by Molly E. Lee
Three Years Later
MY CHILDHOOD HOME smelled somewhere between chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and a hint of something spicy. I walked through the entryway, allowing the familiar scents and sights to soothe the anger pulsing inside me.
Justin had forgotten about me. Again. He’d promised to take me out on my lunch break since it was the first day of a new semester. I’d waited on campus half an hour. He hadn’t even called.
I heard Mom in the kitchen and I turned down the hallway. She stood in front of the stove stirring a huge pot of homemade pasta.
Everyone said my mom and I looked nearly identical—with long brown hair and the same dark brown eyes—except for our height. She was a foot shorter than me and often was mistaken for my sister as opposed to my mother. I gave her a side hug. “Smells great.”
“Thanks, honey. I figured after classes you’d head over here since you never keep any real food at that apartment you insisted on renting.”
“That apartment has the sweet perk of being right across the street from campus.” In fact, before heading over here I’d walked home to let my English bulldog, Hail, outside and then grabbed my car. After the blow-off by Justin, I craved Mom’s company and comfort food. That and she was right about the “no real food” comment. All I had at my place was turkey and crackers. I seriously needed to go to the store, but I’d worked all week.
Mom scraped the pasta from the skillet into a large pale-green bowl and set it on the table. She returned for the bread as I grabbed our plates. She filled them before she sat down.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful you decided to go to college closer to home,” she said, handing me a full plate, “but I really wish you would’ve at least stayed with me. Think of all the money you could save.”
I sighed, shoving a huge bite of pasta into my mouth. This was a commonly repeated conversation, but I never budged. “Do you feel like you don’t see me enough? Because I’m over here every week.”
“Yes, here or with Justin. You never go out and do anything else.”
“I work.”
Mom stirred her pasta. “Sure, you’re really living it up.”
“So are you upset that I’m over here too much or too little? Because it sounds like both.”
“Neither, honey. I’m trying to express the need to explore things outside of your norm, but I’m not sure Justin would ever let you do that anyway.”
Mom usually hit the mark closer than she ever realized. I’d never told her the real reason I’d decided to attend Oklahoma University instead of Tulsa. That the threat Justin made on his life had made my decision not to move. But he didn’t control everything I did; I simply didn’t have much time between studying, classes, work, and him.
“Anyway,” she continued, taking a sip of her iced tea, “how are your classes looking?”
“Great. I’m finally getting into the upper level meteorology courses. I’m really excited about this semester.”
“And I’m guessing since you’re here, Justin didn’t meet you for the date he’d promised?”
I huffed, making a mental note to stop divulging all my plans to her in the future. “No, Mom. He didn’t. And I’m guessing you bet on that, since you cooked enough food for me as well.”
She glanced down at her plate. “I told you not to fall in love with that boy.”
Those were the first words out of my mother’s mouth after she’d met Justin all those years ago. Her opinion of him hadn’t changed.
“Where is all this coming from?” I asked.
“Nowhere. It’s the start of a new semester for you, and each time you start something new I have the hopes that you’ll experience something new. I’m your mother. I want you to be happy. I don’t want you going through what I did.”
I pressed my lips together. My father had cheated on my mother after years of struggling with their marriage. Justin had been my rock during that time, allowing me to cry into his shoulder, making me laugh when no one else could. The comfort of that stability had vanished over the last three years, but the memory conjured up the evidence that those feelings were real at one point.
“I am happy, Mom,” I said, smiling in an attempt to reassure her.
“Are you really?”
I swallowed the piece of garlic bread in my mouth harder than I’d meant to. Sometimes I swore the woman could zero in on the days I was questioning my relationship better than a heat-seeking missile. I don’t know how she managed it, but I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to get into. Ever.
“Thanks for lunch. I’ve got to get back to campus,” I said, standing quickly and kissing her on the cheek.
“Anytime, honey,” she said.
I closed the door behind me, hoping the next time I returned she’d let the subject drop. I was grateful I had a mother who cared and was perceptive to my moods, but that didn’t mean I wanted to defend my relationship at every meeting. And lately, defending my choices when it came to Justin was becoming harder and harder.
I leaned my head back against a bench on campus. Students shuffled to and from classes, filling the area with chatter. I tuned the voices out and gazed at the slate-gray sky with storm clouds rolling in from the west. The scent of rain misted the air. The grass on campus looked ten times greener with the gray backdrop, and I found myself smiling. From the look of it, a thunderstorm would hit in a little under an hour.
I dug my cell out of my pocket and pulled up Dash Lexington’s website. He was a professional storm chaser and the foremost opinion on local weather. I hit his site up more often than checking the news stations. He usually nailed it, and he had awesome chase videos as a bonus.
A late afternoon thunderstorm watch west of campus will be in effect until nine p.m. tonight. #weatherupdate #buybeerearly
I laughed at his most recent tweet displayed at the top of his site. Underneath it was a shot of the current Doppler Radar tracking the storm I had already spotted in the sky.
A picture of Dash sat just off to the side of the storm tracker, his credentials listed beneath it. The image always conjured up a giddy sensation within me, like some high school girl with a celebrity crush. But it wasn’t just because he had green eyes and strong features. I liked that his smile wasn’t forced. It looked so natural, as if any inkling of a storm could fill him with an uncanny happiness—a feeling I understood well.
Pocketing my phone, I rose and headed to my first day of Physical Meteorology—this one focused on cloud physics and atmospheric dynamics—and found my sour mood from Mom’s prying giving way to excitement.
I loved starting a new class because, like Mom had so adequately felt the need to point out to me again, my life was one big routine. Wake up, go to class, come home, study, go to work, come home, possibly see Justin, sleep, wake up, and do it all over again. Sometimes, if I was lucky enough, Justin would surprise me and take me to a movie or dinner, giving me a much-needed break from the full schedule of classes I had.
Anticipation soared through me as I neared the science building, something that only happened when heading to a class that pertained to my major—Meteorology.
I’d learned early my freshman year that I got the same thrill when combining weather data to make a prediction that normal people got from doing extreme sports, like skydiving or swimming with sharks. And it wasn’t just the excitement factor, either. Interpreting data came easy to me and allowed me to be the first one to know about approaching storms. It put me in a prime position to warn people about what to look for and when to take cover—and I enjoyed that sense of power. I wanted to track supercells and relay coverage on their progress. Submerge myself in storms where I’d always felt happiest.
Only two more years to go and I’d achieve that dream. Well, hopefully. I’d have to find an opening for a meteorologist on a network, but I’d have the degree that would get me there. The only silver lining from Justin’s refusal to move to Tulsa and his threat if I left him was the fact that Oklahoma Uni
versity had a highly respected meteorology curriculum. The prospect filled me with a sense of accomplishment. Like all the studying and working for minimum wage at the electronics store to pay for books and rent was worth it.
The classroom consisted of three rows of long black-topped tables, a large projector screen at the front, and a computer system to the left. I took a seat in the front, pulled a notebook out of my oversized shoulder bag, and opened it to a fresh page. Three guys were the only other students in the room, and they all huddled around one table near the back. They chatted with excited voices and sounded like they were discussing a past road trip, but I tried not to eavesdrop. Their easy camaraderie and banter made my chest tighten—the aching fingers of loneliness wrapped around my heart and squeezed.
Between classes, work, and Justin, I hadn’t had much time to make new friends, unless you counted my bulldog, Hail, which I did. She’d been my best friend for the past two years. I had some acquaintances that I talked to in class or at work, but outside of everyday chit-chat, the only person I spoke with was Justin.
I supposed the boyfriend being the number-one priority was natural, though. It’s definitely how he wanted it. There had been fewer blowups from him—which resulted in less tears and less broken furniture—since all my friends went off to college. And the few times I’d thought seriously about integrating myself into a new group of friends, Justin would remind me of the sacrifice I’d be making—the little time we had together.
Checking the time on my cell, I noticed the professor was a few minutes late. I tapped the Facebook app and scrolled through my feed. I’d lost touch with all my high school friends, but I still checked out their photos. Shots of party scenes dominated the newsfeed, each one with a string of comments about how awesome the event had been. A sting of jealousy bit my insides as I shoved my cell back in my pocket.
I hadn’t been to one party since I started college.
Justin had promised me a huge one for my twenty-first birthday, but when I’d shown up at his place it was instantly clear the party wasn’t for me at all. He’d invited all of his friends because I didn’t have anyone outside of him to ask, and he’d blared his favorite music—heavy metal—from the huge speakers he’d rented, as opposed to my preferred alternative rock. Keystone Light was the only drink option, not even cheap champagne or a bottle of wine for me. Not a scrap of chocolate in the place, either—didn’t matter if I turned twenty-one or fifty-one, the best part of the birthday would always be the cake part. And I may have been able to overlook all of that, if he’d remembered to get me a card. Hell, I would’ve taken a Happy Birthday note written on scrap paper. Anything to show he’d thought of me in the process and not just him.
I shook the memory off and glanced around the classroom. I studied the pictures of different storm cell formations that papered the walls. An intriguing shot of a roll cloud caught my eye, so I crossed the room to take a closer look.
A fat, cylindrical, dirty-snow-white cloud stretched horizontally across green pastures that were broken apart by a strip of road. The sky surrounding it was dark gray with the orange sun attempting to break through the storm from behind. The sheer power contained within those slowly churning wisps of elements took my breath away, and a hunger to see something as extreme in person bloomed within me.
“Ever get a look at one of those in the field?” a deep voice asked, practically in my ear, making me jump.
I turned to answer but stopped short. My mouth dropped open. Oh my God.
Dash Lexington. The freaking gatekeeper to all my weather fantasies.
He stood less than a foot away, a few inches taller than me, with short sandy-blond hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen—clear and sharp like bottle glass. A wave of heat crashed inside me, sending my breath in a zigzag pattern. Damn, the pictures on his website didn’t do him justice.
“No,” I finally answered and swallowed the lump in my throat, stopping myself from fan-girling about how much I adored his site and that he was in my class.
“We’d chased all day. Struck out each time. Then we caught this bad boy. It made up for all the busts.”
“You took this?” I asked, looking from the picture and back to him. I resisted the urge to face-palm myself. Of course he had.
“I’m Dash.” He held out his hand.
I took it and sparks shot across my skin with the connection. “Blake,” I said, releasing him before I combusted.
“How’d I do?” he asked, glancing back at the incredible photograph.
I grinned and shrugged as heat rushed to my cheeks. “You did all right.” I walked back to my seat in an effort to hide my own surprise at my boldness. Dash chuckled as he walked behind me and went to sit with the boys in the back. I swear the air crackled with electricity as he passed.
I looked down at my notebook and laughed under my breath while writing down the date. My thighs hadn’t heated up like that since the last DiCaprio movie.
My quiet amusement died when I thought back to the last time Justin had awoken that excited flutter within me. He’d surprised me one night with flowers and a trip to my favorite restaurant. That night we made love and it didn’t hurt—most of the time he was rough, but he’d gone a little slower and I’d actually gotten close to having an orgasm. The last one was so long ago I could barely remember the feeling. It hadn’t been mind-blowing. Not in the way I’d read about or even seen in the movies. Something I would never admit to Justin.
We’d lost our virginities to each other, and after the first couple of times, it wasn’t so bad. He’d been more tender with me back then.
Over the years, things changed. I’d told myself it was due to all the stress he’d undergone—losing jobs, overdue bills, car wrecks, never reconnecting with his family—and I’d stayed quiet, wanting to give him the time to return to the more gentle man I’d fallen in love with.
After things evened out for him and the sex didn’t change, I expressed my willingness to explore and find a better rhythm, but Justin wouldn’t hear of it. It was either his way or no way, and he’d been set on turbo-doggie-style mode for years, probably from some god-awful porn he’d watched one too many times.
I racked my brain. When and why had Justin pulled out that surprise? It clicked after a second. He’d gotten drunk the weekend before and called me a C U Next Tuesday for not going out at 3:00 a.m. to buy him a pack of cigarettes. That was over a year ago.
I wrote the name of the class on the paper a little harder than I needed to.
“I know, I know, I’m running late!” A man with a bushy gray beard and balding head bustled into the room, toting a leather satchel and a cup of coffee. “I got caught up examining the atmospheric pressure in Starbucks. A terribly unstable situation there. The air has a scent to it that leads me to believe a supercell could erupt at any given moment. You can’t be too careful when studying these things, you know?”
I laughed out loud this time, as did the band of boys behind me. Dash had taken a seat with them, not that I’d checked. I was left alone in the very front.
The professor set down his things. “Now let’s get serious and take a look at who the victims are this semester.” He trailed his brown eyes over each of us. “I’m Professor Ackren, and I see we have an upright bramble of students dying to take my course.” He widened his eyes in exaggeration while scanning the many empty seats in the room. “No matter, only the strong of heart will come out of here victorious and set forth unto the unknown and chaotic profession of attempting to explain, define, and understand weather.”
I liked him instantly.
He clapped his hands together. “Now. Who among you is an aspiring meteorologist?”
Only my hand shot in the air. I let it drop slowly, and sank a little deeper into my chair.
Professor Ackren approached my table. “Why, my dear, do you want to be a meteorologist?”
“I want to be the first one to know about the storms and relay the info to the public.” The answer
rolled off my tongue. It was one reason on a long list.
“You want to predict and track storms?”
I nodded.
“Well, then, your first lesson is that weather is never predictable and anyone—”he eyed the gang behind me—“who thinks it is, plays a very dangerous game. Storms are like poker, just when you think you have the game beat, someone deals you a bad hand and bam! Game over. Money isn’t at risk in this profession; it’s people’s lives. Could be your own, could be those of an entire town. And that is why we must appreciate the nature of weather and its unforgivable unpredictability. You storm chasers should know a thing or two about that by now, right?” He eyed the group of guys behind me. I spared a look, and their faces were more serious now than minutes before.
Professor Ackren segued beautifully into his lecture then, and I had three full pages of notes by the end of class.
Walking across campus toward my apartment, I stopped short. Justin stood in the main quad, smoking a cigarette. He wore his oil-stained blue jeans and a black cut-off shirt, clearly marking him as a non-student, unless he was headed to a shop class.
“You’re extremely late,” I said, though I’d nearly forgotten about our missed lunch date earlier. I reached up and hugged him.
He returned the gesture with his free arm, smelling of sweat and smoke. “I got caught up in a Call of Duty match. Sorry. I’m here now. Wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“Really?”
He took one last drag off his cigarette and dropped it, crushing it with his scuffed work boot. “Yeah, what, you don’t want me here? Planning on meeting up with someone else?”
“No, of course I want you here.” I knelt down and picked up the crushed butt and dropped it in the trash can that rested a few feet away.
“Good. Let’s get out of here,” he said, grabbing my wrist and tugging me across campus toward his beat-up white truck.
I climbed in, electing to hold my bag in my lap as opposed to setting it on the floorboard littered with fast-food bags and twenty-ounce bottles.