Forever Innocent Read online

  My head hit the floor.

  The cold of the concrete against my cheek started bringing me back. The room returned in degrees, first dark, then lighter, then slowly gaining color and sound. I sat on the floor, my back against a wire rack of mugs. Stupid. I shouldn’t have done this here. I could have brought down a whole pile of dishes and lost an entire paycheck.

  Or someone could have found me and seen just how crazy I could be.

  I heaved myself up and headed to the sink. The water splashing on my face and neck helped me relax and regain control. I didn’t know any other way to cope.

  I didn’t have to accept or reject that boy out there. I was going to be fine.

  When I walked back out, another customer, a girl, was in line behind the boy. I couldn’t believe he was still standing there.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Did you need something?”

  He looked confused and anxious. “I just — you seemed —” He stopped talking and stepped to the side so the girl could come up.

  “I need another mocha latte,” she said, casting a quick glance at the boy.

  “No problem,” I said and whirled away. The moment was gone. The boy would move on. I would never look at another one again, not until I knew I could handle it, whenever that might be.

  When I turned around, the girl was pulling out one of those digital cigarettes. “We don’t allow those inside,” I said and pushed her latte across the counter.

  “It’s not a real cigarette.”

  “I know, but still, we ask you to take those things on the patio.”

  The girl frowned. “I know my rights. There is no ban on these right now.”

  This was making my day even better. I took in a deep breath, still feeling the constriction in my chest from my episode. “I don’t make the rules. I just get fired if I don’t enforce them.”

  She dropped a five on the counter and picked up her latte. “So kick me out.” Her heavy footfalls on the hardwood floor echoed through the room as she stomped back to her table to make a big show of lifting the e-cig to her lips.

  I couldn’t bear to look at the boy, who was still standing by the counter. This was humiliating, plus a problem. Martin wouldn’t really fire me, but he’d be upset. We kept asking him to put up a sign about the e-cigs, but so far he hadn’t done it.

  “Hey.” The boy’s expression was full of sympathy. “If you could use a break from all this later, this is me.” He pushed a napkin toward me. “It’ll go straight to my phone.”

  The napkin stuck to my damp hand. Austin Thompson. OneQuirkyDude44 was his e-mail handle, which struck me as funny.

  “Made you smile.” He tapped the counter twice and turned back to his table.

  Jason burst through the back door, his dreadlocks flying behind him. “So freaking sorry. Traffic was a bugger.”

  I folded up the napkin and stuck it in my apron pocket. “It’s fine. Only two people here.”

  He caught me tucking the note away, but had the sense not to say anything about it. Instead, he pushed an errant hunk of hair out of his face. “Old Man Martin is going to sock it to me if I’m late anymore.”

  “He won’t hear it from me,” I said.

  “You cool with me saying I was here on time?” He reached around me for an apron below the counter, but I saw him glance at my pocket, as if he was dying to ask about the folded napkin.

  I stepped out of his way. “Sure. No point getting fired.”

  “That’s why everyone likes you.” His fingers flew as he tied the strings. “Even if you are a Frozen Latte.”

  I winced at the nickname and glanced over at Austin, hoping he hadn’t heard.

  But Jason caught me looking. “Awwww! Is the ice queen thawing out?” He looked at the pocket yet again.

  I backed away toward the door to the storage room. “I have to do the setups.”

  “We’ll be calling you Hot Pumpkin Spice before it’s over!” he called after me.

  Austin was bound to have heard that. I bolted to my sanctuary and set to grinding the beans that would get us through the evening rush, wishing I could remain invisible forever.

  Chapter 8: Gavin

  A pair of giggling girls moved aside as I took the steps several at a time from the top floor of the building to the roof exit. My boots on the concrete made a sharp echo, like striking metal.

  A rock propped the door open a few inches. I yanked it wide and the gravelly tarred rooftop seemed to absorb all light. I waited a moment to adjust, my eyes automatically moving to the edges where the city twinkled beyond a gleaming white ledge, and the blackness of the ocean was like the end of everything, like night itself.

  Amy, the girl TA I talked to that morning when I switched labs, was lit like a statue by a heavy-duty floor light identical to the ones we used in the shop. “Gavin, right?” she asked. Her face blushed a little as she handed me a popsicle stick. “This will be your cross-staff for the lab.”

  I held the little piece of wood between my thumb and finger, flipping it over. Not what I expected. “Rudimentary, my dear Amy.”

  She laughed and her face burned even more red. Wisps of blond hair stuck to her cheeks as she reached down into her bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. Her skin was ghostly in the searing light, her legs blown out. She was cute, in a nerdy sort of way, the complete opposite of my type.

  “Here are the instructions. You’ll have to calibrate your stick and map out the Big Dipper using it as a measuring device.” She passed me the page. “The calibration chart is around the corner past the door. The degrees on your stick will depend on the length of your arm, so you won’t have the same length as other students.”

  “Thanks.” I started to walk away.

  “Hey, Gavin?”

  I turned back around.

  “If you need something, I’m glad to help.” She stared at the paper in my hands. Shy girls. I couldn’t work with them. They seemed so easy to break. I felt heavy with the weight of their expectations, and I knew one misstep could crush their hopes. That was something I was damn good at.

  She looked up, cheeks on fire, and I realized why she was so willing to switch me even though it meant more work for her. Good old-fashioned boy crush. “I appreciate you letting me in your group,” I said.

  Amy nodded. “Sure.”

  A few other lamps had been set up along the roof, the cords snaking every direction. I angled my page toward a light. Draw lines on the stick, yada yada. Calibrate with the wall chart. I glanced at the poster tacked on the wall, where several freshman-looking types were aiming their sticks. Got it.

  I dug around in my bag for a marker to divide up the stick. Making a straight line while free-holding something that small would be impossible, so I walked over to the lip of the roof to sit and hold it steady.

  The building was one of the dorms on the extreme west side of campus. The city spread out in a twinkle of lights, the roadways like ribbons threading through. All of it was bordered by the black of the Pacific, as though it were a monster bumping up against the edge of civilization.

  My stick was barely visible, so I dug a tiny key-chain flashlight from my bag. I held it between my teeth as I drew a line lengthwise on the stick. Passable, but I felt I could do better with a straightedge, so I flipped the stick over to use the cardboard cover of a notebook to try it a second time.

  That’s when I heard her voice.

  Corabelle stood in the cone of light that shot up next to Amy. She looked like an angel, lit up from below, and her dark hair was bright to the tips.

  Holy hell. Why was she here tonight? I had switched to avoid her, to help her out.

  Then I realized with a sickening sensation — so had she.

  I knew she couldn’t see too far past all that light. I could watch her a moment, so sad looking, so serious. Even doing something as ordinary as accepting a piece of paper, she looked tragic, like a fragile, beautiful doll.

  Despite all my work to drive that need o
f her out of me, it roared back with an ache so powerful that for a second, I really thought it might be easier to swing my legs over the ledge and jump. I couldn’t have Corabelle, not anymore, and if I thought for a minute I ought to try, I had to remember all the things she’d eventually find out. I was simply setting myself up to lose her again.

  She stepped out of the light and I was torn between focusing on my task or letting her see that I was watching.

  But then it was too late, and she looked straight at me. Her mouth fell open in an astonished “o.”

  I left my stuff on the ledge and hurried over to her. “I switched groups.”

  She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from me, so I kept talking. “When I saw you were still in the class, I thought it would help.”

  She closed her mouth finally and gripped her assignment so hard that it crumpled. I took it from her and straightened it against the leg of my jeans.

  When I handed it back, she said, “I did the same thing.”

  “I’ll talk to Amy,” I said. “I’ll switch back.”

  Corabelle’s jaw clenched, and I had to resist the urge to run my finger under her chin, like I always had when she was upset.

  “It’s going to be fine. I’ll be fine.” She spun away from me and headed toward the calibration chart.

  Bloody hell. Life seemed to be throwing us at each other. Hadn’t it done enough already?

  Chapter 9: Corabelle

  My hands were shaking so hard that there was no way I could draw a line on a stupid popsicle stick.

  Gavin was somewhere behind me. I didn’t believe anymore that I’d be able to shake him. Whatever whim of fate or karma that blasted us apart four years ago apparently felt we should not be separated now. I didn’t know how to fight it.

  The feeling I might hyperventilate came over me again, but instead of feeding it, I fought it. Not here, not now. I had to stay in control.

  But just looking at Gavin took me back to the days before we were so damaged, when we had no clue that anything could go wrong. We were a family in progress, and our future spread out before us like the stars. I thought we’d be that happy and innocent forever, and that nothing would ever come between us.

  I passed the calibration chart and sank down on the roof next to one of the lights, where a couple other girls were reading over the lab instructions.

  If I sat just so, Gavin was visible from the corner of my eye. He looked so lean, so strong, and his thighs filled out those jeans like they never had before. I wondered about the rest of him, how he might have changed, and the image of his face over mine, his body propped on his arms, made all the chilly parts of me grow hot. Everything I held tightly inside, my desire to be held close, to lose myself, began to unfurl.

  For just a moment, I let myself remember how happy I’d once been. I hadn’t basked in those memories for a long time, not since New Mexico and the disaster there, when I discovered a shocking side of myself, how in a split second despair could turn to violence.

  I set my backpack down on the roof and pretended to read the assignment, although Gavin was still in my field of vision. I didn’t want to think of the bad things, just the good ones.

  When Finn was just born, literally the first few minutes, I felt completely and utterly blessed. Labor hadn’t been anything like the horror stories everyone had been teasing me with. Sure, the baby was pretty early at 32 weeks, and small. But he was plenty old enough. Babies that age survived all the time.

  His little lungs managed just fine at first, and even though they had placed him in an isolette with his eyes covered and monitors on his tiny body, no one seemed overly alarmed.

  Gavin sat on the edge of the bed, holding my hand. “He’s beautiful. He’s perfect.”

  They wheeled him down to NICU and I remembered sinking back on the pillow, exhausted, but there was no reason to worry. The last happy memory, possibly my very last happy memory, was Gavin leaning down and pressing his lips into my hair and whispering, “You are so amazing.”

  Up on the roof, I couldn’t help it, but I turned so I could see him clearly. He was hunched over his popsicle stick, a shadow against the bright lights of the city. Emotion welled up, and for a moment I thought, he can just look up, and I can smile at him, and it can be like it always was.

  But then he frowned, struggling to line up the cover of a notebook on his popsicle stick, his eyebrows drawing together. His expression reminded me of how he acted during the funeral, agitated and bitter, getting up before the minister said, “Amen.” He stormed down the aisle, shrugging the too-large jacket off his shoulders and dropping it to the floor.

  Nothing good could stay pure, not even a memory.

  I forced myself to look back at my instructions. This was why I didn’t want to have class with him. It would take so much mental energy to manage with him so near.

  The girls by the light leaned their heads together.

  “Amy is totally losing it over that guy,” one said to the other.

  “Out of her league,” the other said.

  “Sort of sad how she keeps staring at him.”

  “I’d stare at him.”

  I didn’t want to pay any attention to their gossip, but still, it was a distraction from my thoughts. I looked over at the TA. She was trying not to be obvious, but every six seconds she glanced over her shoulder at the ledge. I followed her gaze. Good Lord. She was obsessing over Gavin.

  I turned back to my page. Draw a line. Do your assignment. Get your degree. Get the hell out.

  I unzipped my bag and fished around for a ruler.

  The two girls headed for the wall chart, and damn it, I sneaked another peek at Gavin. He was strung out. I could tell by the way his chin jutted forward. He kept setting and resetting the cardboard on the tiny stick, trying to keep it straight. His frustration was growing, and he was going to explode any minute.

  Too bad. I aligned the ruler with my stick and drew a thin solid line. Next, I measured out the five sections and ticked off the centimeters. I would not look. I would finish this. Go home. Forget.

  I stood up and headed to the wall chart to calibrate the cross-staff. I held out the stick and determined the degrees that corresponded to the lines I’d drawn. Now to map out the Big Dipper and I could go.

  I turned around, and God, I couldn’t help it, but my gaze went back to him. Gavin was still sitting there, elbow on his knee, chin in his hand. He looked at his popsicle stick again and suddenly it was winging its way out into the night sky.

  Amy apparently saw it as well, as she walked over to him and handed him another stick. “Need help?” she asked.

  He shook his head, but the TA persisted, standing close. Too close.

  I yanked the ruler from my bag. I was going to do something stupid. I closed the gap and held out the ruler. “You never did have the right school supplies.”

  Gavin swallowed, his Adam’s apple starting high, then bobbing down. “You always were there with your organized binders and perfectly sharpened pencils.” His eyes didn’t seem so blue in the dark, and his lips were quirked in that little lopsided smile I teased him about when we were small, but not so much later, when kissing it became my primary obsession.

  Amy set the new stick on the ledge and backed away. I should leave this alone, let her have him. Anyone had to be better for him than me.

  He accepted the ruler and laid it on the stick. I picked up his little flashlight and held it for him. The new line halved the piece of wood neatly, and he quickly marked off the five segments. When he was done, he returned the ruler. “Thanks.”

  I held the plastic, still warm from his hands. I didn’t know what to do or say, so as he moved toward the wall chart, I followed, like a groupie dying for any acknowledgment from the rock star she obsessed over.

  He held out the stick and closed one eye. His arm really wasn’t too high, but still, I reached out and lowered it to the optimum level for calibration, my hand burning where it connected with his skin. He suck
ed in a breath and I knew he felt it too. How could he not, with all our history?

  “Did you make your map yet?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Without the least hesitation, he took my hand and led me to my backpack, scooping it up, then around the rooftop to the far corner. No lights were hooked up there, so it was quiet and dark. “Lie here with me,” he said and set his backpack on the ground. He squeezed my fingers as he let go, and I wished we had walked some great distance, just to feel his hand on mine a little longer.

  I laid my pack next to his and we stretched out on the bumpy surface, staring up at the stars.

  “So how long have we both lived in the same city and not known it?” he asked.

  “I got here a year ago.”

  “A year.”

  I couldn’t believe he was here the whole time. “It’s a big city, I guess.”

  “Doesn’t seem big now. Do you work?”

  “Yeah. At a coffee shop on Broadway. You?”

  He shifted next to me. “At a garage. Changing oil. Easy stuff.”

  “Not what we planned, is it?”

  “Hardly.”

  A breeze kicked up and our papers fluttered. I pressed down to keep them from flying away. “I guess we should do the lab.”

  He pointed to the sky. “There’s the Big Dipper.”

  “We should measure it,” I said, but neither of us made any move to fill out our worksheet.

  This was so easy, lying next to him, just being.

  “Did we ever do any stargazing when we were kids?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Should’ve.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not like we were in some metropolis.”

  “Nope. I remember the stars.” I shifted on the rough roof, the bits of asphalt biting into my shoulders. Still, I swear it was the happiest I’d been in a long time. Stupid. Ridiculous. But true. I tried to think of Austin passing the note across to me at the coffee shop, but he was nothing, just no contest compared to all the emotions that surfaced with Gavin.