From That Moment (8 page)

His body felt cold and clammy. A lump formed in his throat, making it hard to swallow. Colin hadn’t felt that sinking feeling since his mother had left them. His mother had left a scribbled note for him. She hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to her ten-year-old-son. Something about having found true love, and that someday Colin would understand. Colin had just stood there, sobbing. His father had crumpled up the note and told him they would never talk about her again. He’d never understood why she’d left him, her baby. He breathed in deeply.

But this is different.
Lia must be around here. Or she just had to go somewhere. 

Colin stood up, his legs shaky. He was still naked.
I guess I never got dressed after last night.
The thought of the previous night made him ache for Lia’s soothing touch. A piece of paper on his desk caught his eye.
Lia. She left me a note.

Sorry I had to take off. I had a great time. See you later?

That’s it?
After the most incredible night he’d ever had? It hadn’t been his first time, but it was the only time he had cried after sex. Lia hadn’t noticed the tears streaming down his cheeks after he had come. He had pretended to fall asleep, but his body had been rushing with raw emotion. 

I’m sure there’s a reason. She’s not like that.
Colin dressed himself, grabbing the clothes strewn on the floor from last night.
She’ll be in lab, and she can explain. 

Colin left the house without eating breakfast. His stomach felt too queasy for food. He moved faster than usual, impatient to get into lab.

*************

Lia finally walked into lab around noon that morning. She tried to sneak in so that no one would notice how late she was. Of course, she banged her foot on one of the metal trash cans and everyone looked up. She saw that Colin was busy working at his bench pouring some solutions. When he heard her, he turned to face her. “Late night, huh?”

Lia blushed.
Oh God. Colin.
He was wearing the rumpled clothes from last night, and there were bags under his eyes. His hair was standing up in odd places, and stubble covered his cheeks and chin. 

“Um, yeah…” 

“Thanks for the note. You know, I was looking for you.” His eyes turned downwards. His voice wavered and ended on an inflection, sounding more like a question. 

“Um yeah, I didn’t want to impose on you or anything.” Lia avoided his eyes. 

Colin came over and touched her arm lightly. Lia felt the desire bubbling inside her again. She moved his hand, and turned to start her work.
Must not think about him. Must work. 

Lia was eager to set up her experiments. That was the problem with starting late in the day. Now she would be stuck in lab until much later. 

Colin leaned over. “When you have a minute can we discuss your work? Dr. P wants me to update him.” He stood there, waiting for an answer.

Lia felt the butterflies in her stomach again. She had a hard time getting her breath.
I hope he can’t tell.

“Just let me get these proteins spinning.”

“Okay.”

Colin moved back to his bench and Lia began to lay out the solutions she needed. She was deep in concentration when she felt someone standing next to her. 

“So, what’s up with you and Colin?” Farahnaz stood there, her dark eyes focused on Lia. She wore tight jeans and a fitting top that showed off her ample chest. 

Are you serious?

“Uh…”

She came so close to Lia that she could hear her breaths. “He’s a player, you know.”

Lia’s mouth felt glued shut.

Farahanaz’s eyes gleamed and she gave Lia a tight smile. “Good luck with your experiment.”

Lia’s hands were shaking and she had to make an effort not to spill her protein samples.
Breathe, breathe. Colin said there’s nothing going on.
 

Lia wanted to trust Colin. After last night, how could she not trust him? She buried the seeds of doubt deep inside herself. There was no way she was going to let Farahnaz mess things up for her right now.

Once her protein samples were spinning on the centrifuge, Lia walked over to Colin. He looked up right away when he heard her. 

“You have a few minutes?” he asked.

“Yup, I'm free for about 45 minutes.”

“So, what have you been doing?”

“I’ve just been getting the wild type plasmids so I can purify the protein. Then I’ll start working on the mutant.”

“Sounds good. Are you having any issues so far?”

“I'm just following the procedure I got from the paper. It's pretty straightforward.”

“Good.”

Colin was facing Lia but his eyes were glazed over, looking inwards. His hand distractedly touched Lia’s arm, and his breathing grew faster.

“What is it you're purifying again?”

“The wild type...I just told you that?”

“Right, okay. That makes sense. Did you need any help with that?”

“No, I'm good. Really, I would ask for help.” 

What’s with him? 

Colin’s eyes focused on Lia again.

“Sorry, guess I’m out of it…Hey, you want to go for little walk?”

“Okay.” 

Lia and Colin walked out of the lab together. She felt his arm bump against hers, and her body tingled remembering the previous night.
Those kisses. That closeness.
 

“Let's go for a walk on the green.” Colin pulled her arm gently. “This way.”

It was a chilly Fall day and all the leaves had turned bright red and orange. Gusts of wind were blowing them to the ground. Lia kicked up a few leaves, she couldn’t resist the temptation.

“Hey, are you kicking leaves at me?”

“Whoops, I'm sorry.”
No I’m not.

Colin grabbed a fistful of leaves and threw them at Lia.

“What are you doing?”

“Gotcha!”

Lia grabbed a big bunch of leaves and before she knew it, they were having a leaf fight. Red, yellow and orange leaves flew back and forth as passersby looked at them with bemused expressions. 

“Aaaaaah,” she shrieked as he crumpled a bunch of colorful leaves in her hair. The crinkly leaves broke into tiny little pieces. “I’m going to look like a mess.”

She got revenge by dumping a pile of leaves down his shirt. “Hey!” Colin had to pull his shirt out of his pants to get the leaves all out. “That’s not fair!”

She laughed, throwing another bunch of leaves at him. Lia hadn’t had a good laugh in a long time. Colin’s hair was disheveled, with little bits of leaves stuck in between the strands. His checks were ruddy from running.
He looks so cute.

“Come here, troublemaker.” Colin grabbed Lia and leaned her against a tree. 

He kissed her hungrily and possessively her, like he been waiting for it all day. These were not the gentle and soothing kisses Lia was used to. 

“Mmm, Colin…” Lia was enjoying the wilder version of Colin.

He held her head, bringing her in for a deeper kiss. “Ahhh.” His lips sucked her lips. He was tight up against her and she could feel his mounting excitement. A gust of wind distracted Lia and she remembered her experiment and pulled away. Colin’s lips were engorged from kissing her and his eyes wanted more.

“My proteins are almost done spinning. We have to go back.” Colin sighed, clearly not ready to stop. He pulled his arms away from Lia and ran them through his hair. “Okay.” 

*************

“Alex?” Lia opened the door to Gianna’s apartment. It was 10 p.m. Lia had been woken by the sound of banging on her aunt’s front door. She had collapsed into bed after getting home from lab at 5, and she was groggy and disoriented. Alex’s green eyes were red and swollen, and her long red hair was uncombed. 

“What’s wrong?”

Alex’s lower lip trembled and her eyes teared up. 

“I’m pregnant.”

“What? How did this happen? I mean—”

“I went to the doctor yesterday. I’m almost three months.”

Lia felt her stomach sink.

“I had missed some periods, but I ignored it until I started throwing up.”

“Come in and sit down.”

Alex followed Lia into Gianna’s living room.

“We need to be quiet, Gianna is sleeping.”

Alex nodded.

“I didn't know you had a boyfriend...uh, do you know who the dad is?”

“No. I have no idea.” 

The words were like a stab in Lia’s stomach. Tears were streaming down Alex’s checks now. Lia tentatively hugged her sister. It had been so long since they had seen each other, and this was the first show of emotion Lia had seen from Alex, since their dad had died. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been such an awful sister. I don't know what I've been doing all these years… You've been trying to help me, and I just ignored you. I'm so sorry…”

Lia’s cheeks were wet. Her poor baby sister. She hadn’t known any better. She had been avoiding the hurt for so long, and now she had to come face-to-face with it.

“It's okay. Don't worry about that. I know things were really hard for you. I wish I had pushed harder, but I didn’t want to drive you away completely.” 

Lia took a deep breath.

“Do you want to continue the pregnancy?” Her stomach knotted up, not wanting to hear a negative answer. Somehow, she was already attached to the idea of this little being inside her sister.

“Yes, yes. I feel really connected to this little baby living inside of me. I just can imagine not keeping it.” Alex sounded different. Like the old Alex she used to be best friends with when they were little girls. The one who was fiercely loving and tender.

“You’ll have to change.” Lia stated the obvious.

“Yeah. I know, I know.”

Lia said,  “I'm going to help you take care of you and the baby. I'm sure Gianna wouldn't mind if you came to live with us. We’ll help you out. Don't worry, okay?”

Her sister ventured, “But how is Gianna doing?” 

“She's such a doing quite well. I mean she's in really good spirits. A little tired, but she's hanging in there. She just started the chemo.”

“Can you tell her that I'm really sorry I’ve been such an awful niece?”

“Don’t worry, she understands.” 

“Thank you so much Lia…”Alex was sniffling again.
Must be the pregnancy hormones on top of everything.
“We used to be so close. I miss that and I hope we can get back to it, someday.”

“I love you, Alex.” 

Alex reached for Lia and hugged her so tight that Lia could hardly breathe. 

“Thank you Lia. I…I love you too.” 

Lia beckoned for Alex to follow her. 

“Come here, you should sleep.” 

She opened the sheets on her bed for Alex.

“Lie down.”

Alex climbed in. She sank into her bed. 

“Are you sure about this?”

“You need to rest. We’ll get your stuff here this weekend.”

Lia stood there after she had closed the door to her room.
Wow. Alex. Pregnant. 

She fell down onto the couch. I’ll make sure she’s okay.
I have to make sure my niece or nephew is okay
. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. 

CHAPTER TEN

Colin pushed harder on the pedals. Noah was getting away from him. This is a first. Colin frowned and wiped his sweaty forehead.
Let’s go.
He crisscrossed the yellow line of the bike path to get past the other riders obstructing him. Finally, he caught up to Noah. He slowed his pace to ride next to his friend.

“Hey, man.”

Noah gasped for breath.

“Let’s ride at a more leisurely pace,” said Colin. Noah’s face was red and drenched in sweat.

“Sounds good. You wanted to talk?”

Colin had wanted to do this bike right with Noah so that they would have a chance to talk. It was much easier to have a conversation when he was in motion.

“You know the girl I’ve been talking about, right?” 

“Lia?”

“Yeah, so she came over to my house the other night and we had the most amazing time.”

“As in, you slept together?”

“Yeah. And it was her first time and it was really, really sweet.” Colin looked off to the horizon as he was talking.

“Afterwards we both cuddled and I thought she was going to spend the night. But I wake up early that morning and she was gone. She left me a note saying thanks for the great time.”

“That’s weird.”

“Well that’s the sort of thing I used to do.”

“Uh, huh.”

“But this experience was different. I felt so connected. Never felt like this before. I just know that I want more.”

“And?”

“She’s hot and cold. I’m not sure if she’s playing with me, or if she wants more. I want more.”

“So tell her how you feel.”

Aaron turned to look at Colin as he was riding. 

“You don’t think I’ll look like a dumb ass?”

“You might, I guess. But if you really like her, what is stopping you?”

Colin gaped at Noah, his mouth half-open. 

“I…I guess…fear?”

Noah stopped his bike by putting his feet down. Colin squeezed his brakes and pulled in next to him. The sun shone straight into his eyes and he had to squint to see Noah.

“Look at you. You’ve never lacked for hot women, and now you’re afraid to go for the one you actually like?”

“I guess they never mattered like this.”

Colin felt his hands tighten around the handlebars.

“Come on, man.”

Colin looked out at the flowing water of the river for a few seconds. His hands relaxed.

“Yeah. She’s worth it. Screw the fear.”

Colin slapped Noah’s back.

“Yeah, man.”

“So how about you, are you taking your own advice?”

Noah’s eyes grew big. He started to say something but closed his mouth. He sat there for a minute, picking at his nails.

“Um. I’m thinking about it.”

“No offense, but what’s taking you so long?”

“Hey man, you’re busting my chops. I don’t know.”

“Well, if you want her, you should probably decide soon. She’s probably going to move on if you don’t.”