by Jewel E. Ann
“There was a physical attraction. And we messed around, yes.”
“Messed around. But we weren’t sleeping together because you already told me you gave that other guy your virginity. Correct?”
She returned a careful nod.
“Did I try to have sex with you?”
Her forehead wrinkled as she stared at her coffee before taking another sip. “No.”
No. Why did she say that? It wasn’t the truth. Did she know the truth? Did she think the last time we were together before she left with Brendon that I was bluffing? Did she think I rolled on a condom only to test her? It wasn’t a test. I was done “doing the right thing.” I was done pushing her away. And I knew she’d leave me to find the life she had yet to live. Still, I wanted her.
It wasn’t about being her first, despite what I said, despite what she read into that night. I wanted her to feel my love in the rawest, most intimate way possible. It was just that simple.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I was upfront with you that I wasn’t going to have sex with you.”
“But oral didn’t count?”
She blushed and glanced away from me. “Do we have to go into such detail? Does it matter?”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“Well, you have amnesia, so you might not ever really understand.”
“Maybe if you give me all of the facts, all the details, then I can understand.”
“Like Angie? She gave you everything. Do you understand your love for her? Or should I say, before you left for Costa Rica, did you understand your love for her?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Before I left for Costa Rica …” It bothered me that she didn’t trust me. It hurt.
“Did you have a nice time? Was the couples’ massage in the same room? And how does that work? If they do, in fact, think you’re a couple, does that mean you take off all your clothes for her? Did she take hers off for you? What about the room where you stayed? Were there two beds? Because in the photo on Instagram, it looked like there was only one bed. And before you answer that, fair warning … Angie told me, Rose, and Rory all about her plans for you two on the trip. She requested a room with one bed instead of two. The couples’ massage. Oh, and we must not forget the sexy lingerie she bought to wear for you. How did you like that? Did you try to have sex with her? Or did you settle for oral like you did with me? Was it all-night oral? Because the photo of you on Instagram sleeping in bed made you look thoroughly exhausted. Oh … and it definitely looked like you were naked under the sheet resting so low on your torso.”
Okay. I wasn’t the only one who felt hurt. I could have pled my case and told her the truth, but the truth wasn’t pretty either. She was right about somethings and wrong about other things. I was sure Angie had lingerie to wear for me, but I got drunk off my ass so she didn’t get the chance to wear it. However, she saw me naked because she had to bathe me after I vomited all over myself and probably her too. As I pondered the right answer, I decided there wasn’t a right one. I chose silence, even if I knew Reese might drown in my silence.
I loved her. And she loved me. We would get past this, but it would take time. It would take a rebuilding of trust. And it would take forgiveness.
But at that moment, things were too painful. And that pain was blinding.
“Are you done?” I asked.
She stood. “I think we’re done.”
Oh my beautiful word girl … we’re just getting started.
I dropped my gaze, biting my tongue before nodding and pulling on my jacket. “I’ll take you home.” With her hand in mine, I started toward the door, but she yanked it away.
That stung.
We made another silent trip back to her house. After I put my truck into Park, I glanced over at her. “Am I him?”
She gripped the door handle. “Who?”
“Your first love? You told me he wasn’t ready to be found. And you call me your lost fisherman. Am I him? Did you fall in love with me? Am I the schmuck who wouldn’t take your virginity even after you offered it?”
She opened the door. “I will never regret not giving you my virginity.”
Before I could respond, the door slammed shut and she didn’t look back once.
Of course I wanted to chase her. When she walked away, my heart was stuck to her hand, ripping into pieces with every step she took. But we needed time. I needed to let Angie make an exit from my life that wasn’t demeaning. If she knew it was Reese, she’d feel betrayed by Rory and Rose. I didn’t want that. Not yet. So I tried to do the right thing and offer everyone a little more time.
Every fiber of my being knew we were meant to be together.
Five days.
Five months.
Five years.
It didn’t matter.
We would be okay. Our love was that strong. She was that strong.
Preview of Transcend
CHAPTER ONE
Nevaeh. It’s Heaven spelled backwards and the name of the girl to my right with her finger five stories up her nose. I grimace while readjusting in my chair. It has nothing to do with her disgusting habit. One of the wings to my pad is stuck to my pubic hair. Mom worries about tampons and toxic shock syndrome. It can’t be more painful than this.
The receptionist keeps glancing at us through her owlish glasses, tapping the end of her pen on her chin. “Nevaeh, do you need a tissue?” she asks.
My parents are not the weirdest parents in the world after all. Lucky me.
Roy.
Doris.
Cherish.
Wayne.
With over ten thousand baby names in the average name book, how does one settle on such horrible names?
Backwards Heaven glances over at me as if I have the answer to the receptionist’s question. I’m not the tip of her finger. How am I supposed to know what it feels like up there? After inspecting her size—smaller than me—and her yellow hair in a hundred different lengths that looks like something my mom calls a DIY, I give the receptionist a small nod.
Without moving her finger, because it might be stuck, Nevaeh mimics my nod. The receptionist holds out a box of tissues. They both stare at me. When did I get put on booger duty?
“Swayze, do you need to go potty before we leave?” Mom asks, coming out of the office where I took my tests.
Swayze. That’s me. Worst name ever—until five minutes ago when Nevaeh introduced herself and offered me a gluten-free, peanut-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, taste-free snack from her BPA-free backpack. My uncle thinks the millennials are going to ruin the world because they have no common sense, and all of their knowledge comes from the internet. He may be right, only time will tell, but then what’s my parents’ excuse? Or Nevaeh’s parents’ excuse? Common sense says you give your child a good solid name. Kids don’t want to be unique. It’s true. We just want to fit in.
I grab the box of tissues and toss it on my empty chair, turning before Nevaeh’s finger slides out. Some things I don’t need to know, like why it smells like cherry vomit in the waiting room, why there is a water dispenser but no cups, and what’s up Nevaeh’s right nostril.
“Restroom,” I mumble, tracing the toe of my shoe over the red and white geometric patterns of the carpet.
“We can’t hear you when you talk to your feet, Swayze,” Dad says like he’s said it a million times. Maybe he has.
I lift my head up. “No, I don’t need to use the restroom! Or potty. Do I still look four to you?”
His blue eyes, which match mine, ping-pong around the room before landing on me. “Shh … you don’t need to be so loud.” He smooths his hand over the top of his mostly bald head, like I ruffled his feathers, what few he has left.
“Let’s just go, dear.” My mom reaches for my hand.
I jerk away.
“Swayze.”
As if giving me such a stupid name wasn’t enough, she has to draw it out. “Swaaayzeee.” Who wants a name that rhymes with
lazy and crazy?
“Well, you said you can’t hear me when I talk to my feet. Can you hear me now?!”
They hear me. The guy who tested me peeks his head out the door, squinting at me. He hears me too. I can’t find my inside voice. Something has tripped my volume and it’s stuck on playground voice.
“Potty is what toddlers do. I’m not a toddler! I’m eleven. And I know stuff that other eleven-year-olds don’t know. So what? That doesn’t mean something is wrong with me. You keep bringing me to places like this to take stupid tests and sit in stinky waiting rooms with weird kids who have crazy names and like to chant unsolvable riddles, pull their hair, and pick their noses!”
Balling my hands, I resist the rare urge to pull my own hair. My parents each take one of my arms and drag me out of the office. Just before we reach the door, I give Nevaeh a small grimace of apology. She slides her finger back into her nose.
“Am I a genius yet?” I ask in a much calmer voice as my parents rush me to the elevator and down fifteen stories like someone’s trying to kill the president. Next to our blue hybrid car is a red convertible. Maybe it belongs to Nevaeh’s parents. Then again, that car is a little too cool for people who would name their child Heaven backwards. Heaven in the opposite direction … wouldn’t that be Hell?
After checking my seatbelt, as if an eleven-year-old can’t be trusted to listen for the click and give it a tug, my dad glares at me, jaw clenched. He’s too mad to talk. That’s fine. I’ll know when he’s ready to talk; his first demand will be an explanation. There really isn’t anything more I can say. My words, although louder than necessary, were self-explanatory.
After long minutes of some self-imposed timeout on himself, my dad looks at my mom and nods.
“Swayze?” She glances over her shoulder at me, curling her dark hair behind her ear. I don’t detect any anger in her voice. It’s sweet and juicy like the Starburst candy I get at the movies.
I fear her words will feel like the cavities I get from eating too much sugar.
“How would you feel about trying a new school?”
Yep. She’s drilling without numbing anything first. I’ve attended four different schools. Every educational psychologist and child development expert in a fifty-mile radius has evaluated me. They figured out I’m gifted, but not in a typical way. Smart. But not necessarily a genius.
My random recollections of historical events, that are not at all noteworthy, are most puzzling. I’m not playing Chopin or speaking fluent Spanish. I enjoy talking with adults, but I fit in just fine with my peers as well. I can’t name that many famous war generals. Even naming the presidents in order is a challenge. But random things that happened in Madison, Wisconsin, a few years before I was born seems to be my specialty.
“Move? Again?” I sigh as we pass the UW-Madison Arboretum, one of the places I like to go in the summer.
“We just want to find a good fit for you.”
“I fit fine where I’m at.”
“But they’re not challenging you enough.”
I shrug. “What does it matter? If I already know what they’re telling me, then I don’t have to do as much homework as my friends.”
“It’s wasted potential.” Dad shoots me a quick look in the rearview mirror. He, too, has lost his fight over my outburst.
“Potential means—” Mom starts to explain.
“Possibilities, prospects, future success. I get it.” I’m fairly certain other eleven-year-old kids in sixth grade have heard the word potential before. It’s not exactly a word I’d see on my word of the day calendar.
“You know, Swayze, the Gibsons are sending Boomer to a private school only an hour from our house. If we send you there, you’d already have one friend.”
Boomer. Another hideous name. Sounds like a Rottweiler. Nice boy though. I like him, but not the way he likes me. At least I don’t think so. He carries my backpack to the bus for me after school, but he also snaps my bra in class. The bra I don’t need. My mom pressured me into getting one after several of my friends got them. I don’t have breasts. Nope. Nothing there yet. Still, I wear it to feel like all of the other girls, and apparently Boomer’s need to snap it during math every day means he likes me. At least that’s the story my mom tries to sell.
Not buying it.
“I like my school.” I twist my blond hair around my finger then slide it through my lips curled between my teeth.
Mom frowns. She has a thing about hair near the mouth. A hair in her food triggers her gag reflex to the point of vomiting, and then she can’t eat that type of food for months. Dad always threatens to plant a hair in the ice cream she likes to sneak—his ice cream.
“You’ll be in middle school next year. It’s a good time for a change. The transition will be easier.” Dad nods as if he only needs to convince himself and my mom.
“I like my friends.”
“You’ll make new friends,” Mom says, shaking her head and scowling at the hair in my mouth.
I pull it out and flip it over my shoulder. “Why can’t I just be normal and you be happy with that?”
“Swayze, if you just give this a try, I promise we won’t ask you to switch schools again, even if it doesn’t work out.” Mom flinches like something’s caught in her throat, probably bile from seeing hair in my mouth.
One last move. One last school. I’ll do it. But I won’t believe it’s truly the last.
CHAPTER TWO
10 Years Later
“Swayze, what makes you think your parents gave up on you?” Dr. Greyson asks.
Carlton Greyson. That is a well-thought-out name. Strong. Manly. Intelligent.
My father died of a heart attack last year. I’m good, but my mother suggested we use some of his life insurance money to help deal with the loss. I suggested a trip to Costa Rica. She decided on shrinks.
Again, I’m good. However, it appeases her to know that I’m expressing my emotions to someone since it’s not her. I’ve been through a handful of psychologists and psychiatrists, looking for someone who doesn’t annoy me.
This is my first visit with Dr. Greyson. It’s too early to make any conclusions, but his name doesn’t piss me off so there’s that.
“My mom likes antiques. She used to watch this roadshow on public television. There’s such excitement—high hopes—for people who think they have a hidden gem. I felt like that hidden gem for most of my life. We waited, visiting one expert after another, going from one private school to another, waiting for someone to tell them my gift—my worth. I imagined that lottery-winning look on their faces.”
“What happened?”
I stare at his interlaced hands on his lap—the skin of a man who has never had an ounce of grease stuck in the wrinkles and crevices. Who knew manicured nails and the occasional steepled index fingers could be so enthralling? I find his command of the room both intimidating and comforting. Deep-set eyes almost silver in color match his graying hair that’s receded into a sharp widow’s peak. He reminds me of Liam Neeson. It makes me wonder if he has a “particular set of skills.”
Meeting his gaze, I smile. “At my final evaluation, five years ago, my parents were told I was a perfectly normal sixteen-year-old girl with above average test scores but nothing at that point that exceeded all of my other peers. I was smart, but not a genius. They recommended I take as many AP classes as I could, but there was no mention of skipping grades or even testing out of classes. However, I did have my first year’s worth of college credits by the time I graduated high school.”
Dr. Greyson glances at some papers in my traveling file. I’ve learned to travel with my file of test results and records of my academic achievements. “You scored a thirty-one on your ACT and graduated with a three-point-nine GPA. That’s really good. And you just graduated from college.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t valedictorian of my class. I didn’t receive a full-ride scholarship to any college. No write-up in any medical journals. No national television appearances
. No lottery ticket. No hidden gem. But, yes, I did just graduate from college. That’s good, right? Not everyone has a college degree. I’m hoping to get a teaching job for this school year. Otherwise, I’ll substitute teach.”
“And now?”
“I do graphic design: websites, banners, book covers. That sort of stuff.”
“Do you like to design?”
No one has ever asked me that. It’s always been an assumption that I must like it because I do it. Since when did everyone love their job?
“Not particularly. But I’m good at it. It’s a job for now.”
We talk about random stuff—a getting-to-know-me session. By the time we finish, I agree to make another appointment. A first for me.
Turning from the receptionist’s desk and grabbing several chocolates from a ceramic bowl that looks like something a young child made in school, I see Nate. He’s aged quite a bit, but I’d recognize that wavy, ginger hair anywhere. I’ve always had a thing for guys with wavy hair, especially the ones who don’t fight it and just say “Fuck it.” Really, there’s nothing more appealing than unruly, fuck-it hair.
He’s filled out too. No longer a boy, but a man with broad shoulders and a strong jaw. And a thick layer of stubble. Testosterone looks good on him. I smile when he looks up with those unmistakable blue eyes.
“Hey, how are you?” I ask just as his gaze diverts to the ground, arms resting on his sturdy, jean-clad thighs, hands folded in front of him.
He glances back up with no recognition on his face. His eyes shift side to side before focusing on me again.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?” he says in an uncertain tone.
“Wow, you’re all grown up.”
His eyes narrow. “You’ll have to excuse me, but how do we know each other?”