Like Gravity (28 page)

I was seven. I didn’t feel any different – I didn’t look any bigger, either.

I hadn’t told anyone it was my birthday, not even the boy. My foster mother had given me a rare, unexpected hug when I’d walked into the kitchen for breakfast this morning, but other than that there had been no recognition that I was one year older.

If my m
om had been here, there’d have been cake and presents and so much laughter my sides would ache for the next three days. The fact that it was my birthday and she
wasn’t
here made it seem more real, more final than ever before – she was gone, and she was never coming back.

Even w
ith my eyes pressed closed, I could tell we were approaching the fairgrounds. The other kids’ voices got louder as they talked about which rides they would go on and pointed at different attractions through the windows as our car rolled slowly into line for the parking lot.

Squeezing my eyes shut even tighter, I made a birthday wish.
It wasn’t done over a cake, and I hadn’t blown out any candles, but I hoped it would count anyway.

I didn’t wish for presents.
I didn’t wish for my father to find me. I didn’t wish to be adopted. I didn’t even wish for my mother back.

Instead,
I wished on every star in the night sky, on all those constellations the boy had taught me to find and name, that we wouldn’t be separated. That, whatever happened, we would stay together. Because the boy with the sad eyes? He’d become 
my 
brightest star; the one who led me to safety every night, when the nightmares and the grief became too much. He’d guided me from the darkness – my North Star in the never-ending shadows.

And
I didn’t want to lose him, not ever.

Our foster mother parked the van and the rest of the kids immediately jumped out and sprinted for the park entrance. I trailed slowly behind, knowing I would never be able to keep up anyway. When we were handed our tickets and allowed into the park, the group splintered off in every direction.

The older girls I shared a bedroom with, Mary and Katie, took off for the food stands on the other side of the park. A pack of the older boys ran for the giant thrill rides that flipped upside down and made you throw up. The rest headed for the ring toss and dart throwing games.

I didn’t see where the boy had
gone.

My foster mother
and the other two chaperones were busy with Bobbie, the three-year-old toddler who’d arrived at the house two weeks ago. He was the youngest by far, and he used up almost all their attention. The rest of us had been given an allowance of twenty tickets each, and sent off to spend them however we wanted. I think Eva was just happy that she didn’t have to deal with the other seven of us for the next few hours.

I decided to stick by myself, rather than chase after a group of older kids who didn’t want me
tagging along anyway. I wandered around for a few minutes, taking in the sights and smells, and eventually parted with three of my tickets in return for a lump of cotton candy so sticky I had to suck on each of my fingers for several seconds to get them clean.

Wh
en I saw the Ferris wheel – shiny red and lit up with hundreds of tiny glowing lights – it seemed magical, like something out of a storybook. It was enchanting, utterly unlike any ride I’d ever seen before, and I instantly wanted to ride it up, up, up into the sky. I knew the view of the stars from the very top would be incredible.

I got into line and tried to ignore the
three boys standing several feet ahead of me. They lived in the group home, and I knew from experience that they would tease me mercilessly if they discovered me standing anywhere near them. I should have gotten out of line as soon as I saw them – I almost did – but the lure of the Ferris wheel was too strong, and I figured there was a pretty good chance they wouldn’t notice me anyway.

I was wrong.

We were nearing the front of the line when Eugene, the oldest – and meanest – of the boys turned and spotted me. About thirteen, with blond hair and a tall frame, Eugene was a bully. I’d always thought it was because he hated his dorky name so much, he felt like had to prove how tough he was every minute of the day.

“Hey, freak!” he yelled, the excitement and malice clear in his eyes
.

I, as usual, didn’t respond.

“What, cat gotcha tongue, freak?” Eugene sneered.

The
other boys turned to look at me as well, laughing and joking amongst themselves. I wrapped my arms tightly around my chest, trying to hold myself together as I did my best to ignore them.

Don’t let them see you cry, Brooklyn. Never let them see weakness.
 

The boy had told me that
several weeks ago, after a particularly brutal day of teasing at the dinner table when Eugene had “accidentally” bumped into me, causing my entire plate of chicken nuggets and mashed potatoes to fall to the ground. Eva had blamed me for being clumsy and sent me to bed without supper as punishment.

A target who doesn’t fight back, who won’t even defend herself with words, is the easiest
victim in the world.

“Riding alone?” Eugene asked, reaching out a hand to grab my upper arm
roughly. “We can’t have that. I am your big brother after all – obviously
not
by blood. As if I would be related to such a loser,” he laughed hysterically.

The other boys snickered at his words.

“Come on, Brooklyn. We’ll ride together. Just like real siblings.”

This was no innocent suggestion; I could hear the threat buried wi
thin his words. The last thing I wanted in the world was to ruin the magic of the Ferris wheel by riding with Eugene, but I didn’t seem to have a choice.

What I
did
have was a bad, bad feeling about this.

I glowered at him and tried to tug my arm away from his grip, but he was so much bigger, stronger, tougher –
you name it
– than me. It wasn’t a fair fight; but then, it never was when it came to Eugene.

Before I knew it, all my remaining
my tickets had been ripped from my hands and I was being herded onto a Ferris wheel car with Eugene hovering at my back. The other boys were standing behind us, waiting to board their own car and blocking the exit; any escape attempts would be stopped before I made it two feet. I tried to catch the eye of the man checking our safety bar, but he didn't look in my direction once. 

And then it was too late;
we were up in the air.

Eugene hooted loudly, vict
orious, and the boys in the car below answered with cheers of their own. I made myself small, squeezing as far away from him as possible within the tiny compartment. 

When we were about halfway up, he started the rocking.
 

Leaning his body forward
over the bar, then slamming it abruptly against the backrest, Eugene made the whole car swing back and forth dangerously fast. Within seconds I grew dizzy and began trembling in fear; a few times we tilted so sharply I was sure I'd slide right out from under the bar and fall to my death on the hard ground far below us. 

I didn't scream, I didn't cry; I refused to give him that much satisfaction.

But I was scared out of my mind, wailing internally at the injustice of this. He'd taken away any and all excitement I'd had when I'd first spotted this awful ride. By the time we finally returned to the ground, I was not only ready to throw up my cotton candy, but had vowed I'd never ride a Ferris wheel again, as long as I lived. 

The
boys left me – ticketless, nauseous, and alone – at the base of the ride. They laughed as they sprinted off, high fiving one other and planning which rides they'd go on next. I sat in the dirt and tried very, very hard not to pity myself. 

It was there that the boy found me.
 

“Hey, Bee,”
he said, extending one hand down to help me to my feet. 

“Hi,”
I whispered, my voice small. 

“Are you okay?”
he asked. 

So
, he'd seen what Eugene did. I nodded. 

“D
on't let them get to you. Not on your birthday.” 

I looked up into his face, surprised he'd even known it was my spec
ial day, and he winked at me. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back toward the line for the Ferris wheel. He paused when he felt my resistance.

“I
don't want to go back on there,” I insisted, tugging my hand away. 

“T
hat's exactly why you have to, Bee. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'get back on the horse that threw you?’” he asked.

I shook my head no, looking at him
questioningly. 

“W
ell, it's the truth. Don't let an idiot like Eugene ruin Ferris wheels for you. I saw your face earlier, when you first got in line… You looked so excited. Weren’t you?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “
I did really want to ride, before. But now…” I trailed off.

“I
t will be different, Bee. I promise. Don't you trust me?”

I thought
about it for all of a second. “Of course.”

“Then let's go.”

We waited in line for a short time, and the boy shared some of his tickets with me since Eugene had taken all of mine. I was nervous when we first climbed on board, but soon enough I realized that the boy had been right – it
was
different this time. 

The only thing the boy
hadn't
mentioned was that he was terrified of heights, which I figured out about twenty seconds after we left the ground. He was breathing heavier than usual, and his skin looked pale and clammy with fear. 

When the wheel stopped
turning, we were perched at the very top of the park and I could see the whole galaxy lit up like a million tiny frozen fireflies in the night sky. I started to point out constellations to the boy, naming them easily now, after weeks of practice, and even retelling some of their stories out loud. 

I think that
calmed him somewhat, because his grip on the safety bar loosened up and he turned to look over at me as we began our descent back to the ground. 

“Happy Birthday, Bee,”
he said, squeezing my hand with his own. 

I thought
again about my earlier birthday wish, and prayed even harder that it would come true. 

“Thanks, Finn,”
I replied, smiling back at him.

Breaking Point

“Bee? Bee, what is it?” Finn asked. He’d pulled his head up from the crook of my neck, and was staring over at me with a concerned look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

His voice snapped me back to reality. Our car was poised at the top of the wheel, no doubt offering a breathtaking panoramic view of the fair below and an incredible sunset – a fiery ball of red making its descent in the western sky. At the moment, though, it was all a blur. I stared straight ahead, unable to look at him. Completely unwilling to believe what my mind had just revealed to me.

My first instinct was to reject it outright. Utter denial. Because there was just no possible way that the sad eyed boy who haunted my memories was Finn.
 
My 
Finn.  It was too ludicrous to even contemplate.

My next thought was that this was all some kind of coincidence;
a grand cosmic joke, played out by fate or destiny or whatever gods exist up there. Maybe one day they, in all their infinite omnipotence, were bored enough to reach down and stir the pot; to mess with us mere mortals here on earth, so that by the time we finally caught on to what was happening, it was too late. Then, when we were running around like chickens with their heads lopped off, trying desperately to do damage control on our messy lives, they could just kick back and watch, unapologetically entertained by our lack of power and foresight.

I quickly rejected that idea, partly because I liked to think I had at least a semblance of control over my own destiny and secondly because that would be one hell of an unlikely coincidence.

That left one final option – the only true explanation there’d ever really been. I didn’t want to face it. I didn’t even want to think it. All I wanted to do was rewind the clocks back fifteen minutes, to before I’d climbed on this goddamn Ferris wheel and everything had changed.

Was it only fifteen minutes ago that everything had been perfect? That I’d been happy? That I’d believed that I, for once in my life, was lucky?

It seemed a distant memory now, superficial and fleeting; disappearing with the wind on gossamer wings, so quickly it was as if it had never been real at all.

The truth was, though, a part of me had suspected all along that this, that
 
he
, couldn’t possibly be meant for me. Deep down, I’d known I wasn’t meant for good things – for lightness and love. It just wasn’t in the cards for me, and what a fool I’d been, if only for a brief span of time, to think otherwise.

Even with that knowledge
firmly in my head, it wasn’t any easier to accept it as the truth. And, against all logic, I desperately wished for any other explanation.

Because
if it were true, it meant that not only were Finn and the sad eyed boy one and the same…it also meant that Finn was a liar.

He’d known exactly who I was from the moment we’d met.

He’d known about my past.

He’d known about my mother.

And he’d used that knowledge to break me apart and put me back together again just the way he wanted. He’d infiltrated my life, inserted himself into each and every facet of my existence, until I fell so deep in love with him I didn’t know where he ended and I began anymore.

And he’d never said a goddamn word.

I’d 
trusted 
him; that was monumental for me. Worse, I’d let all my walls crumble, and for what? Some boy who’d charmed his way into my good graces and then wormed his way into my heart and my pants.

W
hat was I to him? What was this mockery of a relationship? Some kind of fucked up retribution for our shared childhood?

Did he really think he could just saunter back into my life and…what?
 
Fix
me?

D
id he even love me?

H
ow could you truly love someone if everything you’d ever told them was a lie?

There were endless questions, and no simple answers. But t
he bottom line was that he was twisted.

He was a liar.

And he definitely, unquestionably, was not the man I’d thought I knew. The man I’d thought I loved.

I’d never before understood the term
 breaking point. People always talk about how they’ve been pushed to that place where you the stress and fear are so intense your mind simply can’t handle it anymore. I’d thought it was a load of crap, a concept thought up by people who are either too emotionally unequipped or too cognitively lazy to sort through their mental messes and face reality.

I understood it now.

I could literally feel my mind breaking apart – splintering into pieces as it tried desperately to reconcile the things I thought I knew about Finn Chambers with what I had just discovered. It was kind of like looking at a Picasso – all the essential parts were there, but damned if they weren’t fucked up and put completely in the wrong places.

My mind wasn’t alone though, because my heart –
my stupid, blind, unprotected heart –was fracturing into pieces too.

“Bee?” Finn repeated, worry apparent in his tone. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer, but I’m sure the horrified look spreading across my face as the realization sunk in and took hold of me spoke volumes.

I couldn’t do this right now – I wasn’t about to hash things out here, on a freaking Ferris wheel hovering forty yards above the ground. In fact, I didn’t think I wanted to hash things out at all. Ever. I just wanted to run away and forget the past three months of my life ever happened.
But first, I needed to get away from him. And I couldn’t let on that I’d remembered, that I
knew
, or he’d never let me leave without talking things out.

And
I definitely didn’t want to talk. I wanted to flee. I wanted to punch him in the face, then sleep with every beautiful man who walked across my path until his scent and his touch were permanently removed from my memory. I wanted to whitewash my walls, burn my bed to ash, and throw my guitar in a gutter somewhere.

Hold it together, Brooklyn.

“I feel sick,” I lied through my teeth, my tone flat and utterly devoid of emotion. “I forgot how much I hate Ferris wheels.” That part, at least, was true – after this, they’d be forever ruined for me.

“
Aw, I’m sorry, princess,” Finn’s voice was gentle, understanding, loving; listening to it felt like he’d thrown salt in an open wound. “You had me worried.”

When he wrapped his arms around me, I couldn’t help myself – I went
completely tense. It took everything I had not to pull away.

“Bee?” Finn’s questioned, confusion evident in his voice.

I was really fucking up my plan to act l
ike nothing was wrong; I needed to pull it together. One muscle at a time, I forced my body to relax in his arms.

“Sorry. I’m really okay,” I swallowed the lie.
“Just trying not to throw up.”

Unfortunately, that
second part was true. I’d been fighting nausea since I’d returned from my involuntary jaunt down memory lane, but it had nothing to do with motion sickness or heights.

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “We’re almost back on the ground.”

He was right; we were the next car to unload. I still hadn’t looked at him, for fear of what he might read in my eyes.

I
couldn’t look at him.

Hell, I would barely be able to stomach looking
myself
in the mirror.

I felt used, dirty, lost, betrayed. But, worse, I felt like a child. Completely beguiled and naïve. And those were words no one had ever, in the history of my existence, used to describe Brooklyn Turner.

The emotions were threatening to overwhelm me, and I knew if I started crying now, I might never stop; I needed to be far, far away from him when the levies inevitably broke.

Hold it together, Brooklyn. You can do this. Just a little longer.

When we touched down and climbed out of our car, I immediately sidestepped Finn so I was standing several feet away. He noticed my distance immediately – how could he not? In the months since we’d met, even when we weren’t officially dating, we’d always fully invaded each other’s space, gravitating so close to one another that we were near-touching at all times.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, turning to scan the crowd for the nearest restroom. When I spotted the dull green concrete building several yards away, I turned on my heel without another word and began striding toward it. I made it about halfway there before Finn caught up with me, grabbing my arm to bring me to a halt.

“Hey, do you need me to come in with you? Hold your hair back or…something?” His voice was a mix of confusion and concern, the sincerity in his words burning my ears like acid.

“No,” I said, yanking my arm away roughly. “I need to throw up, Finn. Girls don’t like their boyfriends—
.” I nearly choked over the word “–seeing them like that, okay? So let me go. I’ll be fine. But if I stand here another moment, you’re going to be covered in regurgitated fried dough and cotton candy.”

“Okay…I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’ll wait for you outside. Just…let me know if you need me.” He sounded upset, and for a moment I felt sorry that I was being so nasty to him; only for a moment, though, because I quickly remembered that he was a lying bastard who’d been toying with me for god only knew how long.

As I raced for the bathroom, alone this time, I had an even more terrifying thought: What if Finn wasn’t just a liar…what if he was psychotic?

Here I’d been, worried that all those phone calls and scary instances were the work of a stalker or some kind of unknown sociopath who was out to get me. But what if I’d been closer to my attacker than I ever thought possible…so close, I’d invited him into my bed and thrown down a freaking welcome mat at the doorstep of my heart?

I rejected that thought so fast it barely had time to fully form, expelling it from my mind with a violent forcefulness that surprised even myself. No matter what –
who
– Finn Chambers was, he would never hurt me. I knew that as clearly as I knew that sun rose every day in the east, that my middle name was Grace, and that seven shots of Cuervo were enough to make me forget what year it was.

I'd never had a broken heart before, but now I totally understood the term. It isn't just an emotio
nal pain, it's a physical one – as if someone has literally reached inside your chest and ripped your heart out, leaving an aching, open cavity behind that you know has no hope of ever fully healing.  

Glutton for punishment
that I am, when I reached the doors to the bathroom I turned back for one final look at Finn, knowing that, in all likelihood, it was the last glimpse I'd ever have of him. The tears I'd been holding off finally broke free, building in my eyes and spilling over as I found him in the crowd. He was standing exactly where I'd left him; eyes turned to look at that damn Ferris wheel with a contemplative look on his face, as if he were seeking the answer to a particularly difficult equation. 

He was perfection, from roots of his messy
dark hair down to the slightly scuffed toes of his favorite black motorcycle boots. And, even though I was supposed to hate him, in that moment all I could do was drink in his image – like a woman dying of thirst in the middle of a desert, staring at the oasis she would never reach. 

W
hen the tears had begun running too fast to see straight, I turned and ran into the bathroom. Pulling my cellphone from my pocket, I dialed Lexi. Thankfully, she answered on the second ring.

“
Brookie! How's your birthday going, babe?”

“Lexi.”
My voice was broken. I had nothing left – no more will to even pretend I was remotely okay. “Please. I need you to come get me.”

“Okay,”
she agreed immediately, no questions asked. That in itself spoke volumes about the shattered desperation she heard in my voice. “Where are you?”

I told her, and she agreed to meet me by th
e side entrance in ten minutes. When I made her promise not to tell Ty where she was going, I knew she was catching on that this concerned Finn, but she didn't say anything. 

I slipped ou
t the back door of the restrooms, looking over my shoulder to make sure Finn hadn't spotted me, and disappeared into the crowds. As I lost myself in the mob of joyful fair-goers, slowly winding toward the east park exit, I let my tears fall to the ground and wished, with everything I had left in me, that I could forget Finn Chambers and move on with my life.

I'd probably have had be
tter luck wishing for a lifetime supply of calorie-free chocolate or an all-inclusive trip to the moon and back.

***

He was much faster than I’d anticipated.

The calls had started almost as soon as I’d hung up with Lexi. I’d turned my phone off, unable to even see his name appear on screen without feeling sick.