Fall Into Forever (21 page)

“Jon, please. I don’t want to hear it. What’s done is done. Can we just pretend it didn’t happen? At least for a few more hours? I’m liking the way things are right now.”

Maybe she’s willing to pretend it didn’t happen, but I can’t.

“I should’ve called or texted. It’s just that…I was scared things were moving too fast. And I’m not—you’d be—” I notice something gray and fuzzy sticking out of her pillowcase. “What’s that?”

She glances down and quickly shoves it back inside. “Nothing.”

“Looks like something to me. What is it?”

She’s chewing on her lip again. “I’d really rather not say.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll laugh. Or it’ll tick you off.”

That doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s funny, but why would it make me angry? “I highly doubt it. Come on. Show me. I promise I won’t laugh. Well, I might laugh, but I won’t be mad.”

Sheepishly, she reaches into the pillowcase and pulls out a ratty stuffed animal that has clearly seen better days.

“Did that used to be a…bear?”

She shakes her head. “A lemur.”

“That’s a lemur?”

“Yes. Without any stuffing, it’s hard to tell what he is.”

“I can see that.” I study her face. “Why would you think it would piss me off? I mean, I think it’s cute that you still sleep with a stuffed animal.”

“You do?” Her eyes widen.

“Of course.” Moving the plates aside, I grab her around the waist and pull her close. She smells like soap, toothpaste, and maple syrup. “Why in the hell would that make me mad?”

She shrugs. “I just knew someone once who was irritated by it. Said it was stupid and childish. So I got into the habit of stuffing it inside my pillowcase whenever he was around.”

He?
“And that’s why you stuffed it in there now, because you thought I’d react the same way.” The air around us suddenly grows quiet. Who in her life would care if she slept with a stuffed animal or not? And then it occurs to me that I know exactly who, even if I don’t know his name. “Is this the same person who hurt you?”

Her eyes flash up to mine. She looks wary. “Hurt? What do you mean?”

“I can tell something has happened to you. Sometimes you get panicky, like you’re expecting a certain reaction from me.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Especially when you feel trapped.”

She blinks rapidly, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Ivy, talk to me.”

Still no answer.

“Did someone abuse you? Threaten you? Make you feel unsafe?”

At first I think she’s still not going to answer, until…

“Yes,” she whispers.

My protective instincts kick into overdrive and I pull her closer. “Tell me what happened.”

She buries her face in my shoulder but says nothing.

“Ivy, please. I want to know why you’re so scared.”

She places her hand on my chest, right above my heart. It beats a few times before she says anything. “He was popular in high school. I guess you could say we both were. When we started going out our senior year, everyone said we were the perfect couple. Star football player and cheerleader. Homecoming king and queen.” She pauses. “It’s pathetic, I know, but that was my life.”

“It’s not pathetic, Ivy. I had a screwed-up high school experience, and that’s putting it mildly. I’m glad yours was normal.”

“Normal is deceiving, though. What looks perfect and normal on the outside can be very dysfunctional on the inside. In my home town, lots of people stick around and marry their high school sweethearts, have kids, and live happily ever after.”

“And he thought you were destined for the same thing?” I recall the conversation we had about fate and destiny. She seemed pissed off about it at the time.

She nods. “But when we got to college and I got a glimpse of a bigger, wider world, I began to see Chase for what he was. A selfish, cruel person. I decided I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with someone like that.”

“So you broke up with him?”

“I tried to. Several times.”

“What do you mean, you tried to? You either do or you don’t, right?”

Her laugh is bitter and harsh. “You didn’t know Chase. He was used to getting his way. And when he didn’t, things got ugly. Fast. The trouble was, no one else saw that side of him. Only me. He’d be charming and funny when we were out in public, but behind closed doors things were much different.”

“What did he do to you, Ivy?” My tone is ice cold.

“I…I don’t want to talk about specifics. I can’t.”

Can’t or won’t?
“Did you ever tell anyone what was going on?”

“A few times, but I’d get told I was blowing things out of proportion. He’s a good guy, they’d say.”

“Did you tell your parents?”

“No, not really. I tried once, but they wouldn’t listen.”

What about the boyfriend who died? The one you loved? Where does he fit in?
I want to ask her these questions, but I don’t know how to bring it up. Either that, or I’m afraid of her answer.

“The guy sounds like a total asshole.” I squeeze her tighter and kiss the top of her head.

“One of the times I tried to break up with him, he barricaded me in his apartment for a whole weekend. Without my phone or computer. I had no way of contacting anyone. He finally let me go and told me it was just a joke.”

“A joke? Locking you up in his apartment was a fucking joke?” I feel like punching my hand through a wall right now.

“When I threatened to go to his dad, the Lincoln Falls chief of police, Chase just laughed. He said if I told his dad, he wouldn’t believe me anyway, and my mom could get fired.”

“How is that possible? I don’t get it.”

“Lincoln Falls is really small. Everyone knows everyone and/or is related. His dad is the police chief and his aunt is my mom’s supervisor. I don’t know if that would’ve happened or not, but I couldn’t take the chance. Money was really tight in our house.
Is
really tight. We couldn’t afford for my mom to lose her job. And then he said something I’ll never forget. He told me that no one would ever believe me anyway, because he was one of the golden boys. The darling of Lincoln Falls. He could do no wrong. Everyone loved him and would believe his word over mine.”

“That’s crazy. How is that even possible?”

She shrugs. “It’s a small town and my family has only lived there for a few years. They still consider us outsiders. His family, though, goes way back. His great-grandfather was the first mayor. So, yeah, they’ll believe a Marquette over anyone else.”

I can’t take it any longer. I move her off my lap, stand, and start aimlessly pacing the room. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? I know it happened a few years ago, but I have the urge to jump on my bike, hunt him down, and kick his ass. “So what did you do?”

“I stuck it out until I could figure out what I
could
do.” She rubs her forehead and grimaces.

“Are you okay?”

“I usually get migraines when I think about this stuff, but it’s not as bad as it usually is.”

“What can I get you? Aspirin? An ice pack?”

She gives me a weak smile. “Thanks, but I actually take something stronger.”

I point to her bag. “Where? Is it in there?” I make a move in that direction, but she puts a hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

“It’s a prescription. But I don’t have any left.”

“Then I’ll go to your room and get them. Just tell me where—”

“What I mean is, I’m all out.”

“Can you get a refill? I can go down and—”

She cups my face in her hand, strokes her thumb over my temple. “Thank you for trying to take care of me.” Then she sighs. “But I don’t have any refills left, either. That’s the problem. I need to see a doctor up here to get more.”

“Then let’s go. The Student Health Center is open on Saturdays and they take walk-in appointments.”

“Jon…I…” She hesitates, blinks.

I search her expression, looking for what’s wrong. “What?” She doesn’t answer. “Ivy, tell me.”

She looks down at her hands. “I need to go to the Student Counseling Center, not the health center.”

“Okay, that’s cool. I don’t know if they’ve got Saturday hours. Do you?” I pull my phone from my pocket.

“Jon. No.” There’s an insistence in her voice that makes me look up from the screen. “We’re talking a shrink here,” she says, biting her lip. “A doctor for crazy people.”

“You’re not crazy, Ivy. You get migraines. Besides, I’m pretty sure any doc can prescribe migraine meds. You don’t need to go to the SCC for that.”

“But they’ll want to know my medical history. And when they do…” Her voice trails off.

“Ivy? What happened? Tell me.”

She bites the inside of her lip. “Jon, I…I haven’t told you everything. You know that accident where I almost died?”

I nod.

A single tear runs down her face. “The last thing I remember was walking home from class that day. Not the party or the fight with Chase or getting into his car. But everyone who was there said that—”

“Wait. Chase the asshole, controlling boyfriend?
He
was in the accident with you?” So she wasn’t in love with him after all. My mind races back to why I made that assumption. It was Tate. Goddamnit. Why the hell did I ever listen to him?

“Yes,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “The most pivotal event in my life and I can’t remember what happened, just tiny bits and pieces before and after the accident. The doctors call it retrograde amnesia with islands of memory. Except that I feel things a person in my shoes shouldn’t feel. Wrong things. Horrible things.”

“What are you talking about, Ivy?” I try to take her in my arms, but she pushes me away. “Are you feeling guilty because the guy was a jerk and now he’s dead?”

“Yes, I guess that’s part of it. And then there was my breakdown. My mom likes to call it an
incident
, because that sounds better. It happened out in public. I…I lost it.”

I sit next to her on the bed, but she refuses to look at me. I put the tips of my fingers under her chin and lift her head. “You’re not crazy, Ivy. And you’re not fucked up, either. When you’ve been through a lot, like you have, things can build up inside. It becomes a perfect storm of emotions, where everything converges at once.”

She sniffs and gives me a small smile. “Another movie reference?”

I hadn’t thought about it, but yeah. “What if I went with you? You really need to talk to a professional about all this. It’s too much of a burden to carry around yourself.”

She frowns. “Come with me? To my appointment?”

“Not
into
your appointment, but to the SCC with you. I could wait in the waiting room. Would you go then?”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “Have you…ever been to counseling?”

“Yeah.” If telling her about my experience will help her decide to go get help, then it’s worth it. “After my mom died, I went to a dark place. Started hanging out with a bad crowd. Drinking and smoking weed. That’s when…when I got into some trouble.”

I tell her about the Saturday night fight club. Selling weed. Breaking into Mr. Hoffman’s house.

I put my head in my hands. Of all the shit I’ve done, I feel the worst about the break-in. With the other stuff, I was doing the shit to myself, not some innocent person. We were high and I got talked into looking for a few easy-to-sell electronics. The guys I was with ended up trashing the place. I tried to stop them, but it was one of me and three of them.

Feeling her hand on my back, I look up. She gives me an encouraging smile.

“And then what happened?”

“I…uh…got sent to juvie. Through some miracle that probably had something to do with Stella, they agreed to defer my sentence and expunge my record when I turned eighteen if I went to counseling and stayed out of trouble.”

I suddenly feel like a phony, spouting off this shit like I’m some kind of expert. The truth is, if they hadn’t made me go into counseling, I’d never have done it on my own.

“And did it help?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. I ended up making the football team my senior year after missing the year before, and I managed to get decent grades.”

The front door slams downstairs and then there’s the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later, someone is pounding on my bedroom door.

I get up and unlock the door. It’s James.

“Dude, I’ve been texting you. Are you getting the beer for tonight or am I?”

Tonight? Shit. That’s right. There’s another party. I glance over at Ivy. I doubt either one of us will be in a partying mood tonight.

“I don’t think we’re going, bro. In fact…” I pull him out into the hall and close the door.

“What’s up?” James asks.

“I haven’t talked about this with Ivy yet, but can we stay at your family’s beach house tonight? After what happened last night, it would be good for her to get away.”