First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (76 page)

I’m twelve again, and Dad is towering above me in the kitchen. His face is twisted and his eyes clouded with rage.

I turn away and cower as Dad hurls the glass at me. It shatters against my face, opening a long, deep gash in my skin, and I cry out in pain. I can feel the blood pouring into my hands as I cover my face, but I don’t dare open my eyes to look. I don’t want to get glass in them and go blind, too.

“You’re the worst fucking son on earth, Owen! How did I get stuck with a stupid shit like you?”

I don’t say anything. I can’t even apologize because I don’t know what I did this time.

My mother screams in horror from somewhere behind me, and for the last time I can remember, she comes to my rescue. Her arms are around me, shielding me from my father’s hatred as he continues to lash out at me. Another glass breaks, but I still don’t open my eyes. If it hit Mom, I never found out.

I fell, of course. At least, that’s what they told the doctor. I was out riding my bike, and I fell over and hit the sharp corner of a mailbox. Nobody questioned it. Why would they? My dad was a great guy; everyone in our small town knew that.

Never mind the glass shards the surgeon had to extract from my face before stitching me up.

Mom never came to my aid again after that. I can’t even imagine what Dad did to her for defying him.

I shake away the terrible thoughts and try to focus on the last test. The first question is completely wrong, and I let my frustration out in a brutal flurry of red ink as I correct it. Minus fifteen.

Maria’s beautiful green eyes are still staring into my soul, and elsewhere in my mind, she is laughing and smiling as she walks alongside Craig’s friend Tina.

Why can’t I get her and Samantha out of my mind? What the hell is wrong with me?

Mark Williams’ forty-seven percent would have been roughly a C before Maria’s score entered the calculation. Tough luck. I enter the final test grade into the spreadsheet just as a text message hits my phone.

Owen – you’re going skiing with us next weekend. Don’t you dare chicken out.

I groan as I read Craig’s message and then lay on my back on the sofa as I reply. The ceiling fan spins around and around above me, creaking from a slight imbalance. I haven’t been skiing in years, and I was
never
good at it. I may be the world’s worst skier.

Who is *us* ??

“
It could be anyone,
” I think as I stuff the graded tests into my backpack. Craig has so many friends that I rarely meet the same one twice.

The apartment is already spotless thanks to my earlier cleaning binge, so instead I water my plants on the windowsill and get ready for bed while I wait for Craig’s response.

My phone beeps again minutes later, and I stare at Craig’s message in disbelief.

You’ll see. Don’t stand us up.

Sunday, February 17 – 12:00 PM

Maria

I know I’m asleep. I can tell because I hear my pulse pounding somewhere off in the distance. I recognize this dream and I'm starting to get scared already.

I’m fifteen again and I’m sitting on the couch in my brother Micah’s apartment. He’s about to come down the stairs; I’ve seen this all before.

“Hey Micah, where are you going?” I ask as my older brother jumps down the last four stairs and lands in the living room.

“I’ve got class, remember? Spring break doesn’t start for me until next week,” he answers, and he scoops his red backpack off the sofa as he passes me.

“Oh.”

Micah catches the disappointment in my voice, and he turns on his heels and comes back to sit down next to me.

“I’m sorry Maria... I’ll be back at five and then we can go do stuff, okay? I promise.”

He hugs me and I feel a little better. I missed him so much when he left for college, but when Mom and Dad arranged for my trip to visit him during my high school’s spring break, they forgot to check his break schedule. Our vacations didn’t line up at all.

“The fridge is all yours, okay? See you later!”

I wave goodbye to him from the couch and sit back with my book in a little patch of sunlight. Bilbo’s adventures in Mirkwood will tide me over until Micah gets home.

I remember my Psych 101 professor talking about lucid dreaming, how sometimes you know you’re asleep and can shape your own dreams, but mine are definitely not like that. Mine are pretty much the exact opposite—I can’t get away from them, and if I try, they sometimes start over. I have no choice but to relive them again and again.

Even worse, I already know how they end. I was there when the dream ended the first time.

I scoot across the sofa, following the square of warm sunshine as chapter after chapter flies by, until the sound of a key turning in the front door grabs my attention away from my book.

I look up excitedly, expecting to see my brother, and my heart sinks into my stomach as the door opens and Darren, my brother's friend from high school, walks in instead.

He seems surprised to see me, but the shock doesn’t last long. His eyes latch onto me, and I feel myself start to wither.

“What’s a little pea like you doing here?” he asks in a low, silky-smooth voice.

“I’m visiting my brother,” I squeak, trying desperately to break eye contact with him. I can’t seem to look away.

Something about him has always made me feel uncomfortable, and the feeling grows stronger the longer he stares at me. The way he looks at me makes me feel afraid. He’s not looking at me like I’m a guest sitting on his couch, but instead as if I’m a piece of meat.

“Oh... what time’s he supposed to be home, anyway?” he asks, not taking his eyes off me for a second. “He has class today, right?”

“He should be back by five,” I answer, my voice almost cracking as a strange, paralyzing fear courses through my body. I feel cold.

“Oh, that’s fine then,” he says, and I try not to tremble as he tosses his muddy, black backpack on the floor and sits down next to me on the couch.

A loud bang shatters my nightmare, and I gasp as I bolt upright in bed.

I’m twenty-two again. I’m back in my own bed, in my own apartment, and Darren is long gone. My shirt is soaked with sweat and my heart is racing at a million miles an hour as I glance frantically around my tiny room.

It’s nearly noon and I’m still in bed. So much for getting anything done this weekend.

“Damn it, Maria, wake up already!” shouts Tina from the hallway, and I leap out from under the blankets as she bangs on the door again. At least I know who to thank for breaking me out of my nightmare.

When I unlock the door, Tina is leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, waiting for me.

“Okay. Talking time,” she snaps. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t just sleep all damned weekend, you know. You missed grocery day yesterday, it was your weekend for vacuuming, and...”

“I’m just really tired,” I interrupt.

“Liar.”

There’s no point in me trying to make up an excuse; she’s not buying it.

“Tina... I don’t want to go outside. I’ve been having a really bad weekend.”

Without a word, she turns and heads downstairs to the kitchen. As I hear her rummage through the cabinet, I know exactly what she’s looking for. It’s an old tradition of ours—my idea, I think, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember.

We’re about to have a long, uncomfortable talk, and she’s getting out the bowl of chocolate kisses. Chocolate makes everything go down easier.

“Alright Maria—to the couch with you,” she calls from the kitchen, and I obey without question. I’m as big a sucker for chocolate as she is. That and pomegranates. The best is chocolate-dipped pomegranate pips; they’re like a little taste of heaven.

The sun shines in the window and makes a bright, welcoming rectangle on one cushion of our comfortable green sofa. I plop myself down right in the middle of it and bask in the warmth.

She sits down next to me, lifts the glass lid and offers me a chocolate. I gladly accept, and I grab one wrapped in green foil.

“Guess how many times I saw you yesterday, Maria?” she asks, and I pretend I’m thinking about my answer as I unwrap the chocolate.

“Zero. I never left my room.”

“And why is that? Why did you never once come out of your room yesterday?”

My nerves stand on edge at her tone. I don’t like being scolded any more than I like being around guys. Instead of answering, I reach into the bowl and toss her a red-foiled kiss. She deftly snatches it out of the air with one hand without taking her eyes off me.

“Seriously. I’m worried about you,” she says quietly. She unwraps the foil as she scoots closer to me on the couch.

“Tina, stop it. You don’t have to worry about me all the time,” I protest, and to my surprise, she almost loses it.

“Yes I do! I
totally
have to worry about you.”

I sense something strange—something scared—hiding in the back of her voice that I haven’t heard in years. She’s actually worrying herself into hysteria over me.

“Maria, you’re all I have left! Of course I’m worrying about you,” she continues, barely holding herself together. This is how I knew I could trust her, why I was able to tell her about Darren in the first place.

Tina is more than just a friend; she actually loves me. I’m all the family she has left.

“Tina, I’m sorry. I really am. I’m just...”

I run out of words. I don’t know how to tell her that my nightmares are getting worse, or that something inside me snapped when I tried to hand in that test. How do I tell her something like that? I’ve only met Owen one time and I can’t get him out of my mind.

She stares at me for a long time and then throws me another chocolate. I miss it completely and have to go hunting for it under the sofa while she laughs. She picks a dust bunny out of my bangs as I come back up again.

“Maria... I want you to trust me and promise you won’t kill me for what I’m about to tell you, okay?”

“Why should I promise that? Maybe it’s something worth killing you over,” I answer, only halfway joking.

“Seriously. Promise me.”

I stare at her in silence, and she finally stops waiting for my promise and spills the beans.

“I told Craig that we’d both go skiing with him next weekend, and that you’d absolutely come along.”

“You told a guy that I’d go out skiing with him?” I gasp, gaping at her as if she has three heads.

“No, I told a guy that
we’d
go out skiing with him. Not you...
we
,” she protests.

“I don’t want to go
anywhere
with a guy, and that’s with or without you.”

“Darren was seven years ago! You have to move on and rebuild. You have to be able to deal with guys if you’re going to make it outside of...”

“Easy for you to say. He didn’t rape
you
!” I hiss, practically spitting poison and shaking in fury and fear.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Tina, trying desperately to take back her words, but I’m too upset to stop. I’m terrified of what I might say, but I have no control over myself now.

“You
didn’t spend the last seven years of your life trying to get better. Nobody told
you
that it was your fault. Nobody thinks
you’re
some stupid fucking slut!”

“Maria, I didn’t mean...”

“No! You think you understand me, and why? Because your mom forgot about you?”

I gasp as the words come out of my mouth, and I cover my face as a horrible feeling of guilt crashes down on me. How on earth could I have said that?

I can see the hurt on her face. I might as well have stabbed her.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Tina’s mother has early-onset Alzheimer’s dementia, and the poor girl’s been forced to watch the mother she loved fade a little more every year. By the time she went home for winter break during our freshman year, her mother didn’t even remember her.

Tina never goes home anymore.

I feebly try to offer her a chocolate but there are some things that even kisses can’t fix and words can’t be taken back. I even blurt out that I’ll go skiing with her, but it won’t put those hateful, horrible words back in my mouth again.

She starts to cry, and I know that in about five seconds I’m going to start too.

Wednesday, February 20 – 3:45 PM

Owen

“And for this next part, there were a bunch of ways you could set up your hypothesis grid. I’m only going to cover one of them, but go ahead and bring up your questions after class if you did it differently.”

The dry-erase marker squeaks as I sketch out the answer to the last question of the test. Only two students out of the twenty in my section got it right, and when I glance over my shoulder, only one of those two is even paying attention to me.

Maria’s head is down and she’s scribbling something in a notebook. I can’t tell what it is from all the way up here, but I don’t plan to call her out on it—not with how nervous she gets.

I turn back to the board, but as I’m about to finish explaining the solution, I feel as if I’m being stared at. Of course I’m being stared at—I’m the teacher. It’s part of my job, so why do I suddenly feel so awkward about it?

The feeling grows stronger and stronger as I try to finish off the question until I just can’t handle it anymore. I cut myself off and spin around just in time to see Maria’s head jerk down and hide behind her notebook again.

“Sorry... lost my train of thought,” I stammer to the rest of the startled class, and I bury my face in my lecture notes and pretend I’m trying to figure out where I was. I suddenly can’t focus on anything and my thoughts refuse to turn into coherent sentences. There’s a whole classroom full of people waiting impatiently for me to teach them, and here I am trying to make my brain work correctly. Some teacher I am.

I take a deep breath, turn back around, and finish off the problem.

“
I have to do this. This is my job. Stop thinking about her.
”

I can’t stop, of course. I’m staring at the whiteboard, but all I’m seeing is Maria hunched over her notebook.