Incomplete

by Eliza Park

  I almost smacked myself on the forehead, “Yeah, sorry,” I’d written to him, almost daily, but never sent the letters. “Um, so Carole isn’t my real mom and it’s a whole thing. I don’t have the time to really explain right now, but I can call you from their place in a few days?”

  “That would be…great,” he said, “Really great.” He gave me his number and I wrote it down furiously in my journal.

  “Thanks, so listen. I was calling to talk to your dad.”

  “That would make sense seeing as this is his number,” he grumbled. “I’ll get him for you.”

  “Thank you. And, um, Maverick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for…everything you did.”

  He let out a breath into the phone, “Anything for you, Ace,” he said quietly. There were voices in the background, “My dad’s on his way into the office now, I’ll hand you over to him.”

  “Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Sure, Ace. See you.”

  “Celeste?” Mr. Lockwood said into the phone, his voice a deep baritone.

  “Hi, Mr. Lockwood! I’m seeking your legal counsel on behalf of a friend of mine….”

  Twenty minutes later I was walking back to my room, a whole bunch of information in my journal that was making me smile. I had a plan. A plan that would save Emily and get her out of here by the end of the month and into a temporary home that would keep her completely and entirely safe while she pursued legal action against her horrible stepdad.

  I nearly ran into the door to our room, which was always left open. It was closed now. I turned the handle, but it didn’t budge. None of the rooms had locks. I knocked, “Hey, Em? The door is stuck. Can you open it for me?”

  I waited a minute, not hearing a response, “I have some great news about Option C…”

  Nothing. Dread crept up the back of my neck. I sprinted for the nurse’s station. Marie was there with her hands full of charts. She dropped them when she saw the look on my face. “The door is stuck,” I said in a hoarse whisper. We ran back to the room. “Her step-dad didn’t come today, did he?” I asked, fear making the pitch of my voice climb higher.

  Marie shook her head, her brow furrowed as she yanked the door back and forth, trying to make it budge. She slammed her body against it a couple of times. “I think she stuck a chair under the handle.” She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her scrubs, dialing a number. “We need the battering ram. There’s a patient on level four who locked herself in.”

  I pounded on the door with my fists, calling out to Emily through the door, hoping she was somewhere else, and some random person had barricaded themselves behind the door.

  A large man showed up with a giant red object with two large handles on the top. He asked us to step back, and we did. I was sweating, my journal slipping from my wet palm. He held the battering ram back and swung it forward. The door shot open with a bang, the chair to Emily’s desk splintering as it was flung across the room.

  A strangled sound escaped my lips and I rushed into the room, ignoring Marie when she tried to grab me.

  Emily was laying on her bed, her face a bluish purple. The sheet from her bed was tied around her neck and looped through the slats of her metal headboard.

  “Em?” I choked, feeling my journal slip from my fingertips. I reached out to touch her, but Marie wrapped her arms around me.

  “You can’t,” She said, her voice breaking, “You can’t touch her.”

  I fought against her, the sobs wracking my body. I just needed to hold her. I just had to tell her about our plan. It was going to work. She was going to be safe.

  I screamed.

  Day 30

  I walked out of the facility at noon. The California air was chilly, but in the sun I felt warm. Tears were fighting at the corners of my eyes.

  Emily should have been here to see this.

  Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing.

  Her journal was in my bag, sitting in a side pocket. I’d read the last words she’d written a thousand times.

  “I’d rather die than go home.”

  An older couple I recognized from a familiar photo were standing in front of a silver rental car.

  Marie had updated them on the most recent developments in my situation. My roommate had committed suicide.

  Myrna was a round woman with dark red hair and eyes the color of grass. She hurried over to me and wrapped me in the warmest, most comforting hug. She smelled like fresh bread and lilac. I felt a large hand on my back and looked up into the eyes of my grandfather. He had dark hair and the kindest blue eyes.

  “You’re safe now, lass.” He whispered.

  I cried and let them lead me to the car, my body heavy with grief.

  Marie stood back at the door, waving to me with sadness in her kind eyes.

  The part of my life in rehab was over. I was moving forward to Idaho to finish school. And then…Ireland.

  Part Two: Three Years Later

  Fall

  Chapter 28

  Maverick

  The edges were already starting to wear on the most recent postcard I’d received from Dublin. It was dated two weeks ago, and the message was just as short as it had always been.

  Heading for the states soon. Hope to see you!

  Celeste had been traveling abroad for two, maybe three years now, driving and riding and walking all over Ireland. She never explicitly said what she was looking for, or if she ever found it, but she chose not to take a cellphone with reception that reached the U.S, despite my pleading. There were a few times last winter when I’d get a call from an unknown number at an ungodly hour and answer it with fumbling hands only to hear lots of static. Once or twice I heard her voice, but only ever for about two minutes before the operator cut her off. Just enough time to tell me where she was and some of the things she’d seen.

  Her parents knew nothing. She’d received her trust, hadn’t signed the documents to put it into her account, but still hadn’t asked them for money. And what was worse, my parents knew nothing. I was always having to fill them in on what I knew, which was extraordinarily little. Desperate to hear how she was doing; I’d even contacted her grandparents in Idaho only to be scolded by an elderly Irish woman. Something terrible had happened at rehab, I could tell by the way her voice sounded when she’d first called me. She didn’t explain, and I chose not to ask too many questions.

  I’d waited around for her to figure out I’d sent the envelope, to get an angry phone call from her exploding with rage at the secret I’d kept. But nothing came. I’d sent it along to my dad first, letting him add whatever other legal bullshit he needed to, like her birth certificate and the rights her mom signed over. Bohanan added some old ass pictures, and of course, the phone number to her grandparents. But I heard nothing. I didn’t know if my dad had made the return address to the Lockwood Group or if she just assumed it was from her other family. But still, I waited.

  I could have flown overseas and tried to find her, stalk her through the postcards, but I had school and my internship, and I didn’t want to ruin whatever it was she was doing over there by showing up, as badly as I’d wanted to. It became easier, over time, to let go of the idea that she would heal and come back to me. I’d finally come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t mine and never really had been. And while she was out there doing god knows what in Irish pubs with god knows who, I was in New York City and New Haven, finding myself in a variety of very loose, very willing women.

  I was a Senior now, quarterback for the Yale Bulldogs three years running, and finding women was the least of my worries. Brody mocked me for having a bit of a reputation, but I didn’t care. I needed the distraction. After everything that had happened to Celeste came to light, I was more cautious around women than I’d ever been. I became the king of consent.

  School would be starting next week, and Brody and I had found a house within walking distance to both the university and the downtown area. To celebrate, last we
ek we’d thrown a massive house party with people spilling into the backyard and out onto the front street. Everyone in attendance had gotten trashed, including myself, our house, and the yard. I’d somehow ended up regrettably, surprisingly, and somewhat suspiciously back in bed with Mia.

  I’d been able to take a break from her craziness over the summers, but when school picked up and we were both back in New Haven, she knocked on my door almost daily. Logan and Noah had graduated, but they still came around. Logan and Mia’s friend Ashley were a thing, which made it that much harder to get away from her. This time, for whatever fucking reason, she seemed to think I was ready to have a real relationship with her.

  I’d be lying if I hadn’t considered it. Mia was nuts, but she was alright in bed, and it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to have a semi-permanent distraction around without constantly worrying about STD’s. I never, ever fucked a girl without protection, but there was always the risk, and I was getting tired of having to do those routine cheeks every month. The nurse and I had become a little too cozy, and not in a pleasant way. Mia had changed the last few years. Her behavior was more erratic, her eyes wide and twitchy, always sniffing, and she was so skinny. Her ribs stuck out of her shirts, arms hanging limply at her sides.

  Brody stuck his head into my room then, breaking me from my reverie. I dropped the postcard to the desk, knowing he’d caught me looking at it again. “Hey,” he said, for once choosing not to mock me for mooning over Celeste for the eight millionth time in the last year, “The guys are here.” He hesitated, his large hand gripping the dark wooden frame.

  I knew that look. “And Mia?”

  “You gotta cut that chord, man.” Was all he said, his head dipping back into the hallway.

  I sighed.

  Okay, so I didn’t want to date Mia. I didn’t even want to fuck her. But I had temporarily considered it which I believed was beginning to make me less of a man-whore. Hopefully.

  I touched the scrolled words again with my thumb before slipping the postcard into the drawer of my desk with the stack of about 50 or so others.

  Hope to see you!

  I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.

  I hardly knew Celeste anymore and she certainly didn’t know me. Her postcards had been cryptic, the phone calls even more so, and whatever she had found in Ireland would assuredly lead her directly into the arms of a guy she deserved. One who didn’t keep secrets from her or try to replace her by fucking every blonde within a 50-mile radius.

  Even if she did come back, I wouldn’t be ready for a relationship and who knew if Celeste would be. I’d done my research, I knew if she didn’t go the opposite direction and fuck all the men she came across, it would take time, maybe years, to build up any sort of trust again. And I didn’t know if I was willing to be that guy for her. I was different, my life was different, and I only had one year left before going to law school. One single year I was intending on enjoying immensely.

  I strode out of my room and into the kitchen, wishing I’d decided to go for a run that afternoon instead of sitting at my desk scanning Celeste’s postcard. I didn’t know why I spent so much time thinking about her when she hardly existed anymore. She wasn’t even in the fucking country.

  Brody shouted at me from the couch, “I ordered a pizza, we got shit for food in this house.”

  I snorted out a laugh, “Should I just leave my wallet on the counter for you?”

  “What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine.”

  I filled up a glass of water from the tap, trying not to notice as Mia tentatively made her way over to me behind the counter. She leaned against it, flipping her thin blonde hair over her narrow shoulder. She’d been letting it grow out recently, but couldn’t quite keep up with the maintenance, so her dark brown roots were beginning to show, a stark contract to the bleached platinum.

  “Hey baby, I haven’t seen you in a few days.”

  I hated it when she called me baby. I wasn’t a fan of pet names in general, but that one always ground on my nerves.

  I nodded, setting the glass on the counter, “That is true.”

  She lifted her bony fingers to touch my arm and I moved gently out of her reach, a difficult thing to do in such a small space. “So, you wanna hang out after practice tonight?”

  I could feel the eyes of Selena and Ashley from the living room as I answered, crossing my arms over my chest, “Nope.”

  She shrugged her shoulder and did that weird, unnatural hair flip again. She was a pretty girl naturally, but for whatever reason she’d started plastering all this crap on her face. I knew makeup was supposed to make people look more appealing, but for her it just looked…odd. She had once been so attractive to me, so different, smart, and kind. Now she was a nuisance. “This weekend maybe?”

  “Mia.”

  She straightened her thin frame, crossing her arms over her nearly empty bra. “Don’t give me this shit again, Maverick. You said the other night you were ready for more.”

  “I was very, very drunk last weekend, Mia.”

  “The drunk mind speaks for the sober heart,” she orated, her eyes fluttering half closed when she sniffed.

  “Not in this case.”

  “Then why sleep with me? Again?” Her high-pitched voice was rising, turning into an incomprehensible whine, “You just keep coming back, Maverick. And I’m getting tired of waiting for you to come to your senses.”

  “So don’t.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t wait, Mia. Move on.”

  She gaped at me. “I can’t believe you would say that to me after everything I’ve forgiven you for.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t play dumb. I know you sleep around, and I’ve forgiven you for it.” Her voice had lowered again, not wanting to alert her friends about her apparent saintliness, I guessed.

  “We were never together.” I emphasized slowly, hoping she could hear me. “It was only sex. How many times do I have to say it, Mia?” I was exasperated.

  She scoffed. There was a knock on the front door then and I sent a silent thank you skyward, leaving Mia sulking in the kitchen to answer it. I reached for the wallet in my back pocket, assuming the pizza was finally here, and swung the door open.

  Shock iced over my body, the major organ in my chest freezing for a solid three seconds before restarting and beating louder than it did during a big game.

  “Oh shit,” Brody said behind me.

  I blinked and breathed out her name, “Celeste.”

  Chapter 29

  Celeste

  I had wanted to surprise Maverick.

  But I honestly didn’t think his reaction would be so dramatic.

  A giggle erupted from my mouth at the look of shock plastered all over his face and I covered my mouth with my hand, feeling ridiculous.

  He was taller. Definitely taller. Carole had told me he was, but I hadn’t thought of just how tall he could have gotten. Of course, the last time I’d seen him I’d been a little bit out of it. He was huge. Gone were the boyish features from our academy days. He’d sprouted several more inches, his shoulders were broader, his arms massive and bulging. I tried to keep my gaze from roaming over the rounded biceps stretching the fabric of his worn, gray Yale t-shirt. Even his face had changed. Maverick’s aristocratic jaw was sharper than glass, emphasized by a small amount of dark stubble on his chin, and he kept his once thick, sandy blonde hair tucked under a black baseball cap.

  For the first time in over three years, my heart raced when a man’s gaze locked onto mine. Those sky-blue eyes were searching my face like I had secrets hidden under my skin. The urge to reach out and touch him was overwhelming and I was speechless as a result. He had gotten so much more handsome since the last time I’d seen him. He was grown up, filling in those angular features with a solid masculinity. Something crackled between us, a strange sort of current that drew me closer.

  I felt like a little kid, staring up into the eyes of my long-time cr
ush, and the flush rose into my cheeks.

  I should have called first.

  “Celeste,” he said simply, his gaze raking down my body.

  “Hi.”

  Maverick stepped forward, pulling me into his muscled arms. His scent assaulted my nose, clean linen, and a trace of something manlier. Bulging biceps circled around my upper body, his ball cap shifting against the side of my head. I was flush against him, my chest pressed into his so firmly I could feel my nipples against the fabric of my sports bra and the hard ridge of his jeans against my athletic shorts. I’d only hugged my newly discovered extended family since rehab, and the hug was doing strange things to my brain, making me too aware of every point of contact on my body. I let out a breath and closed my eyes, enjoying how protected I felt in his embrace.

  It had been a long time since I’d drifted the line between reality and consciousness. I no longer had to wonder if Maverick was real.

  He was in front of me, holding me.

  This moment was actually happening.

  And I couldn’t question the reality of it.

  I was in the arms of the boy—now man, who had gone above and beyond the call of a romantic relationship to keep me safe.

  I’d tossed that security blanket in the trash last time, watched it crumple and then burn. I wasn’t going to it happen again, even if it meant just being friends.

  But by the way this hug felt, and the growing hum of electricity between our connected bodies, I had a feeling our friendship would devolve into something so deliciously more.

  I heard someone clear their throat and Maverick detangled himself from me. I could feel the mutual unwillingness floating between us and he brought his hands to my face, stroking a thumb over my cheek. I felt lost in his gaze, mesmerized by cerulean blue.

  “I’ve missed you,” He said quietly. He dropped his hand then, taking a step back from me and surveying me once again, this time more slowly. “You look amazing.”

  A look crossed his handsome features, one I recognized from a long time ago.