Forward

by J. Saman

  9

  I toss and turn all night. Tuesdays are my days to do nothing but catch up on school work, and technically I could sleep in, but all I’ve been able to think about all night is my impending meeting with Levi. I’d texted him yesterday to tell him I’d meet him at the deli as he suggested, and all I got in return was an annoying smiley face. To say the curiosity of this meeting is eating at me is a gross understatement.

  I give up trying to sleep around five a.m., and watch mindless TV on the couch in our living room until the sun finally decides to rise and I can go into the kitchen and start making breakfast.

  The kitchen is closer to Amara’s bedroom, and I usually wake her if I’m too loud. I’m scrambling up some eggs in a bowl when a very rumpled looking Amara shuffles into the kitchen. She’s wearing her old Snoopy slippers—which she’s probably had since she was seven—flannel pants, and a University of Illinois t-shirt.

  “You look like shit, princess,” she says as she scratches her head full of messy black hair. “Did you sleep at all?”

  I shake my head, holding the bowl of scrambled eggs out to her before pouring it into the pan sizzling with butter. “Want some?”

  “Sure,” she yawns. She walks around to the other side of the counter and takes a seat on one of our bar stools, leaning her elbows on the stone top. “You gonna talk to me about what’s going on?”

  “Not yet.” She gives me a look that says she doesn’t like this answer. “I will, Mar. I promise. I just need to figure this all out, and then I swear we’ll have a nice long chat.”

  “You know you sound like Tom when you talk like that.”

  “Don’t be a twat,” I smirk as I dish some of the eggs onto a plate and put them in front of her with a fork.

  “Kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “Who do you think taught me that?”

  She laughs before taking a bite, groaning like it’s the best thing she’s ever eaten. “Did you see the new med students?” she asks around a forkful of egg.

  I nod, wondering where she’s going with this.

  “One of them asked me about you,” she says, eyeing me suspiciously. I turn around putting the pan in the sink, adding some soap and running water into it. I’m ignoring her and she knows it, but I’m not ready to have this conversation just yet.

  “Was it Tinkerbelle?” I ask, turning back to my eggs when I’m sure my face has returned to casual.

  She bursts out laughing. “That little bitchy blonde? No, it most certainly wasn’t her, though I love the nickname.” I feel her weighty stare. “I think you know who it is. The hot one with dark hair and glasses.”

  My eyes are firmly fixed on my plate as I move my eggs around with my fork. I still haven’t managed a bite of them.

  “He said he was meeting you for coffee today.” My eyes fly up to hers in total surprise. That fucking bastard told my roommate that? “Now do you want to tell me about it?” She doesn’t look smug, just concerned. I get it, she’s worried about me. She always is, despite her flippant attitude.

  “Fuck, Amara.” I run my hands through my hair before I pick up my plate and toss it into the sink, the uneaten eggs still on it.

  “He said you’re old friends, but since he flat-out turned down Chrissy’s offer for a hospital tour, I’d say he’s more.”

  “What a whorebag.”

  “For real,” she snickers, “but guys don’t usually turn down an easy lay like Chrissy, so I want to know what gives with the hot med student?” She raises her eyebrow at me.

  “Yes, I’m supposed to meet him for coffee today, but I don’t know if I’ll go. And yes, we used to know each other,” I answer remotely, because I’d hardly call us old friends. What a dick, talking to her like that behind my back. I’m also supremely pissed at myself for feeling relieved that he turned down Chrissy’s tour, which is code for either a backroom blow job or on-call room screw. That girl has made her way through most of the non-married men as well as some of the married ones in the hospital.

  Amara rolls her eyes, shoving her empty plate towards me. I pick it up and put it in the sink with mine. “That’s all I’m gonna get?”

  “For now.”

  “Does Tom know you’re having coffee with a strange man from your past?” she says with dramatic intrigue, leaning forward against the counter with a head tilt.

  I give her my most annoyed look. “No, he doesn’t. There’s nothing to tell him.” I turn back around and turn on the faucet, essentially ending our conversation.

  Rinsing the dishes off, I load up the dishwasher, which I fully realize we’re spoiled to have. Our apartment is nice, safe and in a good neighborhood. We even have a tiny balcony that we like to try and squeeze onto in the summer. We don’t have a doorman or anything, but the building is pretty secure and the fact that it’s a walkup doesn’t matter much, since we’re only on the second floor.

  Elevators and doormen cost big money.

  That’s what Tom has.

  We never talk about money together, but I know that his apartment cost millions of dollars. Though I’m sure he makes bank, I think he has some sort of trust fund, because he has a driver, and a penthouse with a view of the Empire State building. Something tells me that if we ever did get married, I’d have a rather large prenup in my future.

  That thought kinda turns me off. Not because I want his money, but because I don’t know if I could handle marrying into that kind of money. Despite Tom’s reassurances, I doubt I’m the daughter-in-law his parents envisioned. I’m American, half-Jewish, and a nurse. His father is the Earl of something or another. Get where I’m going with this?

  “I gotta hop in the shower for my shift. Switching from nights to days sucks balls,” Amara grumbles from behind me.

  “That it does, love.”

  “You better fucking text me later or I’m going to shit a kitten all over your ass.”

  I chuckle at the colorful imagery. “That may be the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I highly doubt that,” she yells to me as she shuts the bathroom door. A second later I hear the pipes whine as she starts her shower.

  I walk back through the living room and into my bedroom, dropping myself face first onto my bed. The heat hissing through the radiator is somehow soothing, and I find my eyes finally starting to get heavy.

  I wake to a loud ping from my cell phone and jolt up, disoriented. I’m lying on top of my bed with the sun blazing in through my window. I look around, half expecting to find someone watching me when my phone pings again. I rub my hands down my face, and crawl over to my nightstand where my phone is still plugged in from the night before.

  I pick it up, swipe to unlock it and check my messages.

  Where are you?—from a number I now recognize as Levi’s, but I refuse to add him to my contacts. It’s after eleven now. I slept for over five hours, but still don’t feel refreshed.

  The second text came just a few minutes after that.

  Him: Don’t stand me up please. I need to talk to you.

  Shit. I quickly text him back because I actually do need to go and speak to him, if for no other reason than to yell at him for telling Amara I was having coffee with him.

  Me: I fell asleep. I need twenty before I can meet you.

  Him: I can come to your apartment, if that’s easier.

  He’s got to be kidding me.

  Me: No. I’ll be there in twenty.

  I don’t wait for a response. I rush into my bathroom, brush my teeth and shower quickly. I throw on a purple sweater, a pair of skinny jeans, and black wedge booties that I love. With no time to dry my hair, I braid it over my shoulder because it’s far too cold to just leave it down. Grabbing my bag, I’m out the door in fifteen minutes. I hate to be ahead of schedule for him, but I don’t think about my actions until I’m pulling open the door of the deli on the corner from my apartment.

  My heart starts to race the second I feel the blast of heat on my face, and smell the scent of coff
ee and fresh muffins in the air. I’m playing with the end of my braid and I drop it immediately because I don’t want him to know just how nervous I am, and playing with my hair is an obvious tell of mine.

  One I know he knows.

  I spot him sitting at a small table all the way in the back, and I forego ordering anything at the counter, even though I haven’t had anything to eat today.

  My stomach could not handle food right now.

  He smiles as I approach him and I see that he has a steaming cup of coffee and a bottle of diet coke in front of him. I roll my eyes and he laughs as I sit down in front him. He pushes the soda towards me.

  I grab it, playing with the condensation on the plastic, unable to meet his eyes just yet. My mind is going a mile a minute, and I have to control my breathing because I’m a second away from hyperventilating.

  “I thought you were standing me up,” he says after a minute of silence. I look up and notice he’s not wearing his glasses today.

  “No glasses.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but my frazzled mind can only handle so much.

  “I only wear them at work because the long hours are tough with contacts.”

  I nod not really sure what to say about that.

  “Your hair is longer,” he says, eyeing my braid and I resist the urge to play with it again. “Other than that, you look the same,” he pauses with a crooked grin. “More beautiful if that’s possible, but pretty much the same.”

  “You look different. More mature.” We’re skating around each other and it sounds awkward. Probably because it is. I’m not sure what the protocol is for getting reintroduced to your ex after several years apart, but this feels forced.

  I open my soda, taking a long sip because I need something to do. He takes a sip of his coffee that I would bet is at least his second or third cup, judging by the way his knee is bouncing. He laughs nervously.

  “Fuck, I have so much to tell you, and I have no idea how to start.” Running his hand through his hair, I realize I like the way it looks now more than I did before.

  “How about you start by answering one of my questions?”

  He nods. “Okay.” His hand is resting on the table next to his mug and I wonder if he’s expecting me to reach out and hold his hand like we used to do in this type of situation.

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. I have so many questions I hardly know where to begin. “Did you leave because of me? Because we were getting too serious?” I start with the hardest question, but it’s also the one that has plagued me the most over the years.

  He looks so hurt by this. “No, baby. God no.” His hand slides further towards me across the table. “You’re the reason I almost didn’t leave.” This makes no sense to me, so I shake my head in confusion. He sighs out. “Fuck, I want to touch you.” I glare at him and he holds his hands up in surrender. “I won’t, but it’s so hard to be this close to you and not touch you. It’s been seven years, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. If feels like just yesterday I had you beneath me in your bed and I can’t stand this distance.”

  “Just what the fuck is all of this supposed to mean? Why the hell did you leave me?” I ask, slightly irritated now. I want my answers and I want to go, because I’m starting to feel things I shouldn’t be feeling, and it’s messing with my head.

  He leans forward like he’s got a big secret. “Do you remember me telling you about my sister Tanya?”

  I freeze instantly, because this is not what I thought he was going to say. At. All.

  “Yes,” I say hesitantly. The story about his sister is not something a person forgets.

  10

  “You know Tanya was kidnapped when she was five?” I nod. “All they found of her was a bloody piece of her pajama shirt.” He swallows hard. This has always been painful for him to speak about. I nod again at him, letting him know that he doesn’t need to finish because I remember everything.

  My whole body is trembling uncontrollably. I worry my fingers together in my lap because I’m so unbelievably terrified to find out where this is going. I think I’ll lose my shit if he tells me he found her body or something awful like that.

  Tanya was taken from her bedroom when they lived in California, while Levi and his mother were asleep. The police and FBI had zero leads and eventually after a year, the case was considered cold. Levi’s estranged father had been the only suspect, but it had been discovered that he died in Mexico or somewhere before the kidnapping. A couple of years later, Levi and his mom moved to Boston. That’s where I met him at the start of our senior year of high school.

  “Two weeks before I left Boston, I got a call from a man who told me he had Tanya and that he’d turn her over to me if I gave him a key to a safe deposit box that I had.”

  I’m shaking my head. I’m so confused.

  “What key? What box, and what man? I’m so confused, Levi. You never told me about any of this.”

  He leans towards me again, sliding his hand back on the table, closer to me than before, and locking his eyes with mine. “Because he told me he’d kill you if I did. That he’d kill both you and my mother if I said anything to anyone.”

  I almost laugh at how ridiculous that sounds, but the severity in his eyes tells me that he’s one hundred percent serious so I swallow hard instead.

  “How did you know he had Tanya?”

  “Because I spoke to her, Lara. I talked to my sister who I thought was dead, and before you can ask, it was her.” I’m so floored by this. I’m officially stunned speechless. “I got the key from a weird trust that had been set up in my name from my paternal grandfather, and I inherited it when I turned nineteen. I received a rather large chunk of money, some land in Pennsylvania of all places, and a key to a safe deposit box in California.”

  I open the cap to my soda and take a sip. My mouth is suddenly unbelievably dry. I knew nothing of this. Nothing. I spent almost every day with this man during those weeks after his nineteenth birthday and he never mentioned any inheritance. “What does all of this have to do with you leaving?” I manage after a minute.

  “Everything,” he pauses, running his hand over his one-day old stubble scattered across his chin. “It didn’t take me much digging to figure out that the person who called me was my father.” My eyes literally bug out of my head. “Obviously he didn’t die in Mexico, and he was the one who took Tanya all those years back. He didn’t care about the money or land I inherited, just the key. Probably because the key isn’t traceable like the others are.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I found out where he was, where he had my sister.” Pausing, he reaches out and grabs my hand tightly, but not painfully. I don’t pull away, mainly because I think I’m too stunned to move. “I left Boston and immediately went to where he was in California, and without getting into the details, I found him and Tanya.”

  “Jesus, Levi.” I squeeze his hand because this is almost fantastical. “You could have said something to me.” I realize how selfish that sounds given what he just told me, but I don’t care. He could have told me, not the why necessarily, just the leaving part. Instead, he woke me in the middle of the night with words of love and forever, made love to me, and by the time I woke up the next morning he was gone and I was ruined.

  “I couldn’t, Lara,” he implores, squeezing my hand back. “Don’t you see that? It was far too dangerous to say anything. For all I knew, he had people watching you. The fucker was in California, but knew all about you and our relationship. Where you were living, everything. I’m certain if I hadn’t just left something would have happened to you, and that’s a risk I would never have taken.” He looks down quickly before lifting his head, his eyes burning into mine with conviction. “I needed to get Tanya back. I just didn’t think it through, I guess. I figured that I’d be gone a couple of months at most, and then I’d be back to you with a huge apology in tow.”

  I want to laugh at that, I really do. All these years I figured he just decided that he didn’t want me anymore, or that something
had taken him away suddenly. But I never figured it was his sister. Ever.

  I get why he left. I truly do. He felt like he had no choice and I’d never have asked him to place me over his sister’s life. But it’s the seven years’ part that’s getting to me. It’s the thought that he’s been in New York at school these last four years that’s getting to me.

  “Seven years, Levi,” is all I can say. He sighs, sliding his chair closer into the table, causing our knees to touch. I move mine away automatically, but he finds them again and presses against me. He’s holding my hand and our knees are touching, and on some level I know this is wrong. I do. I just don’t know how to stop it.

  “I was in California for the first three. I…took care of my father.” He gives me a look that tells me my darkest thoughts are correct. “It’s not like I had a choice. And I live with that shit everyday. But then I had this very messed up little girl on my hands. Tanya was only eight, but the things my father had done to her in those years were…fuck Lara, he was a monster.” I shudder. I can’t imagine what that poor girl went through at the hands of a man who was supposed to love her and take care of her. “My mom moved out to us in California, which is where I finished school early and then—” he stops talking and I know what he’s going to say, but I still need it confirmed.

  “You moved to New York for medical school.” It’s not a question, but he nods all the same. Fucking bastard. “So you’ve been living in New York for the last four years?” My voice is sharp, accusing. “You son of a bitch. Did you know I was here?”

  He shakes his head. “I moved here because there was no way I could go back to Boston after what I’d done and not have a million questions asked that I couldn’t answer. I got into NYU medical school and we moved here. You moved here the following year and started at Columbia.”

  What. The. Fuck?

  “So you knew I was living in the city for three of those years?” My accusation is not at all veiled. I’m squeezing the soda bottle so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if it exploded everywhere. “In all that time, you never once thought about contacting me? I understand why you didn’t when you were in California, sort of.” I tilt my head not totally sure about that. “But fuck, Levi, you were back on the East Coast and we were living in the same damn city for three years.” Leaning forward I yell the last part at him.