The Girl Who Fell (23 page)

I smile. “Pink and swirly, huh?”

“Except you, Zeph. You look like shit.” He webs his fingers with mine and I feel his beating pulse there. Strong. Reliable. “You know . . . if that were possible.”

“You scared me, Gregg. I-I don't know what I would have done if . . .”

“Hey, no bringing down the half-dead guy.”

I smack him on the arm and he laughs.

“You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, Zephyr.”

There are promises, apologies, confessions that fight for the chance to be heard, but a faint knock on the door silences me. I turn and Alec lifts his eyebrows, asking permission to enter.

“Come in, man,” Gregg says, his tough guy athlete voice joining us in the room now. Gregg drops my hand, positions himself even higher in bed.

They exchange the manly secret handshake of locker rooms and Alec tells him, “You had us all worried.”

“So I hear.”

“What happened out there? One second you were fine and then . . .”

Gregg shakes his head, trying to pull up the memory, but I watch it swim away from him, lost to the river of pain medication.

“Coach told us it was a problem with your skates,” Alec says.

I turn to him, this news new. “That's why the game was postponed? Because—”

“The coach suspected sabotage,” Mr. Slicer interrupts. I turn see him at the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back, his face looking like this is the last news he wants to share.

“Sabotage?” I scramble for the meaning of the word because Mr. Slicer can't possibly mean it in the traditional sense. The treacherous sense.

“The blade on his skate was bent. By a machine. I just got word.” Gregg's dad shifts his feet, and I can feel how restless he is.

“This is crazy,” I say. “Why would anyone do that to Gregg?”

“Probably because he's the best.” Alec says. “Maybe Hamilton wanted to guarantee a win.”

“That's beyond messed up,” Gregg says.

“We'll see what the Division Board and the police find out.” Mr. Slicer is all authority. “We'll know more soon, I'm sure. For now, Gregg should rest.” Today is the first time in years I've heard Gregg's parents call him by his first name, which cements the gravity of this situation. “Alec, would you let your teammates know he'll be fine in no time? Most of them are downstairs, clogging up the waiting room. You can send Coach up. And Zephyr, thank you for coming. Tell your mom and d—” He lets the word hang.

“I will.” I move to Gregg and kiss him on the head, in that place where Rachel Slicer always kisses me.

On my way home, Alec holds my hand as I call Mom and fill her in on Finn and Gregg. Just bringing her up to speed propels me into a new exhaustion, but I'm glad the news for both of them is ultimately good. At home, Alec holds me for a long time before I get out of his car. “Everything will be all right,” he tells me. And I want to believe him. I find Finn in my bed and snuggle him so tight our bodies warm one another.

My fingers play with my phone, my thumb hovering over Dad's number. I want to make good on my promise to Mr. Slicer. I want to share the news that Gregg will be okay. And I want Dad to know about our scare with Finn.

And I would call him if we could only talk about Finn and Gregg. But I can't make room for the other stuff we need to talk about.

When Finn falls asleep, I go to my closet and pull out the Box of Dad. Inside, there's a handful of
Classic Car
magazines and his acrylic paintbrushes. And the picture of me he kept on his desk, the one where I'm on a slide and Dad's shadow stretches out in the photo so I know he was the one ready to catch six-year-old me. I gathered these things when he left because I didn't want to lose all of him. Then. And still.

When the phone rings I reconnect with Alec and his comfort. His safety.

Alec drives the familiar roads of Sudbury but it's a secret as to where he's taking me. We stayed up too late on the phone last night, unable to break our bond after a day twisting in our combined worry over Finn and Gregg. But there's no room in the simmer of my excitement to feel tired now.

Alec turns onto a wooded dirt road, his lights catch on a giant white sign:
FUTURE HOME OF APPLE BLOSSOM LUXURY VILLAGE.
He drives carefully over the rutted road. “I'm not buying a condo, in case you're wondering.”

I chuckle. “Good to know.”

He leans closer to his windshield, peers out. “Construction stopped out here a while ago. My mother's the developer and she put things on hold because of the economy.”

“You come here a lot?”

“It was my secret place before I met you.”

“What's your secret place now?”

His eyes flicker. “Don't laugh?”

“What?” I say, too much laughter in the word.

“Nice,” he mocks.

I straighten my face, my posture. “Okay, try again. I'll be good.”

“You,” he says.

“Me what?”

“You're kind of my secret place now.”

I stare at him. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

We drive in silence down the narrowing dirt path until we are face-to-face with an abandoned front loader. It waits against the tree line, its headlights and front bucket looking like a giant yellow smile. But when Alec cuts the engine, the machine disappears and darkness drapes over us like a villain's cloak.

“We're here.”

“We are?” There is no
here
here.

Alec rotates to face me, raises his hand to my cheek, caresses my jaw line. I feel his calluses, rough and bumpy against my smooth skin. He turns on the cabin light, casting away the darkness of this secluded place. “I'm glad it's just you and me tonight. No more drama. Everyone's going to be okay and we can just be. Here together.”

“I'm glad too.”

“Good. Because I hate sharing you.”

“I know what you mean.” My voice is low now, the tone made for Alec. It's my voice, but filled with steam, a low, bubbling heat that syrup-coats my words.

Alec smoothes the run of my collarbone with his thumb, rubs the length of it, his eyes fixed on its confident rise. “Even though I see you every day it's not enough.”

“It's the same for me.” The night ticks soft around us. There are no people. No cars. No emergencies. No sounds. Just me and Alec in this tucked away space.

Alec's lips move closer to my ear, his breath hot and quick. My neck warms, my insides twist in a spiral. “You're pretty much all I think about.”

There is a rush of something like gratefulness for my love protected in his safe hands.

“Wait here,” he says.

“Where are you going?”

“Just outside for a second. Promise.”

A short, nervous laugh arrives. “Isn't this how, like, every horror movie starts?”

He cracks his door open. “Trust me,” he says before exiting the car. He wrestles with something. A coat? A blanket? He pops the hood and I can't see in front of us. My mind races until I see Alec at the tree line, the dark too dark to make out his movements. Then Alec opens my door, his beautiful face smiling for me. “Come outside.” He ushers me toward him with the sweep of his arm.

Relief waterfalls through me as I take his hand. But then, a shiver ripples. “It's freezing out here.”

“Not for long.” Alec walks me to the edge of the forest and that's when I see he's spread a quilt onto the dropped pine needles. Two pillows rest at the top of the blanket. A bed in the woods. Alec lifts the quilt and invites me to tuck in. I'm surprised when my hands find heat.

“Is this . . . ?”

“An electric blanket.” I hear the grin stretch across his face.

“How do you have an electric blanket out in the middle of nowhere?”

“It's a nerd trick I learned in shop. I jimmied the extension cord to run off the car battery. Get warm. I'll be right back.” I watch him go to the trunk, drape another blanket over his arm. When he returns, he layers it over me and the weight is a luxury. He sets down the familiar picnic basket, takes off his coat and burrows in beside me.

“Ever moon-gazed before?”

“Not like this.”

“Good. I'd hate to be redundant.”

“I don't think that's possible.”

“It's full, you know. The moon.”

I look above the trees, find the white round, its paper skin. It sprays its light over us, as romantic as candlelight. “It's beautiful.”

“Like you.” I pull his hand up, press it to my chest. He leans against the place of my heartbeat and studies my features, memorizing me. “I'm really glad I could be there for you. You know, with Finn and Gregg.”

“Me too. I can't even tell you how much.” I smile under his stare and a new kind of warmth fills me. I hear a horn beep somewhere out on the road but it's as if the sound comes from a different dimension. Like Alec and I are hidden in a pocket of forest made especially for us. “I couldn't have gotten through it without you.” I trace the soft swell of his cheek.

He pushes into my touch. “I want it to be like that always. I want you to come to Michigan with me.”

My heart trips. “What?”

“I don't want to be without you.”

I can't stay here without him, but go to Michigan? “I can't go to Michigan.”

“You haven't been accepted to Boston College yet, right?”

A twist in my core. “No.”

“Promise me you'll think about it then. You know, as a back-up plan or whatever. All I know is that the next four years will suck without you.”

Four years. It's a lifetime.

“We're good together, Zephyr. Maybe we shouldn't leave that behind.”

But I'd be leaving other stuff behind. “I've never even considered going to college anywhere else. I visited the campus when I was a freshman and it was like I knew I belonged there. That it was my future. Have you ever felt that way?” I don't tell him that shortly after Dad left, I toured the campus and had a panic attack walking into the library. How since then I haven't felt totally big enough, strong enough, to claim my future. Until I met Alec.

He flattens his hand over my heart. “That's kinda how I feel when I'm with you. Like, I don't know . . . like it's where I belong.”

“Yeah?”

A laugh tickles at his words. “I guess you could say you're my Boston College.”

“Careful. That's a bold statement.”

He smiles. “I know.”

Oh.

Alec moves on top of me, his body slicking with the precise grace of water.

His chest hovers over mine, our hearts building a staccato rhythm. And when he fills my mouth with his kiss, I want our heartbeats to sync. I want to forever be connected to this person. All at once he feels like my now, my future, my everything.

He unbuttons my coat and I wriggle free of it. He raises my shirt, his callouses skating across my flesh. He cups my breast and I arch closer to his touch, his warmth. He presses his kiss deeper into my mouth and I move my tongue against his.

He fumbles for the lip of his shirt and I tighten. Is this it?
The It?
I tense.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I don't know.”

He kisses me softly. “It's all going to be okay. I promise.”

The blanket slips to his waist as he draws his shirt over his head, lifts off his T-shirt. His torso flashes naked to the night, his flesh almost golden in the moonlight. “Man, it's cold!” A shiver shakes along the length of his body.

“I kind of like it,” I say, even as a bolt of cold convulses my spine.

“Do you? Hmm.” He disappears under the blanket and pulls off one of my boots, cradling my heel. Then, the other. He tosses my boots behind him with a playful gesture that helps cut through my anxieties.

Alec pulls off my socks and my toes wriggle. He massages the arches, and I'm shocked by how good it feels. Then he slides his hands along the length of my legs until he reaches my waist. He pops the button on my jeans with an impossibly smooth motion. My hand flies to my stomach.

“It's okay, Zephyr. We'll go as slow as you need.”

“You're sure?”

“Surer than sure.”

I lift my bottom and he slides off my jeans, abandoning them somewhere in the vicinity of my socks. The freezing December air rushes into our makeshift bed and shocks me with its intensity. I have never felt so alive. I wear my skin in a way that is truly mine for the first time. All because of Alec.

He undresses down to his boxer shorts. My breath quickens. His shoulders rise, a white crest against a dark wave. He crawls into our sleeping bag and folds me in his arms. He kisses my mouth, my neck, my jaw.

Then he stops. I hear the hollow snap of the elastic waist of his boxer shorts. “Would it be all right if I took these off? They can be quite cumbersome, you know.”

“Is that so?” A nervous laugh tickles the corners of my words.

“Seriously, Zephyr, it's your call. I don't want to do anything you're not comfortable with.”

He locks eyes with mine for moments that suspend time. I think we will freeze out here, that they'll find our frozen bodies in the spring thaw. But there is a current of heat, too. Just between us. Keeping us warm.

“It's okay.”

“Positive?”

I nod softly. The gesture is fear and want coiled into one rope of movement.

Alec maneuvers out of his boxers, freeing one hip, and the next. I catch glimpses of the cut of his chest, the column of his hips, the flesh of his thighs.

“Now you. Sit up.”

I do and Alec reaches around me to find the clasp of my bra. Alec watches me, his eyes steady and transfixed. Slowly, he twists the clasp and the fabric releases. I move to hold my bra in place.

“It's just us, Zephyr.”

I look around and he's right, there is no one else with us. Only something. This thing between us that might happen tonight. That we talked about happening tonight. It crowds the space between us, this huge thing. But it also promises to erase any space between us.