The Problem with Forever (29 page)

“You can sit...up front,” I said when she climbed in the back. She looked amazing, as always, wearing tight black jeans and a loose blouse that slid off one shoulder.

“That seat is reserved for Mr. Hotness Incorporated,” she replied, buckling herself in and then leaning forward to grab the back of my seat. “Plus, I kind of like being driven around while I sit in the backseat. You’re like my chauffeur.”

I snorted. “In...a decade-old Civic.”

“Whatever.” She smacked the seat. “I’ve gotta admit. I’m still surprised that Carl and Rosa were down for this.”

“Me, too,” I admitted. Before I left, they went over the ground rules once more. Carl still didn’t look like he was a hundred percent behind this.

Traffic was a pain, so it took a bit to pick up Rider, and when he climbed into the passenger seat, he sent a grin in Ainsley’s direction and then leaned over, kissing my cheek.

“Mouse.” He pulled back, his gaze moving over me, and even though I was sitting, I had the feeling he was seeing everything. “You look beautiful.”

I flushed.

“Do you know anyone like you that I can steal?” Ainsley asked, and I fought a grin. I was guessing things were not looking good for Todd.

Rider twisted in the seat as I pulled away from the curb. “Yeah, I do. His name is Hector.”

My lips curved up.

“Hector? What? He’s a jerk,” she replied, sitting back. There was a pause. “Is he going to be at this party?”

This time I didn’t fight the grin.

“Nah, he’s got to work tonight.” Rider flipped back around and reached over to me, running his finger along the curve of the arm closest to him. “You really do look beautiful.”

My grin spread into a smile. “You look great, too.”

“In other words, she says you look freaking hot,” Ainsley added from the back.

And that was true. It was always true, but tonight Rider looked especially hot with the dark denim and worn white button-down shirt. I don’t know what it was about the shirt that I liked so much. Maybe it was because the material was so thin that I imagined if he held me, I could feel his body heat. Or maybe it was the way he had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing dusky-skinned, powerful forearms.

Or maybe it was just him.

Probably just him.

Peter’s party was being held at his grandparents’ house since they’d left for Florida in September. The house was in the opposite direction of the Rivases’, on the outskirts of the city, where there were larger homes with yards. Keira had explained that Peter’s older brother would be there as unofficial chaperone, but he was twenty-one, so he wasn’t an
adult-
adult.

“Wow,” Ainsley murmured as the narrow, heavily tree-lined road cleared and the house came into view.

The house was really a farm—a big old farmhouse, and there were cars everywhere, parked in haphazard lines. My stomach twisted as I took in the sea of vehicles and the people milling around the side of the white-and-red farmhouse.

This...this was a lot of people.

“Probably smart to park back here,” Rider advised. “Alongside the road and keep some distance behind this car. You know, in case someone pulls...”

Oh my gosh, this was seriously a lot of people here.

Sweat dotted my brow. Blood pounded in my ears. Hot, I blindly smacked against the door until I hit the button. The window rolled down and cool air poured into the car. That wasn’t all. My mouth dried. Acid churned in my stomach. The scent of burning wood was choking me. Music pumped and the hum of conversation and laughter echoed in my ears.

I jumped when a hand landed on my arm. My head swung to Rider. His mouth moved, and for a second I couldn’t make out what he was saying. All I could hear was all the noise—screeching laughter and loud voices. I struggled to focus on what was happening in the car.

“Mallory?” he said.

I swallowed. “What?”

His brows slammed down as he searched my face. “You zoned out.”

“You okay?” Ainsley asked, clutching the back of my seat. “You’re super pale.”

“You are.” Rider cupped my cheek. “Holy shit, your skin is clammy.”

Our eyes met. “This is...so overwhelming.”

Concern tightened the corners of his lips as he leaned over. “We don’t have to do this.”

“We don’t,” Ainsley agreed from the backseat. Her arm reached out and she squeezed my arm. “Actually, I’d rather do something else. This is just a stupid farmhouse party, and I bet they don’t even have horses or cows. Now that would be cool.”

Rider’s gaze held mine as he nodded. “Ainsley’s right. It’s just a stupid party.”

But it was...important.

It meant I was trying.

And leaving wasn’t even trying.

“I don’t want to...be like this,” I whispered as I looked away, and once I said it, I didn’t even want to take the words back. A weird sensation hit me, almost like...like relief. That didn’t make sense. Or did it? “I don’t like who I am.”

My gaze returned to his, and the concern was still there, filling his hazel eyes and thinning out his mouth. Tears crawled up the back of my throat. Humiliating actually, to admit something so intimate like that, but now I wasn’t the only one who knew this about myself. It wasn’t my secret.

“It’s okay. You’re not going to feel that way forever.” Rider smoothed his thumb along my jaw. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him. Needing to. He kept his voice low as he spoke. “Nothing lasts forever, Mouse.”

* * *

We didn’t go to the party.

We ended up going to a movie.

I didn’t even drive to the theater. Rider had. And then he dropped Ainsley off, and then once I convinced him that I was fine, I dropped him off. Tonight had been a first—the first time I’d gone to the movies with a boy, and I wasn’t even there for it. My head was stuck on the fact that tonight had been an absolute failure.

I was pretty sure Carl and Rosa had waited up for me, but they were considerate enough not to jump on me when I entered the house and quietly climbed the stairs. My cell phone rang about five minutes after I closed the bedroom door. It was the first time Rider had ever called me on the phone for, well, obvious reasons.

“You there, Mouse?” he asked.

“Yes.” I clutched the phone to my ear.

There was a pause. “There’s something I need to say to you and I want you to listen, okay?”

My stomach dropped. I sat on the edge of the bed, my legs curled under me. I hadn’t gotten changed yet, just stripped off the cardigan that smelled faintly of popcorn. I braced myself—tried to at least—for Rider to say this whole relationship thing was a bad idea. A million things raced in my head before he spoke again.

“You said something tonight that really bothered me,” he said, and I heard a door close on his end. “You said you didn’t like yourself.”

I focused on the incomplete butterfly on my desk as I opened my mouth. No words.

“I hated hearing that, Mouse. I don’t like knowing you think that way,” he continued, and I closed my eyes. The burn was back, building in my throat. “There’s so much about you that you should like. You’re smart. You’ve always been smart. You’re planning to go to college and maybe even do something med school–related.”

I squeezed my eyes tight then, because I...I didn’t think I really wanted to do that, and thinking that made me feel like I was floating with no anchor.

“You’re kind,” he went on as I covered my face with my hand. “You’re a sweet person who has her entire future ahead of her. Not to mention you’re a great kisser. You kind of suck at the whole graffiti thing, though. That’s true.”

A choked laugh escaped me.

“But we can work on that,” Rider added. “And those soap carvings I saw? They were amazing, Mallory. You are talented. You just don’t talk a lot, Mouse. That’s it. You’re shy. That’s no reason to not like who you are, because who you are is wonderful. You’re perfect in your own way.”

“That’s not it,” I blurted out.

“What?”

I drew in a breath and it—it all just came out. “It’s not just that I don’t talk. I’m stuck.”

“You’re not stuck, Mallory.”

“I am.” I pushed off the bed and I began to pace. “I’m stuck and I can’t get past that.” My voice cracked and then I was talking faster, spewing out more words in a minute than I typically did in five hours. “Tonight was a first for me. It should’ve been fun and huge, and I didn’t even like it. I didn’t even experience it. I didn’t try. Not really. I’m that lame.”

“Mallory—”

“And you and I have always been this way. I need help. You... You’re right there. I fall apart. You piece me back together. I don’t even try to change that.”

“What? Where in the hell is this coming from?” he asked. “That’s BS.”

I shook my head.

“And you are trying. You’re in school. You’re making friends. You’re talking to people,” he persisted. “You just had a setback. That’s all.”

It was more than just a setback.

“I’m scared of everything,” I admitted, voice hushed. “Everything. My biggest fear is
forever
. That I will be like this forever.”

He cursed. “That bastard did this to you. The way he treated you—”

“He treated you the same and you didn’t turn out this way.”

“I’m not perfect, Mouse. None of us are, but damn, I hate hearing you say this stuff, because I...” His sigh came through the phone, sounding bone-weary. “I don’t know how to make that better.”

Neither did I.

And maybe...maybe it wouldn’t get better. Rider had said nothing lasted forever, but some things, some scars, ran too deep to ever fade away.

Chapter 28

Wednesday evening Ainsley messaged me on the computer.

You there, stranger?

I sent a quick
yes.
I’d barely talked to her since my party fail, too wrapped up in my own head to appreciate the stream of increasingly outrageous IMs she’d sent in the days that followed. Since that night I’d felt itchy and uncomfortable in my skin. I wanted to shed the layers but didn’t know how or where to even start.

The feeling had lingered through the beginning of the week. I couldn’t remember what was covered in class. Keira had asked about the party on Monday, and I’d lied, saying I’d come down with something. I knew Rider worried. We’d spent a few hours together after school on Wednesday, and I felt like I’d taken several steps backward. I was hyperaware of everything I did and said, which meant I said and did very little as we walked the Harbor. Rider watched me like he was afraid I’d break down at any given moment, which was probably what he expected. He only held my hand and kissed me on the cheek when he left for the garage and work.

I’d stayed in my room since I got home, carving away at a new piece of soap. I couldn’t touch the butterfly. It sat on the desk, half-transformed. Nothing I’d created with the new bars of soap looked right. I couldn’t get the petals right on the bloomed rose. I’d accidentally broken the ear off the bunny I’d been working on, and the cat looked like something out of a Tim Burton film but not as interesting.

I wasn’t concentrating. I couldn’t concentrate. Maybe Ainsley could distract me. A new IM appeared.

Can I call you? I know you hate talking on the phone, but I want to call.

I straightened, frowning. For Ainsley to actually call meant something was up. Something more than just my not being in the mood to IM all week.
Of course
, I typed, and my phone rang a few seconds later.

“I know phones aren’t your thing, but I just... I need someone to talk to,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “And you’re my best friend and I’m—” Her voice caught, and my chest squeezed. “I’m just really freaking out.”

“Is...is it Todd?” I asked, moving my laptop out of my lap and onto my pillow.

Her laugh was cutting. “No. I wish it was just about him.”

I folded my arm across my stomach. “What...what is going on?”

Ainsley’s deep breath was audible through the phone. “You remember how I had to go to the eye specialist—a retina specialist? Because of what the doctor saw when I was getting checked out for new glasses?”

“Yeah, I...I remember.”

“Well, I saw the specialist this afternoon and I...I don’t even understand. I really just thought he was going to say something like
you have crappy eyesight
or
you have a mole on your eye.
Did you know you can have moles on your eyes? You can.”

“I didn’t know that.” I chewed on my lower lip. “What did the...specialist say?”

“They dilated my eyes and then checked the pressure in them. It was a little higher than normal but not a big deal. Then they took images of my eyes—you know, when you have to stare at the
X
on the screen? And then they did another series of tests that were X-rays, I guess. They put iodine in me and then flashed all these lights in my eyes while they took pictures. It was really weird and it changed my vision to red and then blue for a few seconds.” She took another deep breath. “And then the specialist finally came in and examined my eyes.”

Ainsley cleared her throat before continuing. “He sat on his little stool, took off this head contraption that reminded me of something miners would wear, and he...he said he was pretty sure I had this thing called retinitis pig-ma-something-tosa, but he needed to schedule a field vision test to be sure. He also said there was swelling in my eyes. And I was like okay, so what do we have to do?”

“Okay.” I clutched the phone tight.

“And he said for the swelling he was going to prescribe eye drops. Some kind of steroid. He made it sound like the swelling was pretty serious. Something called macular edema or something and that if the veins or something ruptured, it would be real bad.”

Oh my gosh. “But the...the drops will help with that?”

“Yes.” Ainsley’s voice sounded strained. “I asked him how he was going to treat the retina thing and he said there wasn’t anything he could do about that. There was no cure. And I was like okay, not a big deal, because I’ve always had less than perfect eyesight, but he was looking at me like he felt bad for me, and I didn’t get it.”

I had a really bad feeling about this.

“That’s when he told me that I would most—I would most likely go blind or almost completely blind.”

“Ainsley,” I gasped, shocked.

“And they don’t even know when it will happen, but it will happen. There are more tests they have to do, but he started telling me that I could either lose my vision from the sides or something called lattice vision and—” She cut herself off with a deep breath. “Okay. I’m not going to freak out.”

“It’s...it’s okay to freak out about something like this,” I reassured her. This was an official freak-out situation. “Are they sure it’s really that?”

“I think so, Mal, I really think so. Even the assistant was looking at me like she wanted to hug me and I was just sitting there having no reaction at all. And I came home and it still hasn’t... It hasn’t sunk in. Like, am I going to wake up tomorrow blind? Do I have like a few weeks, a couple of years? I don’t even know what to think. A couple of hours ago, everything was normal.”

I pressed my hand to my chest. “Ainsley, I’m...I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” And for once it wasn’t because I was caught up in my head, but because I honestly didn’t know what to say. This was a big deal. This was life-changing. “I hope...I hope they are wrong.”

“Me, too,” she murmured. “There is a chance, you know? They have to do a field test and they were mentioning some kind of genetic test to confirm, but no one in my family is blind. I don’t know.”

“Is there...anything I can do?”

“Find me new eyeballs?” She laughed, and for a moment, she sounded like her normal self.

When we said good-night a half hour later, I was still reeling from the news. I dropped my phone on the bed beside me and stared at my computer. Closing my laptop, I pushed it off the pillow and away from me. It slid to the middle of the bed, stopping as it reached my book bag.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, closing my eyes tight for a moment.

Swinging my legs off the bed, I stood and started toward the door but stopped. I didn’t even know where I was going.

Ainsley was going blind?

How was that even possible? How did you wake up one morning thinking everything was fine, that today would be like any other day, and then get told something like that?

I didn’t know what to think.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I slowly shook my head. I had no idea what Ainsley must be going through, what she must be thinking. You took something like vision, no matter how poor, for granted. No one ever considered the possibility of not having it. Of not actually knowing what the color red looked like or how the sky changed at dusk. If I was her, I’d be panicking. I would be in a fetal ball somewhere, rocking—

I would probably never know what I’d do.

Because I wasn’t going to lose my eyesight. At least as far as I knew.

My hands dropped to my knees as I stilled.

I would most likely never get shot in the back and lose my ability to walk. I would probably, hopefully never again experience what it was like to go to bed hungry at night, my stomach so empty it hurt. I didn’t have to worry about everyone having low expectations of me anymore. I had Carl and Rosa, who cared about me deeply. I had great friends, one who was going through something serious, something that would change her entire life. I had Rider. I had all of these things because of the second chance I’d been given.

I thought about all the people who would never have the privilege of a second chance at
anything
.

I was lucky.

My life had been hard, but the past... It was a part of me, but it wasn’t me. I had a future, possibly a beautiful one where I wouldn’t be a...a victim, and yet, when I got lost in my head or let what Mr. Henry did shape my decisions, I wasn’t embracing that future.

I wasn’t acknowledging everything I had.

That...that had to change.

And I thought, by realizing just that, becoming aware, I was changing.