The Next Forever (8 page)

Was this what my asking her to move in had pushed her to?

“I’m sorry,” I said. Sure, she was out with another guy, but I had lied to her. I had my reasons, but it was still a lie.

“For which part?” she asked, kicking at the ground with her shoe.

I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting her to apologize, too, but she was right, not only had I lied but I was out with another girl. I knew she was mostly upset about the lying part. When it came to Amy, lying was a deal breaker. There was a guy before me who’d lied to her, who’d used her. Who’d made her scared to believe that anyone could genuinely like her again. It had taken me a long time to convince her I did.

“For lying,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, “not about the naked girl wearing your shirt?”

“With my shirt on she wasn’t naked,” I said, turning to her and trying to wrap her up in my smile.

She didn’t smile back.

“Sorry about that, too,” I said, “but she had no clothes.”

“And it’s your job to make sure she got some?” Amy asked.

“Would you rather she was walking next to me naked?” I asked.

“Why was she walking next to you at all?” Amy pulled back from me, her gray eyes floating over my face.

“What are we even fighting about?” I asked. “You were out with some guy.”

“Are we fighting?” she asked.

All I wanted to do was kiss her. Pick her up and carry her away. Go back to the dining hall and take back what I’d asked her. It was obvious I’d scared her and the worst part was, I’d asked for a totally selfish reason, because I was afraid I would lose her when she found out the truth.

It was looking like I might lose her anyway.

“I don’t know. You’re mad, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I don’t think I really have a right to be mad,” she said, “but I am.”

I looked down. “You’d probably be madder if you knew where I was.”

“My guess was a strip club.”

“No, I was rushing a frat,” I said.

“Joe, you don’t need all that crap,” she said.

“Maybe you don’t, but I do. Your parents pay your full tuition. Mine is paid with loans and scholarships. I do need that crap. Maybe not the crap it means I need to put up with now, but I need it for the future.”

“So how will you afford it?” she asked.

“They have scholarships, too,” I said, knowing she was only asking because she knew how tight money really was for me.

“So you’re going to get a scholarship to go get drunk with meatheads?” she asked, but I could hear a smile forming below the question

“Yeah,” I admitted, thinking about the guys I’d met on the porch. “I guess I am.”

“I understand,” she said, her eyes focusing on the cars parked across the street, which let me know she meant it. Amy got freaked out from getting close, from being close, from talking about serious things.

“I appreciate that,” I said, “but it doesn’t change what happened tonight, to either of us.”

“I know,” she said. “What did happen?”

I could tell she was asking something else. She wasn’t asking what happened, she was asking if
anything
happened.

“Nothing,” I said defensively. “You?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“Did you want something to happen?” I asked, even though I didn’t really want to know the answer, but if I was going to find out, now was the time. When my shirt was off and she had the chance to say no to me forever.

“Did you?” she responded.

“Other than wanting to get picked up by that frat? No. Emily was just there.”

“Great, I can’t wait for you to go to lots more frat parties.”

“You could join a sorority,” I said.

“You could go to hell,” she said.

“Amy,” I said, looking at her.

“Joe,” she said back.

“I feel like we can do this, have a life together
and
our own lives. But I think we need to try to keep the lying to a minimum.”

“The naked girls, too,” she said.

“The smoking assholes, too,” I said.

“The shirtless walks, too.” She laughed. Then stopped and looked at me. “I’m sorry, Joe. I just feel like maybe I’ve never really done what I wanted to do. Basically…” She sighed. “I went from Lila and Cassie to you.”

“I am nothing like Lila and Cassie,” I said.

“No, but I’m doing the same thing, finding my worth in someone else’s eyes. I guess I was just making sure that for once you were my decision.”

“And?”

She waited a beat, pulled the bun out of her hair, and knotted it back up. She turned to me, her eyes so big, so beautiful. “You were always my decision. You will always be my decision.”

I pulled her to me and kissed her, her lips so soft they made me tremble.

“Okay, now that that’s settled,” I said, kneeling down in front of her. “Amy, will you not move in with me?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing. “I would love to not move in with you.”

“I’m the luckiest man in the world!” I fake-yelled.

Her head fell onto my shoulder. “Let’s go back to my room,” she said, her words vibrating on my skin.

“Now that’s a decision I can agree with,” I said.

Chapter Eight

Joe

Amy was sleeping.

I watched her chest rise and fall under the covers. Her bare shoulder peeked out as white as a full moon.

She was so beautiful when she slept—when it was just her body, blood, bone, breath. I loved her mind, too, don’t get me wrong. Like no one else, she could get into the crevices of mine, but there was also Amy under the spell of sleep—under my spell, in a lot of ways.

My hand ran lightly through her hair. I kissed her forehead, trying to make the dreams inside of it come true.

We hadn’t talked the whole walk back to her dorm. Just moved together in silence like a taut string connected us, the sky above us electric with stars.

There were other things I wanted to say, and I’m sure there were other things she wanted to say, but I also knew that our silence was just as important. This thing between us that we had built up over years and years, filled with memories and knowing glances.

When we got to the dorm, my hands were all over her before she’d gotten the door to her room closed. I was already absorbed in one of my favorite ways to keep my hands steady, by making her shake, by making her shiver.

“Joe,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

I kissed her words away. “No talking,” I said.

We fell onto her bed. Clothes flying. Her lips started tracing where they had been on my chest and stomach. I stopped her, pulled her chin up, and kissed her neck, her chest, trailing down her stomach with my tongue until I felt her wilt.

This is all I want. She is all I want.

I could tell when we were like this that she felt the same. I knew that if life were as simple as locking her door and ordering takeout, we could stay like that for the rest of our lives. I knew that life wasn’t that simple, but for the next forever maybe it could be.

She flipped me over so I was lying on the bed. She was so strong—or maybe I just let her be. My whole body tensed at the sight of her naked silhouette and the way her skin felt on mine.

Maybe words made things too complicated. Maybe plans made things too boring. I couldn’t help that I wanted to know I would be with her when things got difficult, but I could not try to not push her so much. At least with the things I asked of her. While it sometimes seemed like Amy’s words fought against me, her body never did.

And before she slept, her body had been begging for mine. If I was asking her body to be with me forever, then the way it had folded with mine said it was screaming
yes, yes, yes
. Maybe that was what I had to remember when I felt myself getting too anxious, too greedy.

That when it really counted, Amy never left me wanting, never left me wondering about how she really felt.

I knew that with silent agreement or not-so-silent agreement she’d accepted I was joining a frat.

That we would figure it out together.

To be honest, considering the sex we’d had tonight, I should have joined a frat a long time ago.

As she slept next to me, I whispered three words in her ear. “We’ll be okay.”

For tonight, at least, I knew we would be.

…

Amy

Joe thought I was sleeping, but I fought to stay awake. I wanted to feel his hand in my hair, his lips on my forehead, his heartbeat through his chest. His chest that was now naked for a different reason.

For me.

I was still slick with sweat. I sometimes thought about what happened when sweat combined. If it combusted or ignited like the reactions we learned about in chemistry. With Joe, something did happen. Not that I had anyone to compare it to, but after I was with him, all I felt was calm. Our bodies combined to make me feel more tranquil than I ever was. I guess he had the ability to turn me off as well as he had the ability to turn me on.

I felt him snuggle in closer to me, his skin as warm as toasted bread. When we were here like this I couldn’t picture us any other way and I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be with him. It was a shame our lives were always pulling us away.

The least I could do was let him join his stupid frat. He needed a break from me as much as I needed a break from him. I knew I wouldn’t join a sorority, but maybe there was some club or group I could become a part of. Maybe I would send @RockinRed15 a message and see if she wanted to go shopping sometime. Hopefully she’d be happy to hear I had chosen Joe.

Knowing Joe, he would end up walking a lot of half-naked girls home during his tenure at TKE, but I was also sure he would always end up coming back to me.

It would forever be him and me in a tangle under the covers. It would forever be me waking up in the morning before he did and watching the sun color his face.

The next forever was all that mattered.

I listened to his breath next to me, a sound that was as familiar as my own heartbeat. As I felt myself falling asleep, three words were in my head
. We’ll be okay
.

I knew that, for tonight, at least, we would be.

Read on for a sneak peek at

Dear Cassie

Lisa Burstein’s companion novel to

Pretty Amy

What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you do?

You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to relive it in this journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

You’d be wrong.

There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place: I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to since and probably never will again. And then there’s the
real
reason I was sent here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think about.

What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you start to break open?

But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I swear he won’t—he
can’t
—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s lies.

And yet I can’t help but wonder…what if?

Day 1

I Don’t Even Want to Say How Many Days to Go

Are you there, Smokey Bear? It’s me, Cassie.

I’m in a shitty shack in the woods with nothing to start the fires you are so desperate to keep people from igniting. I also have no cigarettes to light the stuff that starts fires. I’m seriously pretending to smoke this pencil. If I find some matches, I may actually end up smoking it.

I’m at a sleep-away camp for criminals—a mosquito pit that’s supposed to pass as court-ordered rehab. I have no cell phone, none of my own clothes, and no jewelry. They took the dog tags my brother gave me. They took the six silver hoops that I have worn in my ears since, like, forever. My holes will probably close up, but jewelry can be used as a weapon. The people forced to be here with me would actually consider using jewelry as a weapon.

I have been given a flashlight. Why that’s not considered a weapon I don’t know, but maybe it’s because it’s essential in a place where lights-out comes at lame-ass nine o’clock p.m. You wouldn’t want to hit someone on the head with it—even though you sort of want to—because then you would have to write this mandatory “Assessment Diary” in the dark.

If you didn’t see the skywriters, I was arrested with my best friends Lila and Amy on prom night with the shitload of pot we stole from the dickheads who stood us up for the dance. I was driving, Lila was being Mirror-addict Lila, and Amy was in the backseat shitting bricks. That’s the short story.

I guess this will be the long one.

I’m supposed to write about why I’m here. I’m glad I have a legal reason to blame, because there is no way in hell I am going to write about why I really think I’m here.

No matter what, I can never write about that.

Like I said, it started on prom night.

I was wearing a tight red dress that Lila had picked out. Something I would never usually wear. It made me feel sexy—and normally I don’t do sexy—but hell, I was already going to the prom, and honestly, that wasn’t something I would normally do, either. Lila was all into it because she had a boyfriend, and Amy was all into it because Lila’s boyfriend was getting her a date, and, well, I guess I was all into it because it was either that or stay home with my parents. Which I didn’t want to do for all sorts of reasons, reasons that will probably be another entry I will be forced to write, so I’ll save it.

The night actually started out kind of fun. The three of us dressed up: Lila in light purple, Amy in light blue, and me in red—
fucking Lila
. We were laughing and getting along, but then we got to Lila’s boyfriend Brian’s house and it all went to shit. He wasn’t there. None of our dates was.

I had to give Lila some credit. She was so pissed off about us being stood up by our dates that she actually broke into his house and swiped his marijuana stash.

That’s about all I’ll give Lila credit for that night.

I’m supposed to leave the arrest behind me, but that doesn’t mean I can stop thinking about that red dress hanging in my closet, like a dead body in a freezer, and wondering if my mother has hocked it yet for beer money. Oh, crap, see? Now I’m writing about my family. Moving on…

When I landed at the Arcata, California, airport this afternoon, after the four-hour flight from New York, the arrest wasn’t even on my mind. It was occupied instead by an asshole in a tight white T-shirt and dark jeans, sitting on a metal bench in baggage claim, who kept staring at me like my hair was made of boobs.

I didn’t know what else to do when I got there except sit on that bench—so cold from the air-conditioning that I could feel it through my cargo pants and on the backs of my arms. I held the strap of my duffel bag tight. It made an angry red mark on my hand.

“Waiting for someone?” he asked. He didn’t turn to look at me, just talked like we were two old men sitting next to each other in the park. He had wavy brown hair, desperately in need of a cut.

“Not for you,” I said. We were both sitting there looking around—both obviously waiting for someone. Why did he care who I was waiting for?

“Who, then?” he asked, not at all understanding that I didn’t want to talk to him. Maybe he was that stupid, or maybe he was that much of an asshole.

“Get lost,” I said. Even without the cigarette I was dying to smoke, I needed to play it cool, at least until I saw the people in uniforms. Would they be dressed in, like, medical whites, or would it be more like policemen?

I put another stick of cinnamon gum in my mouth, but I didn’t offer him any. My brother, Tim, had bought me one of those Plen-T-packs. He gave it to me
that morning when he dropped me off at the airport in my Civic, which he was going to take care of while I was gone. At least my car wasn’t being punished like I was for being there on prom night.

Tim had never been to rehab, but he’d been to war just like my dad, and he knew gum could be my new addiction, could be one small thing that might keep me sane. He was right. I needed all the gum I could get.

I swallowed a mouthful of cinnamon spit.

“Your mom,” the asshole sitting next to me said.

“What?” I turned to him. He had that perfect skin some guys have that looks like it belongs on a girl—dewy and glowy and rosy and not all that masculine.

“You waiting for your mom?” he asked.

Did I look that young? That lame? Sure, I was still seventeen. My lawyer had said that was what saved me—made it so I could be sent to rehab. I guess it was good my parents didn’t hold me back in kindergarten like my teacher had suggested. Of course, if they had, I wouldn’t have been going to the prom that night anyway.

I wouldn’t have even known Amy and Lila.

“No,” I growled. “Screw my mom,” I added, though I’m not sure why. I didn’t mean that, not really. I didn’t give two shits about my mom. I had enough to deal with without thinking about her. Screw him for bringing her up.

“Poor you,” he said.

Right,
poor me
; maybe it was true. I was here. Amy wasn’t—she got probation for ratting me out. And Lila wasn’t—she took off to God knows where. So that left me, Cassie, to deal with this bullshit all alone. Fuck them all anyway.

“What do you want?” I asked.

He shrugged, one of those infuriating shrugs that said he knew exactly what he wanted but wasn’t about to tell me. He started smacking the tops of his thighs in that way guys who play drums do.

Guys who want you to know they play drums.

I watched his hands, slapping like his legs were bongos. He was wearing a thumb ring.
Um, yeah
.

“Had to leave my set at home,” he said.

I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily, something I usually reserved for people I knew much better and had more time to hate. “I’m not interested,” I said. I looked at the automatic doors. How much longer could I sit here without pulverizing this guy into soup?

“In what?” he asked, still slapping his knees like there was a crowd watching, cheering him on.

I continued to stare at the automatic doors and tried to ignore him. Would the people in uniforms be holding a sign with my name, or would I hear it over the loudspeaker? Would there be more handcuffs? I touched my wrists.

“I’m Ben,” he said, stopping his concert to turn to me. His eyes were wide, like sunny-side-up eggs with brown yolks.

“Good for you,” I said, stuffing another piece of gum in my mouth.

He laughed and touched the back of his neck. “Not really.”

“Am I supposed to tell you my name now? Is that how it works? You tell me your name and I tell you mine and then we slobber all over each other?” I spoke fast, faster than I meant to. Mostly because he made me think about Aaron, because I was always thinking about Aaron, how I wished I had told him to fuck off the first day I met him, instead of slobbering all over
him
and having everything lead where it led.

Wishing I could take it all back. Hit rewind and erase.

“What are you talking about?” Ben asked, starting to laugh, a laugh I think was supposed to let me know he would never consider slobbering all over me.

I felt my face tighten, felt my hands go into fists. I squeezed them hard, so hard that I could feel my nails stabbing into my palms, forming red, angry crescent-moon welts.

“Calm down, Hulk,” Ben said, laughing harder, his mouth like a back-up singer going
o-o-o
. My breath went heavy, hot. I was going to destroy him.

I had lied to Amy. I had lied to everyone. I guess I could have told her that I had actually shared that Pepsi with Aaron when he came to see me at work at Pudgie’s Pizzeria instead of throwing it in his face for being one of the guys to stand us up on prom night. That I had shared other things, too. That he bit my neck with his crooked front tooth and licked the inside of my ear and made me whimper; that I had actually fallen for him.

That he had fooled me.

Never again.

I looked at Ben; he was still laughing. I was ready to hit him, but instead I touched my stomach just below my belly button and put another piece of gum in my mouth.

“Too much cinnamon can kill you,” Ben said.

“Good,” I gurgled, practically choking on the wad. It was getting too big to chew, but there was no way I was spitting my gum out because of this guy. I pictured it growing over my tongue, my teeth, red, globular like a reptile heart.

The automatic doors swished open and a guy walked in wearing a uniform the color of a paper bag. He had one of those square heads and a brown buzz cut so short it looked like pieces of tobacco on his scalp. I recognized the cut, army issue.

Damn, I need a cigarette.

He
was
holding a sign—two signs. One read
Cassie Wick
; the other read
Ben Claire
.

“Looks like we were waiting for the same person.” Ben snickered, heaving his duffel bag over his shoulder and walking toward the door.

Fuck
.

…

The white van we rode in smelled like puke, which didn’t help what was already happening in my stomach. I’d never been carsick before, but I was blaming my shaken-snow-globe insides on that.

Ben and I didn’t talk as the city roads turned to country roads, turned to woods on either side of us. Trees taller than electrical poles and bark the color of brick flew past. I opened the pop-out window next to me; the air smelled like cedar and recently dug-up graveyard soil. We were very far away from anyone and anything and only going farther.

I hated the woods. The bugs, the openness, the fact that anything can come at you from anywhere, that you can be lost and
never
find your way back. Hello?
Blair Witch Project
?

I felt anxious needles pinch the tips of my fingers—not a feeling I was used to and not a feeling I wanted to get used to. I gripped the seat in front of me and tried to breathe, but it was like someone was jumping up and down on my chest.

Where the hell are we going? What rehab joint is in the middle of nowhere?

The driver wasn’t talking, just clearing his throat every twenty seconds, like he needed to remind us he was there; like at this point either of us was going to do anything, anyway.

Finally, the van moved off the country road to a gravel one. Little rocks popped like popcorn under the tires as we pulled in at a sign that read:
Turning Pines Wilderness Camp—Helping Teenagers, One Life at a Time.

Camp? Fucking
camp
? My parents shipped me all the way to California to sleep in dirt? I hadn’t gotten any details about where I was going before I left. Sure, I didn’t ask, but I just figured it would be rehab in a building, in a hospitalish building. Could they have known that this was where they were sending me? Would they have cared?

I watched the back of the square-headed guy’s square head. No explanation, no words, only his throat clearing. We passed one boarded-up shed, another, and another.

I pictured demonic kids singing,
Turning pines no turning back
. They were standing in a circle holding hands, repeating the words ring-around-the-Rosie-like, wearing dirty doll dresses and patched-up overalls.

Camp meant woods, meant bugs, everywhere, all around me, for the next twenty-nine days. I could already feel the disgusting tickle of spiders crawling on my arms—the gross daddy-long-leg ones that looked like the reflection of a regular spider in a fun-house mirror. Ticks would suction to my toes; mosquitoes would buzz as loud as helicopters in my ears.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Ben looked at me and cocked his head. I’m pretty sure my face was white and I was sweating like I was getting paid for it.

“First day is always the hardest,” he said, so quietly he almost didn’t say it. He thought I was having withdrawals, and I guess I was, but not from drugs—from civilization, from lack of bug spray. If I saw anything that had more legs than a dog I was going to lose it, and I couldn’t lose it. Not in front of Ben or Square Head or anyone else I was about to meet.

I didn’t
do
losing it.

The van stopped. “Wick, out,” Square Head commanded.

“Seriously, here?” I asked, but I knew I was stalling. I could live in this van for twenty-nine days. At least it had doors that locked, windows that closed, a radio.

“Now,” Square Head yelled, not even answering my question. And I realized whatever tactics I’d used to survive in the world outside this place were probably not going to cut it here. Ben turned to me and smiled, like he’d realized the same thing.

I climbed over him and reached for the door. “See you, Cassie,” he whispered. Then he winked at me. I was too freaked out to care, which was good because if I hadn’t been I might have kicked him in the groin.