. Let me know if you need help.”

“Kiddie astronomy,” I said. “Magnitude is just how bright the star is.” I took the page from her. “Easy stuff.”

“Good. I need easy.” Corabelle took my hand and we wound our way through the sprawled legs and discarded backpacks of other students to find our spot on the back side.

“You cold?” I asked her.

“Not yet,” she said, sitting down on the concrete.

“I should have brought a blanket.” I knelt beside her. “Should I spread my coat down?”

“I’ve got you.” She peered at the page. “Let’s get this done.”

I pulled out a little flashlight to shine on the assignment. It seemed pretty easy. Locate the star. Find companion stars. Compare brightness and estimate the magnitude.

Corabelle looked up. “You see Cepheus?”

I stared at the stars. “Says here it’s only the size of a fist. Five stars in the shape of a house.”

“There’s the North Star,” Corabelle said. “Is it close to that?”

“Between it and Cassiopeia.”

She held up her arms. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. Do you see?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, the coal-black hair streaming down her back, her pale face turned up to the sky. Just seeing her someplace other than a hospital bed was a miracle.

Corabelle turned to me. “Hey, you’re not even looking.”

“I already see what I want to see.”

She dropped her arms. “It’s different tonight, isn’t it?”

I glanced up at the sky, finally. “Colder, certainly.”

She punched my arm. “You know what I mean. We’re actually together.”

I lay back on the roof, dragging a backpack under my head. “Well, the first time we were in shock at seeing each other, and the second time we were fighting. So yeah, this is new.”

She eased down and curled up next to me, her head on my shoulder. I pulled her in tight, the way I’d wanted to that first night. I wasn’t going to take for granted that I could do it now.

“We’re a team this time. Life is just as hard as it was at the other two star parties, but this time we’re in it together.”

I squeezed her shoulders. “We are.”

Her breath puffed against my cheek. “It’s the last night before everything could change.”

“Nothing’s going to change.”

“If that boy belongs to you.”

“He doesn’t.”

She hesitated, then said, “I saw how much you cared about him.”

“I worry about what will happen to them. Her family was not kind about her situation. Tijuana isn’t an easy place to survive.”

She fell silent again, and the weight of her unasked questions pressed down on us like the stars.

“I think I see Delta,” I said.

Corabelle turned her head to look up. “I don’t remember which stars to compare it to.”

“Zeta, Epsilon, and Delta form a triangle off Cepheus,” I said. “Zeta is the corner of the house.”

“Hey! You have been paying attention!”

“Delta is the one farthest away.”

“It’s in between the other two in brightness.”

“3.9 then.”

“You know this?” Corabelle turned her face back to me.

“Hey, I wasn’t that bad a student in high school.” I smiled at her.

She nestled into my neck, her nose cold. “Classic underachiever.”

I borrowed a line from Jenny. “I have to keep everyone’s expectations low.”

“Mine are sky high.”

I took one of her hands in mine. “You’re the only one I aim to please.”

Her body tensed, but before I could ask her what was wrong, she asked, “How many times did you see her?”

“Rosa?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not really sure.”

“A lot then.”

“For a while.”

“When was the last time you were…with her?”

“I’m guessing you don’t mean talking.”

She didn’t answer.

I sighed. “Are you sure you want to go into this?”

“I want to know what I’m up against.”

I drew her in even closer, each curve of her body pressed against mine. “I don’t keep track of these things. All I know is that once I saw you again, nothing else mattered. I don’t want to see her again. I don’t plan to see her again. I’m anxious for all this to be behind us so I don’t have to even think about it.”

“She loves you, Gavin.”

“She thinks she does. I’m just a meal ticket.”

“That boy doesn’t see you that way.”

I lifted her chin so she could look at me. “I totally understand why you would be worried. But nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to come between us again.”

She watched me with quiet eyes, fearful and deep. I felt overcome with the need to keep her as close to me as possible, to never let anything hurt her again. I bent in close to kiss her. I always communicated to her best this way, able to pour into her all the things I felt without having to fumble with words.

Her arms came around my head, and she responded in earnest. I realized I had not gotten a chance to kiss her those other nights on the roof, when I wanted to, and now the chance had come, and I let it unfurl, holding her as tight as I dared, delving into her soft, warm mouth like a dying man.

She gasped, and I pulled away, afraid I had pushed her too hard, that breathing was still too much, but she whispered, “Please take me to your place.” And so I stood up, helping her rise to standing, and we raced away from the stars and the students and the TA and the cold uncaring sea.

31: Corabelle

Gavin was so careful with me, so good.

I’d never been more happy to see his weight benches, his listing bookcases, and the scattered possessions that were all uniquely his.

He made a show of carrying me through the living room, as though I were frail, but I let him. The sensation of floating through his apartment, carried in the cradle of his arms, helped the world fall away. I could forget Rosa and her little boy, the lab room, the test results we expected tomorrow. My parents disappeared, and the hospital, the suction tubes, and the unending stream of nurses.

He laid me carefully across the bed, removing my shoes and wrapping me in a blanket. He reached inside the bundle of cloth for the snap to my jeans, easing them down without letting the chill touch my skin.

“You’re going to keep those socks on,” he whispered. “Not going to let you get cold.”

“That’s sexy.”

“But it is.”

His hands moved to the hem of my sweater, pushing it up. When my belly recoiled from the chill of his fingers, he withdrew, rubbing his palms on his jeans, then returning. “Better?” he asked.

I nodded, inhaling sharply when his hands grazed the cups of my bra as he lifted the soft wool over my chest. I wanted him to move swiftly, but he kept things slow, intent on his purpose. He tugged my elbow down and out of the first sleeve, then the second, and pulled the sweater over my head.

The blanket loosened on my shoulders, and he tucked it back in. I no longer felt cold at all, heat spreading through me as he stood at the end of the bed and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. I still had not gotten used to the changes in him from when he was a teen. His chest was broad and hard, his arms thick with muscle. When he bent to untie his boots, the corded expanse of his back shifted with every movement. I couldn’t take it any longer and twisted around so that I knelt on the bed, extracting a hand from the blankets to run it along his spine, feeling each indentation of sinew and bone.

He grinned up at me, that wicked expression that I’d known since I was small and had haunted my nights during the years we were apart. When he kicked off the boots and started to unbutton his jeans, I pushed him aside, grasping the waistband myself and jerking it open one-handed. The zipper came down with a quiet hiss.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and let the blanket fall, tugging on his jeans and peeling them down. He was erect inside the thin fabric of his boxers, and I ran my hand along it, feeling the pulsing throb.

He kicked the jeans off and pressed me down again, insisting on keeping the blanket in place. I pulled one end open and drew him inside it, creating a cocoon around us, soft and dark. He rolled farther onto the bed, lying over me, his lips covering mine. His hips pressed into me and I thrust upward to meet him, reaching between us to get rid of the boxers.