Next Stop Love, #1

by Rachel Stockbridge

  He’d thought about just quitting the art center more than once. But he couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing his kids by not showing up one day with no explanation. They deserved better than that.

  As long as Julian could avoid Beatrice, he figured the rest of it would be a lot easier. So he dragged himself out of bed at an ungodly hour on Monday morning to catch an early train.

  It was a relief to get to work and discover several small emergencies waiting for him. The first floor bathroom was partially flooded. Someone had spilled an entire bottle of ink in one of the classrooms. A sparrow had gotten trapped in the staff break room. Problems he could solve. And he could solve them without talking to people. No one bothered him all morning, except when Kata, who ran the front desk, told him to go on his break already.

  The physical work helped release some of his bad mood. The appearance of his first class helped, too. It was hard not to smile when he was greeted with delighted shrieks and fast-paced chattering about what everyone ate for Thanksgiving. His kids were rowdy and excitable after the long holiday weekend, and they kept him on his toes. He put a stop to several minor fights in the first class, and narrowly rescued one of the more sensitive kindergartners from having a full-on meltdown by persuading her to tell him all about her guinea pig, instead. His second class was less emotional, but they had a hard time sitting still, so he sorted them into teams and got them doing a monster-making game on some big pads of paper for the first half of the class.

  He didn’t think most of them even noticed that his smiles were less sunny, and his answers shorter than usual. Only one wide-eyed little girl seemed to realize he wasn’t quite himself. She came up to him after class and stretched out a hand to offer up the drawing she’d been working on for the last ten minutes or so.

  “What’s this?” Julian asked, crouching down next to her so their eyes were about level. At the top of the page, in blue marker, she’d written To: Mr. Moon in her wobbly six-year-old handwriting. The rest of the page was crowded with crayon drawings of a pink-and-purple cat, a lopsided rainbow, Santa Claus, a cake, several fish, and a grinning yellow sun. Sprinkled in between were colorful little lines that could have easily been either gummy worms or confetti. “This is really good, Eva,” he said, finding a small, genuine smile to give her. “Did you draw this for me?”

  She nodded, the beads in her hair clicking together as they bounced. “I drew you happy things so you can stop thinking about sad things,” she said, beaming. Then she scampered off to greet her dad before Julian could remember to thank her.

  If only it were so easy, Julian thought as he filed onto the late train home a few hours later. If only his own list of happy things didn’t begin and end with Beatrice Bauer.

  He slumped into a seat, more exhausted than he had any right to be. He couldn’t keep this up. If Fabiana didn’t still need a place to crash, he might have just up and left over the weekend. There was nothing else keeping him here. Except a damn crush on the one girl in New York he should never have gone near.

  Julian shut his eyes, thankful the smaller number of passengers on this train meant he had the whole row to himself. He needed the space. The pain he’d been avoiding all day had started to settle in his chest again, as raw and heart-twisting as it had been four days ago.

  But, of course, his good luck didn’t hold out for long. As the doors closed, another passenger slid into the aisle seat across from him.

  Julian tensed and held his breath, his stomach knotting.

  He knew it was her without opening his eyes. He knew the sound of her step. The way she settled into her seat. The drop of her heavy bag on the floor. The catch of her breath when she was right on the verge of speaking. The scent of coffee and floral soap.

  He tried to brace himself to meet her gaze. But bracing himself didn’t help.

  He didn’t know what it was he’d been expecting. Probably a big frown and a sound verbal beating. But the look she gave him now—sad and hurt—tore him apart.

  “Hey,” Beatrice said, tangling her fingers in her lap.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice strangely flat.

  One corner of her mouth pulled up in a tiny smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I had a hunch you were avoiding me.”

  He tore his gaze away, letting it fall on the threadbare upholstery of the seat in front of him. “Why would I go and do that?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “I know it probably doesn’t make any difference,” she said, scooting forward to perch on the edge of the chair, “but I didn’t know that you knew each other, or that you’d had a falling out.”

  He shook his head, pressing his lips together, unable to look at her. “Is that what your boyfriend called it? A falling out?”

  “Not in so many words,” she said.

  “I suppose he told you I broke my own hand?” Julian asked, with the vicious bite that tended to creep into his voice when he talked about Greyson. He didn’t care how sharp his words were. Directing some of his bitterness in her direction couldn’t make things any worse than they already were. “That I’m some kind of self-destructive criminal who cast his poor, lonely step-brother aside in a fit of cruelty?”

  “He did it, didn’t he?” Beatrice asked, her voice so soft he wasn’t sure he heard her right. “He broke your hand.”

  He looked at her, feeling his guard slip. “Why would you say that?”

  “I—” She dropped her gaze and bit down on her lower lip. “Just—Am I right?”

  “Not . . . not exactly.”

  The train lurched into motion, slowly picking up speed. The lights of the station outside the windows made way for blackness as they rolled into the tunnel that made up the first stage of the journey, the bright interior of the car reflecting a hazy overlay against the dark.

  Beatrice didn’t say anything. Just watched him with those compassionate gray eyes, waiting for him to continue.

  “It’s . . .” Julian let out a breath, crossing his arms. He stared at the seat in front of him. “I used to be able to handle him. He and Fabiana would butt heads all the time, but I could smooth things over. Fab butts heads with a lot of people, so I was used to it. It was just my job, keeping things balanced. I didn’t even mind, most of the time. You crack a joke, or reroute the conversation, and it’s no big deal, right? Who cares?

  “And then my mom died. And I . . . I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t handle him anymore.”

  “You shouldn’t have had to,” Beatrice said. “You’d just lost your mom.”

  “Tell that to Greyson,” Julian muttered. “I don’t think I realized how bad it was until then. I thought all the fighting was just . . . growing pains. All of us trying to adjust to a newly blended family. But after my . . . When I stopped smoothing everything over, I found out that wasn’t really what I’d been doing. I wasn’t keeping the balance. I was just trying to stop Greyson from exploding. I was placating him. Letting him push me and my sister around. Just to keep the yelling to a minimum. It pissed me off.

  “And—I don’t know. Maybe it was a stupid move. Maybe I should have tried to stay out of his way until I could move out. But I was so sick of letting him push me around. So I started pushing back.

  “Big mistake. He and I started fighting more. Over some of the stupidest things. It was just a lot of shouting and cursing at first. And then we were shoving each other . . .”

  Julian rubbed his eyes, trying to scrub away the memories playing through his head. “We got into it really bad one day. I don’t even remember what I said to set him off. But next thing I knew, we were actually, physically fighting. Right by the pool of Walter’s goddamn vacation house in Laguna Beach.”

  Beatrice lifted her hand, then pulled it back, like she wanted to reach across and touch him, but thought better of it. “Is that when it happened?”

  “No.” He slumped further down in his seat. “I think it’s what pushed him over the edge, though. Walter had to come out and pull us apart.”
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  He didn’t tell her about the hard look in Greyson’s eyes as they fought, or the sick feeling in Julian’s gut when he realized Greyson wasn’t going to stop trying to hurt him. He didn’t tell her about how he had paced his room for hours that night, door locked, with a chair stuck under the handle, debating whether to pack up his things and climb out the window. How the only thing that stopped him was a fear that Fabiana would end up on the receiving end of Greyson’s anger instead of him. He didn’t know of a way to tell someone that he’d been convinced Greyson was going to kill him without sounding like a complete lunatic. Even his twin sister had thought he was blowing everything out of proportion.

  “What did he do?” Beatrice asked.

  “Nothing. Not at first. He kind of . . . switched off after that. He acted like I didn’t exist, and I tried to stay out of his way. I was almost done with high school, and I was determined to go out-of-state for college. I just kept telling myself it’s only a few more months. A few more months and then you’ll be out of here.

  “And then one day, I was on my way home after school, and these guys grabbed me and just . . .” He shut his eyes, curling his fingers into fists. He didn’t want to tell her about that part. It was bad enough thinking about all the rest of it without reliving two of the worst minutes of his life.

  “They broke your hand?” Beatrice asked, her voice soft.

  Julian nodded, grateful for the means of blowing past the details. “I knew some of them from my art classes. Rich kid stoners, most of them. Not really my crowd, but I didn’t think they had anything against me. How could they, when they barely talked to me? I still don’t know why they jumped me.”

  “But you think Greyson got them to do it.”

  Julian turned his head to meet her eyes. There was nothing about her expression that indicated she didn’t believe him. Didn’t sympathize with him.

  He felt sick. He didn’t know what he was thinking, telling her all that. It was better if she thought he was at fault for that whole thing. It meant Greyson wouldn’t have any reason to hurt her.

  Julian didn’t want what happened to him to happen to Beatrice. He wanted to protect her from that. And there was only one way that he could see to keep her safe.

  Steeling himself, he sat up, twisting in his seat until they were face to face, with just the narrow aisle between them. He gripped his hands together between his knees, willing his voice steady. “I can’t do this anymore, Bee.”

  She drew back, a line of tension stiffening her spine. “Do what?”

  “This whole . . . thing. The . . . the trains and the talking and the . . . everything.”

  She shook her head, her eyes searching his face. She reached for his hand. “Julian—”

  He jerked out of her grip, the soft brush of her skin scalding him. There were so few people in the world who cared if he lived or died. He wanted to be in her life. He wanted dancing in the kitchen, and trying to save disastrous cooking flubs, and watching her with her friends, and laughing at her jokes until his belly ached.

  He wanted her. And he couldn’t have her without getting her hurt.

  Beatrice wrapped her arms around herself. “But—Why? Because of Greyson?”

  “No,” Julian said vehemently, making himself meet her gaze. But it was too much, the hurt in her eyes, and his gaze fell to his hands. “Yes. I don’t know. A lot of reasons. I want to stop. I just want it to stop. I can’t do it anymore.”

  For the space of a few agonizing breaths, she didn’t reply.

  He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t, or he’d lose his nerve and take it all back. And this needed to end. Now. He’d already let it carry on too long. He thought he could handle it. Keep enough space between them so he’d never get a chance to let her down. Enough distance that the deafening chaos of his life would never rip her away from him.

  What a fucking idiot.

  “So . . . that’s it?” Beatrice asked. “You just want to—to stop?”

  “I think it would be the best thing for everyone if we just pretended we never met,” Julian said.

  “You don’t really mean that,” she said, her voice cracking. “Julian—”

  “I really mean it,” he said. His voice was gruff, but at least it didn’t waver. “I think we have to cut ties. I’m sorry. I just—” He swallowed and found her eyes. “I can’t risk it.”

  She blinked a few times, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Then she caught up the strap of her bag. “Okay,” she whispered, sliding out of the seat and stepping away from him. “I get it. I do. I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  It took all of Julian’s remaining strength to stop himself from calling after her as she strode to the other end of the car to find a different seat. Someone should throw him under the train for making her cry. He scrunched himself into his seat, hood pulled over his face.

  She’d be better off without him. People usually were. She’d be safe now. And that was more important than whether or not Julian’s heart was breaking.

  Eighteen

  Greyson decided he was going to drive Beatrice home the following Thursday night. Beatrice, apparently, didn’t get a say. Not that she tried very hard to argue with him about it. She couldn’t get herself to care enough to speak up.

  She’d felt numb since Julian told her he wanted to cut things off a few days ago. Like that one last thing had overloaded her system and shut her down.

  She tried not to poke the apathy too much. She could sometimes feel the edges of an overwhelming panic that threatened to reach out and drag her down. There were too many things in her life she couldn’t control. Couldn’t keep up with. And if she thought about them—and if she thought about losing Julian just when she’d started to realize how much he meant to her . . .

  But giving in to the panic—and the gaping pain of losing him—wasn’t an option. She couldn’t let her life stop moving forward.

  At least if she was numb, she could function. Sure, she functioned at the bumbling, unintelligent level of a zombie. With about the same emotional range and social grace, too. But at least she wasn’t curled in a ball under her covers, nursing a hurt she didn’t ask for and didn’t know how to deal with.

  She spent most of the drive staring at the same two pages of the play she was supposed to be reading for English Lit, not taking in a word. She just wanted to crawl into bed and go to sleep.

  She came out of her trance when Greyson put the car in park. She looked up to find he’d pulled into her apartment’s parking lot. She must have been nodding in all the right places during the drive, because Greyson didn’t seem upset with her, but she couldn’t remember most of the trip home. She couldn’t remember if he’d spoken to her at all.

  Mumbling a thanks for the ride, she shoved the play into her bag.

  “Wait a second,” Greyson said before she could climb out of the car and escape. He reached into the back seat and shifted something aside. “Here. Merry Christmas.”

  Beatrice stared at the garishly wrapped box Greyson slid in her lap. It was about the size of a board game, but lighter. The gift wrap was an elegant white and gold pattern—poinsettias or something—on paper so glossy it reflected the streetlights right into Beatrice’s eyes. It looked like something you’d see in a department store window; pretty on the outside and filled with nothing but air and paper.

  She angled the metallic glare away from her and looked up at Greyson. It took her a second to drag herself out of her apathetic fog long enough to find a reaction.

  “You bought me a Christmas present.” It was supposed to be a question, but she couldn’t quite make her inflection go up at the end.

  Greyson deigned to give her a winning smile. “Yes, I did.”

  A second reaction occurred to Beatrice. But opening the window and chucking the gift into the nearby shrubbery probably wasn’t her smartest move.

  “I thought we weren’t going to do Christmas presents. We’ve only been dating for . . . for six weeks.”

  “Sev
en. But I thought you could use it next weekend.” He nudged the gift. “Open it.”

  Beatrice bristled, fighting the impulse to shove the box in Greyson’s face.

  God. She had to get out of this car before she gave in to one of those angry impulses. And opening the stupid box seemed like the quickest way to do that. So she tore off the lid.

  Inside the box, folded neatly, and surrounded by a cloud of tissue paper, was a dress.

  Beatrice lifted it out and stared. She didn’t know a whole lot about the prices of sleek, black cocktail dresses. She’d never had occasion to wear a cocktail dress in her life. But one touch of the material told her that it had probably cost more than she’d made in her last three paychecks combined.

  She dropped it back into the box like it was a snake. “I can’t take this.”

  Greyson frowned. Not much, but enough to put Beatrice on edge. “Why not?”

  “It’s too much,” Beatrice said, replacing the lid and trying to pass the whole thing back to him. “We said we weren’t going to do the presents thing.”

  Greyson huffed, his lip twitching. “Is it so wrong to want to shower my girlfriend with gifts?”

  That word—girlfriend—coming from his mouth felt like steel bands pinning her arms to her sides. “I can’t take this, Greyson,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level.

  “Besides,” he said, ignoring her, “you need something to wear to the Christmas party.”

  Oh God. The stupid Sayer-Crewe Christmas party. He’d told her about it two or three weeks ago. Insisted she come so he could introduce her to his dad. She’d forgotten she’d let him bully her into accepting the invitation.

  The bands around her tightened, threatening to crack her open.

  “No,” she said, in barely more than a whisper.

  Greyson looked at her like he’d never heard the word before. “If you don’t like that one, I can buy you another.”

  “No,” she insisted, wedging the box between the dashboard and the windshield—anywhere she didn’t have to touch it anymore. “I don’t want another dress. And I’m not taking that one.”