Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) (20 page)

Dingy.

Neglected.

We were the only ones in the shop, and the fluorescent lights made us look dingier too, or maybe that’s just how we were: Neglected, torn, and uneven.

“Here,” Cruz said and rubbed my cheek with a napkin. Gently, he wiped away the layers of makeup that Dana smeared on in an effort to make me fit in. He used napkin after napkin to get down to my face. “I’ve been wanting to do that since you walked downstairs looking like that. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Dana wanted to make me look glamorous.”

“Dana wanted to make you look like her.”

“Isn’t that glamorous?”

“No, I like your face. I love your face.”

Cruz’s eyes filled with tears.

The lights crackled and pinged and revealed so much.

“I—“ I started and then was quiet. My hand was on the table, and Cruz put his over mine. He caressed my palm with his thumb, and goose bumps sprouted all over my body. We stared at our hands, mine open for him, his holding mine, his thumb circling, circling the soft flesh.

We didn’t look at each other. At least for me, I knew I couldn’t look at him. The small connection from our hands had spread through my body, and I was sure he would be able to read everything in my face.

“Let’s get out of here,” Cruz said, his voice husky and deep. He stood up without letting go of my hand and walked me out to the car. He unlocked my door and nudged me until my back was against the car door and he was pressed up against me.

I stopped breathing. I stared at his chest, still unable to look him in the eye. He emanated heat in the cool night air, turning my insides into jelly. He kissed the top of my head.

“How are your feet?” he asked, his voice still an octave lower than normal.

“Better now that I’m barefoot.” I had forgotten about my feet. Forgot I even had feet. I wasn’t thinking clearly. The buzzing in my body was back, and it was very loud.

Cruz slipped his arms around my waist. I managed to look up at him, and our eyes locked. His were as big as saucers, wide open and curious, his focus squarely on me.

“I’ve never met a girl like you before.”

That could have meant all kinds of things so I didn’t ask him to elaborate.

“You’re so smart, and funny, and beautiful.”

I looked behind me.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I was just wondering who you were talking to.”

“Very funny.”

“I’m dizzy again.”

“Me, too.” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to Paris. You have a great life ahead of you.”

“You do, too.”

“No, not like you. I can’t give you what you can give yourself.”

“I’m not asking anything from you, Cruz,” I said. But I wanted to ask everything from him. Somehow, I found courage or perhaps I just went crazy, because I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him lightly on his lips. He flinched, as if he was shocked. But his shock didn’t last. He returned my kiss like a starving man faced with a meal.

We kissed for a long time, our bodies pressed together, transported to another place where everything was happy, where there weren’t problems, and I wasn’t standing in the donut shop parking lot with bleeding bare feet.

I was blissful, wrapped in physical and emotional ecstasy, but terrible thoughts ran through my head. Thoughts that this wasn’t real, that I didn’t deserve it, that it wouldn’t last.

I stepped back, breaking the kiss. Cruz was breathing hard, his face flushed with color and the unmistakable proof of his arousal.

“Take me home,” I said.

We rode in silence. I ran my hand over my face to make sure I was still there and hadn’t disappeared in a puff of desire.

We entered the dark house, and I waited in the entranceway while Cruz closed the front door behind us. As the door clicked closed, he took me into his arms and kissed me hard, his hands traveling down my back.

I was blind with wanting him. His hands were everywhere, fueling the fire. He kissed a trail down my neck and nuzzled my ear. I moaned. My hands had a mind of their own, slipping under his shirt and touching his hard chest.

He took my hand and walked me into the living room to the couch. He stripped off his shirt and kicked off his shoes. He was beautiful. Perfect.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why would you want to be with me?”

He blinked. “You’re my dream, Tess. My fantasy. I never thought you would be interested in me. You’re out of my league. Don’t you see that?”

“Are you crazy?”

He laughed. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. I could die in your eyes.”

Slowly, he unzipped my dress and pulled it over my head. I was embarrassed to have him see me in only my bra and panties, and I crossed my arms over my chest. He put his arms around me and hugged me.

“My beautiful Emily,” he whispered in my ear.

I shivered. He laid me down on the couch, took off his pants, and lay on his side next to me. He caressed my arm and touched my breast.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. He kissed me again, his fingers traveling down to my panties. I turned to liquid heat, my fear and embarrassment completely gone.

Cruz locked eyes with me and never wavered. There in his arms, our bodies touching, I understood everything. Nothing needed to be said. But Cruz said it, anyway.

“I love you, Tess.”

After we kissed for a long time on the couch, we went upstairs and spent most of the rest of the night in my bed kissing, talking, and holding each other. In each other’s arms, we were finally safe. Holding each other, we were far away from bills and shutoff notices, from sick friends and corrupt police.

“That first day when I met you, I was almost too shy to talk to you,” Cruz said.

***

“No you weren’t.”

“I swear. I had never met anybody like you before.”

“You make me sound like a freak.”

“Yeah. A beautiful freak. That’s my type. Didn’t you know that?”

I punched him in the arm. “I thought your type was models. You’ve been involved with a lot of them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re the Taylor Swift of aspiring models.”

“You mean award winning?”

“I mean you’ve dated everyone in Southern California.”

Cruz tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I tried to get you out of my system.”

“And the fight in the kitchen? Were you trying to get me out of your system then?” The memory of his rejection still hurt.

“You must follow your dreams, Tess. You have to make it to Paris. You’re going to do great things. I don’t want to hold you back. Do you understand?”

I didn’t understand anything. Cruz yawned and covered us with the blanket. He held me in his arms, and his breathing slowed.

“You could go with me,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. He was already asleep.

I fell asleep, too, but I was awoken three hours later.

“What the hell is going on here!”

I jumped out of bed, as if my alarm had gone off full blast. But it wasn’t my alarm.

“Mom,” I said. “You’re back.”

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”

--Emily Dickinson

I stood in my room wearing only my bra and panties with my mouth wide open in surprise. Cruz was in my bed, sitting up ramrod straight, his six-pack on display along with a look of pure shock.

Shock. Surprise. Understatements of the year.

I would have been less surprised if Bigfoot had walked in the room. Or Prince Harry. Or a giant potato.

I had never thought I would see my mother again. I thought she had found a new life in Mexico with The Boyfriend. I had gotten used to the idea that I was on my own, got used to the day-to-day habit of survival.

And more than survival. There was Cruz. He had become part of my life. He was the living part and the survival part. He was the compass to keep me on track toward my dream.

My reality had changed. It was a non-mom reality.

But now my mother was standing in the doorway wearing white capris and a tank top. She looked tan and furious, and she had died her hair red.

“Isn’t this cozy? Playing house? So this is what you’ve been up to!” she yelled.

“It’s not what you think,” I wailed, standing in my underwear.

“I leave you alone for a minute, and you hop into bed with the closest boy? In my house? How dare you!”

My mother was good at being angry. She did it better than anybody I knew. She was the Genghis Khan of motherhood, but I had never seen her quite as angry as she was that day when she finally returned home and found me in bed with Cruz.

“I thought I raised you better than to whore around town,” she screeched.

Ironic, right? Was she going for the gold medal in hypocrisy?

“Hold up,” Cruz said. “You abandoned her without any money for months, and now you waltz back in here and start screaming about her behavior?”

My mother marched into the room and wagged her finger in his face. “Listen punk, she’s underage. So, unless you want me to call the cops you’ll shut up.”

“Nothing happened,” I said. “He didn’t do anything.”

She looked me up and down, and I blushed. Humiliated. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and quickly got dressed.

“You, get out!” she yelled at Cruz. “You’re not welcome here. I want you out of my house.”

He shot me a look, trying to communicate something.

“Don’t look at her,” my mom yelled. “You’re done with her. Do you hear me? I’ll call the cops and have your ass in jail so fast your head will spin.”

“Is my father downstairs?” he asked. I could tell he was trying to hold his temper. He gripped fistfuls of the sheet, and his body shook.

“I don’t know where you father is. I got rid of him. He was a supreme waste of my time.”

So that’s why she finally came back, I thought. The Boyfriend dumped her or she ran out of money.

“Are you planning on staying?” Cruz asked her.

“I don’t answer to you. You’re a loser like your father. Get the hell out of my house, or I’ll make sure you spend twenty years in prison for statutory rape. Don’t tempt me. I’m pissed at your family.”

Cruz left the room, and I ran after him, sidestepping my mother. I caught up to him in his room and closed the door behind us.

“Don’t go,” I said.

“You heard her. I have to.”

“She’s full of it. She’s probably just going to get the rest of her things and head back to Mexico.”

But I knew that wasn’t true. My mother had come back home for good. She had the stink of being dumped all over her—dumped by Cruz’s father–and she would call the police on Cruz without thinking twice about it.

“She’s here to stay,” Cruz said. “And I need to get out of here before I cause trouble for you.”

“Let me come with you.”

“No. You’re going to stay here and get your scholarship, graduate, and go to Paris. You can make this happen.”

He got dressed and threw his clothes into a duffel bag.

“I can’t do it without you,” I said, my voice choking with emotion. “I need you with me. Please don’t go. Please.”

Cruz clutched my shoulders. “I won’t be far. I’ll stay at Eric’s. I’ll check in. I promise.”

“But—“

“Nothing’s changed, Tess. Nothing. Do you understand me?”

I didn’t understand. From where I was standing, it looked like everything had changed. Cruz was leaving. Out of my life. This was a reality I couldn’t face, couldn’t live through.  The pain was too great. It was like having a leg severed without anesthesia. No, it was worse. Every bit of happiness and hope was being sucked out of my life. A punishment, it seemed, for breathing. And loving.

He stared into my eyes, and my tears began to flow.

“Beautiful, Tess.”

He kissed me tenderly, a feather light kiss that sent shivers up and down my body. I didn’t want it to stop, but it only lasted a moment. He pulled away, and I watched him pack his bag. A minute later, he moved on to the bathroom to pack up his shampoo and soap. “Everything’s going to change,” I said. “Everything.”

He swung his duffel bag over his shoulder and held my hand as he went downstairs. At the door, he took me in his arms, hugging me as if it was our final goodbye. “Nothing’s changed,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll be in touch.”

Then, he left. I heard his car start on the second try and clack clacked down the street.

It was like a death. Like an irretrievable loss. My heart was crushed under the weight of it.

The house was quiet. Changed. One minute it was Cruz’s and my refuge against a scary world, and in the next minute it was altered, a prison under the wardenship of my cruel mother.

“Where the hell is my TV!” she shouted from upstairs.

Selling the televisions was only the beginning of a long list of the things I had done wrong in her absence. She didn’t offer an explanation about why she came back. She didn’t offer an apology for leaving me and stealing my money. But she did offer a boatload of criticisms regarding Cruz, the house, and my party dress, which she found in a crumpled ball on the couch.

“What the hell went on here while I was gone?” she demanded, holding up my dress.

“Nothing! Nothing happened,” I said. Nothing the way she thought.

No slide into home.

No condom needed.

White wedding dress all the way.

We had kissed and touched and held each other. Drunk with passion, overwhelmed with love, I would have gone to any length to prove my devotion to him and to please him in whatever way I could. But he didn’t push me to go further than I was ready to go.

Content to lie in each other’s arms, the night sealed our feelings and our commitment. At least I thought it did, but now he was gone, and I didn’t know when I would see him again.

“Bullshit nothing happened,” my mother said, tossing my dress in the corner. “Look at this place. Look at this dump.”

I looked around. Besides our dirty clothes on the couch, the house was clean. But it was better not to argue with my mother. I had seventeen years of experience dealing with her, and it was always better to duck and weave instead of hitting her straight on.