Falling into Forever (Falling into You)

  “Make love with me, Chris.”

  I watch his eyes as I say his name, knowing that it, if nothing else, might push him over the edge. I’m not disappointed.

  He closes his eyes tightly, his eyelids wrinkling, and whispers, “Damn it.”

  I run my fingers up and down his spine as he takes a long breath once and eases himself into me. His movements are tantalizingly slow and I start to move my hips more rapidly, but he just shakes his head and kisses the inch of skin behind my ear.

  I let a long, guttural sound escape from my chest.

  “You know I hate that.”

  “I know you love that.”

  He’s right. I do love that. I grip the back of his neck and pull his lips to mine, tilting my head so that he can drip his tongue into my mouth as he fills me entirely.

  His breath is ragged and I let out a strangled moan as he starts to pick up the pace, rocking in and out. His eyes stay firmly focused on mine and when I try to look away, he touches my skin softly and brings me back. I cling to him, feeling the first waves of the orgasm start to tear at me. I cry out, twice, and I feel his skin start to vibrate as he moves faster until he empties himself into me.

  He doesn’t move. We stay, skin on skin, until he rolls to the side and props his hand against his elbow, still not removing his gaze from mine.

  I had forgotten the way he once looked at me, as if he was memorizing the landscape of my skin. I let him do it now because it feels unspeakably good to let him.

  Finally, when I’m burning from the intensity of his stare, I lean back against the pillows and tear my gaze from his. I reach down to pick up my shirt, but he pushes my hand away.

  “Not this time, Hals. Not this time. We need to talk.”

  I sigh, knowing that he’s right, that this, a real conversation between the two of us that involves more than a shadow of the truth, has been a long time coming.

  I’m still afraid of what I’ll find when I look back at him.

  I was right to be afraid.

  Any notion that this, whatever is happening between us, was nothing but a few tumbles in the sheets is instantly removed from my brain when I see the expressions that are dancing across his features. There’s latent desire, a sad smile, a dreamy bliss that’s a direct result of our lovemaking. But there’s something else there, too. There’s love, the kind that goes on and on and on forever and doesn’t stop, despite the years between now and then. What’s worse, there’s a tiny tremor of fear that he’s not even bothering to hide.

  Unless I’m mistaken, and I’m pretty sure I’m not, he still loves me. He still wants me.

  I have to ask. Words can be lies and faces can be lies, but I have to hear the words spoken aloud. I have no idea what I’m going to do about it, but I need to know.

  “What do you want, Chris?”

  It’s a question, not an accusation, and it’s one that I desperately need the answer to. His answer is immediate.

  “You.”

  “It’s supposed to be as easy as all of that?”

  “It is as easy as all of that. You. Me. Us. For the foreseeable and unforeseeable future.”

  I release a long, shaky breath. “It’s not easy. I’m not easy.”

  Wrong choice of words. He laughs, once.

  “Ugh. You know what I mean.”

  “Do I?”

  “Chris, there are things that I need to tell you about, there are things that you don’t know about me, there are things that I can’t even figure out how to say. I’m not eighteen years old anymore. My life story no longer consists of high school parties and dancing on rooftops.”

  “I don’t think that was ever what your life consisted of, Hallie. You forget that we once had a life together. A real one.”

  “And I had another life. Without you. A real one.”

  A pained expression crosses his face and he turns away.

  “I’m well aware of that, Hallie. I had another life, too. But it wasn’t a real one.”

  “Well, mine was. Don’t try to…”

  I bite my lip and look away.

  “I didn’t mean to say that it wasn’t.” He reaches up to touch my hair softly. “I don’t think that.”

  “This isn’t easy for me. My life hasn’t been easy, and I don’t want to talk about it right now, because I still can’t find the right words to make you even understand a tiny sliver of what it’s been like for me.”

  “Try, Hallie. Please.”

  I owe him that much. “When I saw you in New York, it broke my heart.” I shake my head, because it’s not the right thing to say. I try again. “Seeing you, looking the same as you always did, made me remember that I had once laughed and teased and loved something so much that it was possible to get my heart broken. I needed to do anything that might help me to be okay again. I needed to do anything that might help me feel again, period. I wasn’t trying to go back to the way we were, or back to the person I was, because that will never happen and I realize that. I know that. I was just trying to be someone who could make it through one day. The kind of person who could see a school bus without having a meltdown in the middle of the street. You have no idea how badly I was broken. Not partially broken, all the way broken. I think I wanted to forget all of that for a little while, to try out what it would feel like to be normal. I think I needed to forget, and you’ve always been able to do that for me. To make me forget that there’s a big bad world out there.”

  My voice is wavering uncontrollably and I have to bite back the tears. I’m leaning on the edge of a precipice, and if he says the perfectly wrong words or the perfectly right ones, I will shatter.

  He takes my hands and kisses them. “It won’t work, Hals. Forgetting about the big, bad world. I knew that’s what you were doing and I let you do it anyway. I was complicit in it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about New York. It shouldn’t have happened, not like that. I never should have let it go that far.”

  I turn to him with a ferocity that surprises even myself.

  “I’m sorry that you wish it didn’t happen. Because I’m not sorry about it. I’m not sorry about this.”

  “I’m not sorry about this, either. But I am sorry that I took advantage of you then.”

  “I don’t think you’re remembering correctly. I’m pretty sure that I took advantage of you.”

  “The onus was on me, and we both know it.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  His only response is a vehement shake of his head, and I know that he’s not hearing me. I want to make sure that he understands my next words very clearly, so I say them slowly, looking deeply into his face.

  “I needed you. I needed to make love with you. Then and now. So please don’t tell me that you’re sorry. Be sorry if you have to be, but don’t say it to me, because I don’t want to hear it. You can at least do me that very small favor.”

  He nods, but I can tell that he’s still torturing himself. I graze the side of his face with my fingers and take a long, shaky breath.

  I’ve managed to pull myself back together. It seems like a small thing, to pull myself back from the edge of the cliff, but it isn’t, not when I know what it’s like to lose all control over what I say and think and feel, when I’ve had no way to figure out what my reaction to a particular piece of music or picture will be. A large part of regaining that control is due to him.

  “Thank you, Chris.”

  I don’t think he realizes what I’m thanking him for, because he gives me a remorseful smile.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  “I have to. I need some time to think. Furthermore, if I don’t show at this dinner, Eva will kill me.”

  I reach down and slide my shirt back over my head before turning to look at him one last time.

  “You should go. You really should. You’re right. You need time to think.”

  “I meant it. I just need some time. There weren’t any alternative meanings there. I’m not running away. Just taking a moment.�
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  I take his face in my hands and give him a long kiss that contains everything that I don’t have words for, gratitude and love and pain and lust and heartache.

  He gives me a bittersweet smile in response before looking at the door. “It was grand to be young, wasn’t it? There weren’t so many things that we had to be sorry for.”

  That sounds too much like goodbye, and that wasn’t my intention, so I measure my response carefully.

  “There weren’t so many things that we were proud of, either.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I think I might have to exempt the breakdancing movie from that. What was it called? Breakdown? I wouldn’t be too proud of that one, if I were you.”

  He throws the pillow at me and I narrowly avoid it with a well-timed duck.

  “Chris, I’ll see you at dinner, okay?” When he doesn’t respond, I prod the side of the bed with my hand. “Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I don’t entirely believe him, but staying in this room for one moment longer might make me say something that I’ll regret.

  So, I leave, but not without leaving a piece of myself behind.

  Chapter 14

  CHRIS

  I slam my hand into the headboard as I hear the door shut behind her.

  The hunger for the head buzz, the loose, easy feeling, the release of obligations in favor of blackness, fills my gut.

  I want a drink more than I’ve ever wanted one in my life.

  And for an alcoholic, that’s saying something.

  She shouldn’t need time to think about me. When had it all started to go wrong? How had I managed to screw this up so royally?

  But I know the answer to that question. Ultimately, London.

  But it had begun long before that.

  Ecstasy. New York. The apartment. Chelsea.

  * * *

  5 ½ Years Earlier

  New York

  I turn the key in the lock as one of the girls behind me giggles maniacally. I spin around to face them.

  “Shut up!”

  “What, is your mom going to be mad?” she says, intentionally raising her voice, which causes even more giggles.

  My annoyance level is reaching monumental proportions.

  “My girlfriend. And yes, she will be very mad.”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  Adam, my costar from Ecstasy, looks totally confused. “You still have a girlfriend, man? The same one? Really?”

  “Yes, the same one. Really. And she’s going to be pissed if we wake her up at 5 am.”

  My buzz is starting to wear off, leaving me with nothing but a gigantic headache and what feels like cotton balls in my mouth. Suddenly, bringing Adam and my newfound friends from the club for breakfast on the terrace doesn’t seem like such a good idea after all. The three blond girls in the back are still giggling as we stand in the entryway. The sound of their tinny voices combining is only making the headache that much worse.

  “You all seriously need to shut up. Adam, do you think you can remember how to make coffee?”

  “You have one of those instant press machines, right?”

  I look at Adam and his friend Charlie, whose eyes are starting to roll back in his head. He’s obviously coming down from some sort of high. Shit. I have to get them out of there before Hallie sees.

  “Never mind. There’s a table on the terrace. Grab the fruit from the fridge and the bagels from the counter and head out there. I’ll put the coffee on,” I say, rubbing my temples.

  “This place is a freaking palace,” one of the girls (Ami or Abby or Allie or something or other) shrieks. “You must be rich! I mean, I know you were in that movie with the prom and everything, but, I mean, you must be, like really, really rich.”

  Adam throws his arm around my shoulders. “This is the next movie star, ladies. I’m talking private jets and meetings with kings and prime ministers and billion-dollar fundraising dinners. Just wait until the end of the summer. James Ross. I’m just planning to ride his coattails all the way to the bank.”

  My head is really starting to throb now. I feel the bile rising in my throat.

  “Terrace. Now.”

  I run to the bathroom on the lower level of the loft and place my head directly over the toilet and empty the contents of my stomach a dozen times. The vomit reeks of alcohol. I reek of alcohol and vomit. I hate vomit. I hate everything about it—the shaking in your gut, the nasty breath, and the way that you can still taste it even after you brush your teeth. Shit. Why do I keep doing this crap?

  I brush my teeth three or four times, but I finally give up on trying to get the grit out of my mouth. I’ll settle for making the fastest breakfast ever. I dump grinds into the top of the coffeepot and some spill over the sides, but I’ll leave it for now. I’ve been bugging Hallie about getting a maid, anyways. This will just be another good reason on top of all of the other good reasons. I reach for the sunglasses on the counter and place them over my eyes, because even the fluorescent light from the kitchen is making me want to die.

  “You’re the prettiest one!”

  “No, you are!”

  “I think you’re both pretty!”

  Their voices are getting progressively louder. By the time I make it to the bottom of the stairs, they’re hollering and screaming and singing funny songs at the top of their lungs.

  Great. Hallie really is going to kill me.

  It had almost taken an act of God to get her here. Our summer plans included a trip, maybe to Nepal, maybe to France, maybe to Costa Rica, maybe to the mountains somewhere, but the Ecstasy reshoots and all of the James Ross press had made that a total impossibility. She wanted to stay at Greenview while I took care of my business, but I had begged and pleaded and cajoled to get her to New York instead. The Chelsea apartment, all sharp corners and modern furniture and geometric pieces of art, was supposed to be a love nest that would make her forget about all of the midnight phone calls and drunken rages from the set.

  But she hated the apartment, my new friends, even Ecstasy.

  I never should have taken that part. The shoot had been utter madness—late nights of rehearsing scenes again and again until they were absolutely perfect, and long nights of going out and dancing and drinking. There were always clear plastic bottles with pills that never seemed to belong to anyone in particular (and which I couldn’t keep myself from indulging in). Then, I would wake up and repeat the same thing all over again. I couldn’t seem to stop it. I kept going out, and then there were later and later nights, and the cycle kept repeating, over and over. New York has been more of the same.

  A distance is starting to grow between Hallie and me, one that I’m currently trying desperately to ignore.

  I glance down at my shirt, which is clearly wearing the signs of the all-night binge. I tear it off and tiptoe up the stairs. Hallie’s curled up in a tiny little ball at the corner of the enormous bed, making little noises like she’s trying to stay in the middle of a really good dream. I grab a shirt from my closet and put it on. I make the decision to kick these people out of my house with Styrofoam cups of coffee. Maybe she’ll never have to know. But, when I look back and see her twisting and turning in the sheets, I can’t resist moving back to the bed, and planting a quick kiss on her forehead. She stirs slightly, and turns her face to look at me.

  “Chris?” she whispers, stretching her arms. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh. Go back to sleep.”

  She’s already sitting up in the bed. “Did you just get home?”

  The peals of laughter from downstairs are impossible for her to ignore, even though she usually needs a good twenty minutes before she’s cognizant of anything other than coffee. Her eyes narrow.

  “Are there people with you?”

  “Just Adam and a couple of people we ran into at the club. I told them that I would make breakfast, but I’ll get them out of here as soon as I can. I promise.”

  “Marcus called a dozen times last
night. He said something about talking points for the press junket and requirements for the August premiere,” she says, rubbing her eyes. “You should call him before he has a heart attack.”

  She pulls the covers off, and I see that she’s wearing a pair of my boxers and her favorite t-shirt, a retro Greenview one that Alan had found somewhere and given to her after his daughter, Lily, had decided to go to college and not to join a cult.

  The sight of her disheveled hair and sleep-filled eyes fills me with an unexpected rush of love. I pick her up and kiss her over and over again.

  “Chris, you smell like the bar. Gross. Put me down. I love you, but you really, really, really, need a shower right now.”

  “After breakfast. I need to feed these people so they’ll get the hell out of here.”

  “Okay.” She glances at the clock. “Chris! It’s 5 am. You were out all night?”

  “You know how it is. An hour turns into two, and then you want to leave, but you get stuck in a conversation, and then it’s the morning before you even realize it.”

  I don’t tell her about the party favors that changed my perception of time, but the suspicious look in her eyes told me that she probably knows anyway. She opens her mouth but then promptly shuts it again, instead motioning to the stack of books on the bedside table.

  “I don’t really know what you mean, Chris. But sure. An hour turns into two. Look, I’m going to try to get this reading done. My final for my NYU class is in a couple of days, and I don’t think I have a good grasp of constructivism and positivism.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about. I vaguely remember her telling me about a class at NYU, but I didn’t realize that the class had already started.

  “You know, the class I’ve been in for the past six weeks? I had to stay up for three days straight last week to write that paper?” She takes a long look at me before shaking her head. “Never mind. You were busy with a hundred other things. Go. Take care of your friends.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. I promise. We’ll talk all about constructivism and positivism and whatever other isms that you want to tell me about. We’ll take a trip. Where do you want to go? Paris? Africa?”