Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) (25 page)

No fingerprints. I thought back to Cruz’s gloves that cold night before my mother died.

Detective Stevenson got up to leave. “Tess, your mother was a very troubled woman. Depressed. She was taking serious drugs. Her coworkers and friends told me some doozy stories about her. She wasn’t meant to stay long in this world. It was only a matter of time, and her time was now. That doesn’t mean it’s your time, though. Do you understand that? You’ve only begun to live.”

I wiped my eyes. She patted my back and opened the door. “Have fun in Paris. I was there for a week back in college and had the time of my life.”

And I never saw her again. The police file on my mother’s death was closed, and she was free to be buried.

And I was free.

And Cruz was free.

“The school’s college advisor has been more than helpful,” the social worker continued in her office.

“Mrs. Landes,” I said. Mrs. Landes had provided all the paperwork, and the social worker and I had traveled to Los Angeles to get the student visa. She decided to make a day of it, and while we were there we visited the La Brea tar pits and Grauman’s Chinese Theater to put our feet in the stars’ footprints.

Just like tourists on vacation.

It was all so easy. Every step of “the process” was seamless. Despite that, I couldn’t drum up any excitement or enthusiasm.

“Yes, that’s her,” Diane said. “Mrs. Landes has locked down all the details on the Sorbonne. So that’s done. I wrote a promissory note for the remainder of your year’s tuition minus the scholarship. I’ll send the check as soon as everything’s paid off over here.”

“I owe nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing. Doesn’t that feel good? Your first year is locked and loaded, my dear. I spoke with the Bergers a couple of days ago, and your apartment is a go starting June first.”

Easy. Seamless. Everything was falling into place. My life was going exactly as I had always wanted. But at what cost?

My mother’s time had come and gone.

Dahlia was locked up in a hospital.

And Cruz?

That first night after it all happened I stared for an hour at his contact information, backlit on my cell phone. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to ask. I wanted to reverse time and freeze it. If only I could stay forever in his arms, lying like spoons.

Safe. Loved. Happy.

If only I never wanted to go to Paris and become a writer. If only Cruz hadn’t loved me. If only. Then, this wouldn’t be happening. I could be the hero again and not the villain.

He answered on the first ring.

“Are you okay? Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m in a foster home. They’re nice people. The bed is soft.”

There was a long silence, as we tried to figure out what way to take the conversation.

“Are you okay?” he asked, again.

“The foster family is nice. He’s a retired computer programmer, and she used to design shoes. She said she would make me a pair.”

“What happened? Why are you at a foster family?”

I cried silently, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “My mother died,” I said. “She was dead this morning. I saw her dead body. I touched her.”

My voice hitched. I put the phone down for a minute while I took a couple deep breaths.

“I’m sorry, Tess,” he said. “Where are you? I’ll come right over.”

“No,” I said, abruptly. “I’m going to sleep, and I don’t think the foster parents would like that.”

And I don’t think I can look at you right now, I wanted to add.
And I don’t think I can talk to you face to face. I don’t want you to lie to me. I want to keep on loving you.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up tomorrow after school,” he said, his voice low and comforting. “Are you going to school tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I have to go. I can’t talk anymore.”

“Let me see you,” he said. “Let me hold you.”

“They’re calling me. I have to go.” I hung up and wrapped my arms around my middle because suddenly I had grown very cold. But quickly, I dialed him back. He answered on the first ring, again.

“Tess,” he said.

“I love you,” I whispered and hung up.

I didn’t give him the chance to tell me that he loved me, too. I already knew he did. And loved me too much.

I also knew that he didn’t ask how my mother died.

“It’s the June first date we need to discuss,” Diane, the social worker continued in her office. She handed me a cookie, and I took a bite.

“That’s in four weeks, and I think we’ll be done by then,” she said. “I’m pretty organized when I have a fire under my butt.”

“Thank you for helping me,” I said.

“That’s my job, cutie pie. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this and need my services. But I have some good news, depending on how you look at it.”

I held my breath. “Depending on how you look at it” didn’t sound very promising.

“I’ve been talking with Mrs. Landes, and we figure you might not be all fired up about your graduation ceremony,” she said.

I wasn’t. I would be a party of one while everyone else would be swamped with friends and family.

“I was hoping to skip it, actually,” I said.

“That’s what we figured. It’s not a big deal, anyway. Too many speeches and a used cap and gown. Blech, right?”

“Um, right.”

“So, you’re going to skip it because you won’t be able to attend since you will already be in France.”

“I will?”

“Yes, we’ve arranged with your teachers for you to take your finals two weeks early. You can graduate and be on the plane June first. No ceremony. How ‘bout them apples?”

***

Them apples were perfect. My life was a neat package tied with a pretty bow. What I had always wanted had come to pass and in spades.

That’s what I kept telling myself at my mother’s funeral, trying to convince myself that my life was going as planned. It was a gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky, seventy-five degrees with a light wind blowing. The scent of orange blossoms and honeysuckle wafted through the cemetery. It was my first trip to a cemetery, and I was surprised at how nice it was. Peaceful.

A small gathering had come to pay their last respects or to keep me company. My mom’s boss was there along with some of her coworkers. I recognized a few that had been in my house several times, drunk and partying. None of her boyfriends showed up, however, and I was sure she was pissed about that, wherever she was.

Diane the social worker, my foster parents, and Mrs. Maclaren showed up, however. They hovered over me like mother hens, making me squirm. Mrs. Maclaren seemed to be the most upset about my mother’s death out of everyone.

When I told her about my mother’s death, she had insisted that I come live with her. She said she would take care of me just like her own children. Even though I was touched at the offer, I thought she already had her hands full with the triplets. Besides, she wasn’t an official foster family, and they wouldn’t let me stay with her.

“I’m so sorry,” she blubbered at the funeral, hugging the air out of me. “This is a terrible, terrible tragedy.”

“But she’s going to be fine,” the social worker interrupted in her brightest Mary Poppins voice. “She’s going to live and study in Paris. Her whole life is ahead of her, and it’s going to be spectacular.”

“Spectacular,” I repeated with my biggest smile. It was the smile I kept using since my mother died to show that I was okay. It worked pretty well. I had almost convinced myself with it.

“Just remember to be precocious,” Diane said. “Be precocious and the world is your oyster.”

I nodded and kept smiling.

Then I saw him.

Standing just beyond our little crowd, dressed in a fitted black suit, his focus entirely on me. Cruz.

“Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.”

--Emily Dickinson

I walked slowly toward him. For the first time in weeks, my heart felt lighter. The trauma and upheaval that I had experienced washed away, unburdened merely by Cruz’s presence. Our eyes locked and never wavered. I could read so much in his eyes, and I knew right then and there that even if I were the villain of my story, he would always be the hero.

No matter what he had done.

We connected without saying a word, our arms wrapped around each other in a silent embrace. My head rested on his chest, and I listened to his heartbeat to a regular rhythm, as if everything was all right with the world. As if life goes on.

“I want to leave. Will you take me?” I asked him.

“Should we okay it with them first?”

They let me go and even seemed relieved that I would be occupied for the day. Cruz’s car choked and sputtered but finally started. We clack clacked to the beach, where we threw off our shoes and laid in the warm sand, facing each other.

He caressed my face, tracing a path from my forehead, around my eyes, down to my lips. “Beautiful Tess,” he said.

“I—“ I started but closed my mouth.

“What is it?”

“I’m so happy to see you,” I said.

“Happy enough to smile?”

“No.”

“Ah,” he said, looking sad.

I kissed him lightly, and he returned the kiss, pulling me against him. His mouth was warm and sweet, full of love and caring. My body sprouted goose bumps. My insides melted. I longed for him even though I was already in his arms.

Would it always be like that, I wondered. Always the desperate need? The sense of belonging? I only wanted to be with him and nobody else. I made sense in his arms. Without him, I was only half, and maybe not even that much.

We kissed tenderly, the soft flesh of our lips caressing and exploring until we were so overwhelmed with emotion that we broke our connection, like a balloon untied and allowed to deflate in the wind.

I laid my head on his chest, and he rested his arms on my back. The rhythmic sound of the waves kept time with his heartbeats, as if the world decided to be in sync with us. As if everything was as it should be.

“I’m going to Paris June first,” I said. “It’s all set. I got into the school, and it’s even paid for. I have ticket, a visa, and a place to stay.”

“That’s great, Tess. I’m so happy for you.”

“Happy enough to smile?” I asked.

“No.”

“Come with me.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can,” I insisted. “Lots of models go to Paris.”

He began to rub my back in little circles. “I’m just starting out,” he said. “I don’t have any work there. Besides, this is your adventure.”

“I don’t want an adventure. Emily Dickinson didn’t have an adventure, and she turned out just fine.”

“You’re much more than Emily Dickinson, Tess. Emily Dickinson eats your dust.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You’ve just forgotten what your dreams are, but you’ll remember again. Anyway, there’s another reason I can’t go to France. Eric came through for me, and I got a modeling contract in Japan. I’m leaving, too.”

My heart sank into my stomach. I sat up straight and tried to breathe.

“That’s wonderful,” I said.

Cruz laughed. “Sure, that was convincing. You want to say that again with a little more feeling?”

“No, I really am happy for you. It’s just that Japan is far away.”

“We’ll both have adventures and report back and then in a year we can be together again,” he said like a question.

“Of course we will,” I said. “A year isn’t so long.”

Not so long? It was longer than long. It was eternity long. It might as well have been a hundred years. Would he want to see me again after all that time? Would I ever be in his arms, again?

“A year isn’t so long,” he repeated, as if he was trying to convince himself. “Deal?”

I nodded.

The sun began to set, and Cruz walked me to his car. Sitting next to him with his eyes on the road, I finally gathered enough courage to ask him what I needed to know.

“What time did you get up the last morning we were together?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe five. Why?”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m stealth, baby,” he said. “Like the wind.”

He drove down the street toward the freeway onramp. The clacking was louder than ever. Drivers in the other cars shot nervous looks our way, worried probably that the free car was going to blow up or catch on fire.

“Did my mom hear you?”

“No.”

“Did you have coffee before you left?” I asked.

He merged into traffic going south and didn’t answer right away or for five minutes after.

“I don’t drink coffee, Tess. You know that.”

I did know that. He was a water drinker for the most part.

“My mother had coffee that morning,” I said.

“What are you trying to say?”

I turned to look at him. His jaw was clenched tight, and his hands gripped onto the steering wheel like he was afraid it would fly away.

“I—“ I started, but he cut me off.

“Don’t think what you’re thinking,” he said. “Don’t ask what you’re asking. You’ll break my heart and yours as well.”

It wasn’t any kind of an answer, but I didn’t want to break his heart or mine, either. Mine was broken enough.

***

We were inseparable for the next two weeks. He picked me up every day at school and watched me do homework at the library or at Starbucks. He would be patient for a while but inevitably, he would play footsie with me under the table or caress my arm, which sent shock waves of happiness coursing through my veins and threw my focus completely off of school.

“My smart girlfriend,” he said one afternoon. “Slumming with the high school dropout.”

“Say girlfriend again.”

“Girlfriend,” he repeated. His eyes grew big and blacker than night. I flushed hot, and my stomach did flip-flops.

“Boyfriend,” I said, experimenting with the word, letting it play on my lips.

We ate dinner together every evening and spent every last second in each other’s company until my nine o’clock curfew. We talked about everything except one, and he tried to make it okay that we wouldn’t see each other for a year.

I tried to remember every detail and memorize every square inch of him. I wrote endlessly about him in my notebooks, and he insisted that we take a hundred photos for us to keep during his travels.