by C. J. Valles
When I blink, he disappears like he was never there in the first place. And maybe he wasn’t. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part. Either way, it’s not exactly the goodbye I had been hoping for—not that I had been hoping for a goodbye. I could break down and call him to me one last time. But it would be stupid. Because if I allow myself a moment to feel too much, I’ll lose my nerve. And maybe that weakness wouldn’t cost me now, but I would pay for it. Eventually. With much more than I’m willing to give. And with something I have no right to risk: someone else’s life. My only salvation is that Ever is indestructible. He will go on, whether I live or die, and I take a grain of solace in that.
Getting into bed, I curl up on my side and try not to think about the next day or the next or any of the days that will follow. I toss and turn for hours. Then, sometime during the night, I wake as lips touch mine lightly. I open my eyes, but there’s no one there.
In the morning, my alarm goes off, and the intensity of my regret has increased exponentially. I sit up in bed and want nothing more than to change my mind—to take it all back, regardless of the consequences. Touching my chest, I look down and see that the pale blue infinity symbol has disappeared. The inevitability of my decision crashes over me, and my chest begins to ache. I feel tears leaking from the corner of my eyes.
It takes several minutes, but I finally force myself out of bed and start pulling the sheets off. I leave them in the empty laundry basket in the corner, glad that I set out my outfit the night before. I don’t think I could manage making even the simplest of decisions right now. Choosing what to wear right now would feel too much like picking out clothes for a funeral. I get dressed quickly, and I’m almost to the door when I turn and see a folded piece of white paper on the nightstand. Walking slowly back to the bed, I reach out and pick it up.
Wren,
You are my forever.
E
I stare down at the neat print for several seconds before setting it back on the nightstand. Reaching around to the back of my neck, I unclasp the necklace and set the infinity pendant on top of the paper. I force myself to remain completely numb as I put on my backpack and walk quickly to the door, grabbing my duffel bag in one hand and my rolling suitcase in the other.
Walking quietly down the hallway, I pass my mom’s door and creep down the stairs. She’s only been asleep for a few hours, so I’m not afraid that she’ll wake up, but I skip breakfast anyway, stopping only to get my jacket from the closet and put on my shoes before stepping outside. The wind is whipping the spindly little deciduous tree in front of our house, and the entire world looks gray and lifeless. Right as I’m about to lurch down the front steps under the weight of my luggage, the two bags I’m holding are plucked from my grasp. For once, I’m thrilled to see Alex, mostly so that I can have someone to loathe.
“Your chariot awaits,” he says.
Instead of the shiny red Ferrari, there’s a much more sedate silver sedan parked at the curb.
“Aw. Did your toy get repossessed?”
He smirks.
“Sharp-tongued this morning, are we not?”
Ignoring him, I walk to the car and hoist my backpack into the trunk with the other two bags. Stepping into the car, I look over at Alex.
“Let’s get this over with.”
“A trip to the airport and memory removal.”
I look at him sharply.
“Not removal. Suppression. Please say you’re good enough that you’re not going to lobotomize me.”
“Good enough?” he scoffs. “I’m an artist. Trust me.”
“Right.”
I smirk. He looks way too happy about this, but it’s not like his opinion of my plan matters to me. As the car pulls away from the curb, I look back one last time at the house. We turn down a street I’ve never been on, and farmland streams by before we’re suddenly getting on the freeway. I stare blankly out the window, and within just fifteen minutes, we’re passing over the Willamette River. I look back toward the city’s skyline. In many ways, this strange new city, or at least its rainy suburbs, had felt more like home than Southern California, where I had spent nearly seventeen years.
“Eyes, look your last!” Alex says with too much dramatic flare.
Tearing my attention from the rear windshield, I give him a withering look.
“Enough, Romeo.”
“During my existence, I dare say I’ve never seen a human look so morose about going from a rainy climate to a sunny one,” he continues.
“You know, just because I asked for your help doesn’t mean I’m interested in what you have to say.”
“Very well, then. Into a prickly silence we shall descend.”
He smirks at me before turning his eyes back to the road, and sooner than I imagined possible, we’re taking another freeway, then another, before I see signs for the airport. I feel one last pang of desperation to turn around and reclaim the life I just gave up. Swallowing, I blink back my tears as I accept the fact that there’s no going back. My choice is made. The car pulls smoothly to the curb, and I look up at the sign for departures. I turn to Alex about to say I’m ready when he smiles in a way that makes him look stunningly beautiful.
“We shall meet again, Wren Sullivan,” he says.
“You are so—”
I’m about to say wrong when the deep blue of his eyes suddenly goes black.
***
I wake up from a choppy half-sleep when the plane touches down at John Wayne Airport. Feeling a jolt of fear and regret, I have to remind myself that this was the only decision I could have made. Bleary eyed, I follow the signs toward baggage claim and wait for my bags. Then I stagger to the curb … and wait. Finally, I text my dad—twice—to make sure he hasn’t forgotten. When he finally texts me back, it’s to say that Jessica is stuck in traffic and will be there to pick me up any minute. Hungry and edgy after replaying in my head a hundred times the fight I had with my mom, I lug my bags back into the terminal and search for breakfast of some kind.
Against my better judgment, I order a terrible-looking breakfast sandwich. Then, as I’m sitting and waiting for my number to be called, the strangest thing happens. This guy, this shockingly good-looking guy with piercing blue eyes and perfectly unruly copper hair, walks past where I’m sitting and smiles in a way that makes my entire body go tingly. I turn around to see what he was smiling at—because I know it wasn’t me. Then I frown. There’s no one behind me. But by the time I look back, he’s long gone. It feels like I just missed my chance to see a unicorn up close or something.
Just thinking of the insanely hot passerby watching me eat a greasy sandwich curbs my appetite enough so that I only manage to eat half of it before getting up and walking back out to the loading zone. I pull out my iPod, and almost twenty minutes later, I see an expensive cream-colored SUV, the same model my dad said Jessica drives. Standing and waving, I watch as the SUV veers suddenly and cuts off another car to take the space right in front of me. As I walk over, the hatch pops open.
Pausing, I stare into the trunk, which is stuffed with shopping bags from an assortment of high-end stores. There’s also a yoga mat and a trendy gym bag. I do my best to squeeze my stuff around the other items without crushing them before closing the back. When I walk to the passenger side and open the door, I’m treated to an ear-piercing cry that didn’t come from the infant in the backseat.
“Dammit! I smudged a nail!”
My dad’s wife pulls off a pair of giant sunglasses and looks up from the damaged acrylic. I get in, and she squeals again in a way that sets my teeth on edge.
“Wrennie! It’s so good to see you again!”
Her voice is high-pitched and fake-nice. As I buckle my seatbelt, all I can think is: Wrennie? God! I could kill my dad! I smile crookedly and lean in for an awkward hug.
“Is this my baby brother?” I ask shyly, reaching into the backseat to grab one of his tiny feet. “Hi, Benjamin.”
He burbles at me.
“Isn’t he just the
cutest baby you’ve ever seen in your life?”
I nod and look back at my little brother. He looks a lot like my dad, whom my mom always called devastatingly handsome. I grab his pudgy little foot again, and he squirms and drools. When Jessica presses on the gas, I face forward to make sure she isn’t about to bulldoze any vehicles out of her way. Then I stare out the window as we merge onto the 405. There’s a strong possibility that I spent at least ten percent of my childhood stuck in traffic on this freeway, not something I remember fondly.
But traffic is light today, and within less than a half hour, we exit the I-5 onto Crown Valley Parkway. This is only the second time that I’ve taken this particular exit, but I recognize the surrounding area well. My mom graduated from Cal State Fullerton and got her Master’s in social work from UC Irvine while I was a little kid, so we took trips from L.A. County to Orange County a lot when I was young. This is also where I drove to meet my dad for our last awkward goodbye.
Jessica, who has managed to spend the entire drive on her cell phone, seems like one of those people who can’t tolerate a second of silence. I’m grateful, though, since her distraction has allowed me to watch the scenery without having to come up with small talk, which is something I’ve always sucked at anyway. Suddenly it occurs to me that we’re only a couple of miles from the coast—not more than a few miles or so from the beach where I almost drowned as a kid. I shiver at the memory of the burning sensation in my chest as I inhaled the icy water.
After driving along the perimeter of a sprawling golf course, Jessica turns off of Crown Valley onto a residential street and takes another immediate right, before turning again, this time onto a cul-de-sac. We pull up in front a large, very Southern California-style house complete with a white, stucco exterior and a red-tile roof. My mouth drops open, and I stop and gawk at the sight of my beaten up old Mustang sitting at the curb, like a ghost from my past.
“Oh my God!” I gasp.
Jessica, who’s still on the phone, gives me an exasperated look as I throw open the door. Ignoring her, I jump out and marvel at the sight of my old car. It’s shinier than I remember, but it still has the white spot on the bumper where I hit a curb when I was first learning to drive. The car is not a classic by any means. My dad used to say that if he bought the same model a decade or two earlier, it would have been. Instead, it’s just terribly dated. I couldn’t care less, though. As long as I can get the thing into gear, that’s all that matters.
“Tom said you would be happy, but I didn’t know you’d be this happy,” Jessica says dismissively. “That car is like a million years old.”
I look over at her, surprised to see that she’s off the phone. She leans into the backseat of the SUV to extract Benjamin, who starts wailing.
“Wrennie, hon?”
Hon? Please.
“I’ve got to feed him. Can you bring in the bags?”
She’s already headed toward the house, and I smirk when I realize she meant her bags. I go around to the back of the SUV, which isn’t very sporty or utilitarian, and start unloading my stuff—and the shopping bags. I can’t help noticing that all the labels are very expensive. Taking as much as I can in one trip, I teeter up the stone steps to the front door and stumble into the foyer. I stop and look around.
To the right, there’s a living room with an arrangement of furniture that looks like it came straight out of one of those chic catalogs—everything meant to look weathered and ancient. Leaving the first load along the wall, I go back outside and grab the rest of the bags before returning inside and following the sound of Jessica’s throaty laughter. Passing through a formal dining room, I finally reach a large kitchen dominated by black appliances and artfully distressed cabinets. Baby Benjamin is in a high chair being spoon-fed by a short, round woman with dark hair pulled back into a severe bun. She looks up at me with serious brown eyes. When I smile, she nods in return.
Through a pair of French doors, I see a large swimming pool framed by palm trees. As Jessica ends her latest phone call and gestures down the hallway, I follow along and peer into a room containing exercise equipment. After a few more closed doors, Jessica stops, and I look past her. The room is obviously meant to be a guest bedroom, with a twin bed in the corner, but there’s no bedding and next to no room for a guest with all of the shopping bags strewn around.
“Sorry, Wrennie! I haven’t had a second to clear everything out, but this is your room.”
I turn and smile, trying not to let my unease show through.
“Thanks for letting me stay.”
Let’s hope not for long.
My smile falters, and I flinch as I accidentally pick up her last thought. As I walk back into the hallway to grab my stuff, I make a mental note to avoid reading anyone else’s thoughts from now until eternity. It’s just not worth it.
Returning to “my” new room, I look around at the bubble-gum pink and white striped walls. If I had expected my life in Southern California to resemble the last ten minutes of some TV show, complete with catchy emo-music, I would be sorely disappointed right now. Stacking my bags in the corner, I grab my jacket. I may be back in Southern California, but we’re on the coast, which means a marine layer. I walk through the kitchen without a word to Jessica, who’s on the phone again, and go out the front door.
Without car keys to my old Mustang, I walk back to Crown Valley. One thing I remember from this part of Southern California is the perfect lawns—in the middle of a desert. It actually reminds me of Jessica: pretty, superficial, and unnaturally well-coiffed. Then again, maybe my perspective is souring my view of what is probably a very enviable place to live. If things hadn’t gone so wrong in Portland, I would have wanted to stay there. It felt more like home—at least until my mom admitted to wishing I had stayed with my dad. Well, she hadn’t actually admitted it. It’s more like I forced it out of her right after I read her thoughts—and found out about her new boyfriend and the fact that she didn’t want me there, all in one shot. My eyes tear up. The memory is crystal clear in my head. I never, ever want to hear another thought out of someone’s head again.
Knowing what other people are thinking only leads to pain.
It’s cloudy and surprisingly muggy. I strip off my jacket and wrap it around my waist. Not wanting to return to the house anytime soon, I walk along the golf course for several minutes. When I reach another main thoroughfare, I turn left and walk another ten minutes before I see a coffee shop and several fast food restaurants in the strip mall up ahead. A snack sounds good, mostly because I want to make sure I’m not psycho and grumpy before returning to my dad’s house to deal with his harpy of a wife. Or is she a siren? I frown. Whatever. Who cares where she falls in my freshman year English teacher’s catalog of Greek mythology’s villainesses?
Jessica can think anything she wants of me. It was my mom’s opinion that I cared about. Looking up as the clouds begin to burn off, I walk through the parking lot toward the coffee shop. At the sight of a group of kids my age leaving, I slow down. The thought of any social interaction, no matter how small, makes me feel physically ill. I wait until they disperse before continuing toward the door. When I’m almost there, I reach into my back pocket and realize that I left my wallet in my backpack.
“Great going, Wren,” I mutter to myself as I sink down on the curb.
A yogurt or a granola bar had sounded really good. I’ll live, but I’m not happy that I have to go back to the house and prowl around a virtual stranger’s refrigerator. Besides, I hate to think of what Jessica lives on. Diet soda and celery, maybe?
“Down on your luck?”
Scowling, I look around for the owner of the ironic voice, and my mouth drops open. It’s … the guy from the airport. I’m sure of it. The unicorn. Then his question catches up with me, and I glare.
“Excuse me?”
Despite his appearance—the purposely unkempt copper hair, piercing blue eyes, beautiful features, and shiny, perfect teeth—something about his demeanor makes
me edgy, almost angry.
“I was offering to buy you a beverage,” he says.
I get up and look him up and down. He really is good looking. Dangerously so. He is, without a doubt, trouble. I can practically smell it on him. Then I find myself leaning toward him automatically. He actually smells really good. It’s not cologne, but something else. I look up at his face, and he looks amused.
Snap out of it, Wren! I tell myself sternly.
“No, thanks.”
“Are you certain? You will owe me nothing more than the pleasure of your company,” he says dramatically, like he’s auditioning for Shakespeare.
I feel a spike of fear as I remember this is the second time I’ve seen him today.
“Are you following me?” I demand, surprising myself.
My cheeks flush. Wow. That sounded crazy, even to me. But the stranger just smiles again, which makes me feel even more stupid.
“From the airport?” he asks innocently.
“Yeah, from the airport.”
“You were on my connection in Portland. I was visiting old friends in that dreary corner of the world.”
I frown at him, taking offense at his calling Portland that dreary corner of the world. But I bite my tongue before I can launch into an ill-tempered tirade. What do I care what he thinks of Portland, anyway? I don’t know this guy.
“And you?” he prompts.
I shrug.
“I just moved here.”
“You don’t sound very happy about that fact,” he smiles as he gestures toward the door. “I’m going to go inside and buy myself a coffee, and I’ll buy you whatever you want. No obligation.”
Studying him more closely, I feel another jolt of anxiety.
“How old are you?”
“How old do I look?” he asks with strange intensity.
“Older than me.”
“And how old would that be?”
“I’m almost seventeen.”
I frown again. I feel young just saying that out loud.
“A junior in high school, then?”