The Girl of Diamonds and Rust (The Half Shell Series Book 3) (8 page)

I maneuver through the boxes to see what she’s looking at. It’s a picture of the three of us our first Christmas after Neil moved in.

I hold out my hand, a lump rising in my throat. “No. I want to keep this.”

Rene shakes her head and sighs. “I sort of like it. I was hoping you’d let me keep it.” She stares at me expectantly, I stare back, and then she sets it next to an unsealed box. “Fine, you can have it.” She taps two boxes. “These ones are yours, Chrissie. I haven’t sealed and labeled them yet. You can finish putting your stuff in here. I haven’t even started on your bedroom.”

“Let’s not have you packing our stuff from the bedroom,” Neil says, sitting down on the couch.

Rene sticks out her tongue at him. “What’s the matter? Afraid I might get all hot and bothered looking at your boxers?”

Neil laughs. “Nope. More afraid you might steal Josh Moss’s phone number from my address book.”

Rene flushes, her eyes sparkly. “Asshole!” She crosses her arms. “So how is Josh?”

“Josh will be here tomorrow. He’s driving back to Seattle with me.” A teasing glint brightens Neil’s eyes. “Might be your last chance with him, Rene.”

She scrunches up her nose and shrugs. “Too bad my plane leaves at 6 a.m. Well, it’s his loss.”

Neil laughs and clicks on the TV. It’s one of the only things in the room not disconnected or shoved into a box.

I finally find my voice. “I can’t believe you packed my things without me. I don’t even know what’s in the boxes. I thought we were going to do this together. You didn’t even wait for me.”

Both Rene and Neil stare at me.
Shit! Why did that have to come out so loud and sound so irrational?

Rene arches a brow. “My plane leaves early in the morning. We can’t put it off any longer, Chrissie.”

In the morning. I tense. For the first time it sinks in and holds the feel of realness that we are all leaving tomorrow, heading in different directions.

“Besides, it wouldn’t be right to leave you having to do everything,” she says.

She takes from her pocket a folded sheet of paper, shoves it at me, and sinks down on the arm of the sofa.

Her finger moves along the list as I read.

She says, “That’s my address in LA. That’s my new phone number. That’s my new mobile number…thank you, Patty, for no longer being a cheap-ass mom and getting me a mobile phone. The boxes with the pink tape go to LA. And the boxes with the black tape go to Santa Barbara.”

I nod. “That’s easy enough to follow.”

My head is swimming. After twelve years I will no longer be living with Rene. I’ve spent my entire life with her, neighbors in Hope Ranch, sharing a dorm room at boarding school, and now the condo in Berkeley. And poof, tomorrow we will be in different cities with different lives.

I move toward my bedroom. “I’ll change and be right back to help you finish,” I announce over my shoulder.

I close my bedroom door and sink down on the bed, trying to will the anxious churning of my stomach to stop. I’m frantic again and I don’t want to be.

My eyes roam the confines of my bedroom and all the things I still have to do before the movers come tomorrow. Neil’s junk is mingled everywhere with my own. It’s strange how a guy’s things can rest in your bedroom and you don’t even notice them. 

How could I not notice?

Neil’s belongings are everywhere. A completely normal and comfortable thing. He may have moved out in December, but we have never totally pulled apart our lives, and staring at his possessions I’m shocked to realize it was because I didn’t want to.

I held on to Neil even after I told him to go.

I’m not completely clear why I did that. I pick up his picture from my bedside table. I didn’t even put this away. I kept it. Neil has never left me. Not for a moment. He’s been with me every minute of these awful months since December. How could I not see it before today?

“It’s going to be all right, Chrissie.”

Neil’s quiet voice makes me turn. He is standing in my bedroom doorway watching me.
How long has he been watching? And why is he staring at me that way?
The expression in his eyes is compassionate; sad and hopeful at once.

“You’re going to be OK,” he adds quietly. “I’m going to be OK. If we stay together we will both be OK.”

I nod, even though I don’t know what I’m nodding about or what Neil means by
we will both be OK
. There is nothing for Neil to have be OK over. He’s wonderful. Perfect. Emotionally together and not needy.

He settles on his knees on the floor beside the bed, his body between my legs. I stare at him and he has that look in his eyes, the one that is glorious but makes my heart contract.

He runs his hands up my thighs. “I’ll help you with this when I get back.”

“Where are you going?”

The edge in my voice surprises us both.

Neil’s eyes widen, his thumb lightly brushing my cheek. “To get Chinese with Rene. I won’t be long. That vegan carrot cake just didn’t do it for me.”

I laugh, a little sputter, rough. I lean forward and kiss his hair. “Didn’t do it for me either.”

Neil smiles. “What do you want?”

“I don’t care. Surprise me.”

I watch him leave the room and in a few minutes I hear the front door slam. I change into a pair of sweats and go back into the living room. I stare at the boxes and all the things still unpacked, not sure where to begin.

I sink onto my knees beside a bookshelf. All our silly photo albums are still there. Rene and I are crazy about making these albums. She probably left that, not knowing which ones she could take and which ones I wanted to keep. God, even Rene moving on is like a breakup, splitting our possession down to single photo albums representing both our lives.

I pull one out and look at it. Senior year at boarding school. I flip through the pages and then grab another. Freshman year at Cal. Each year of my life neatly pasted into a photo album. I grab another. Every picture is us together. Together or us with Neil. Stupid adventures we had together. Happy moments. Sad moments. Me and Neil. Rene and Neil. The three of us. Or just us.

I exhale heavily and stare at the room. I don’t know what to take back to Santa Barbara, what to leave, and what to give to Rene. It is so much harder to figure this out than I thought it would be, and I can’t find the will to pull things apart and tuck them away into boxes.

I’ve slowly carved out a life here. I never would have thought that possible when I started Cal, but now that it’s time to take it apart that’s exactly what it feels like. Like I’m disassembling my life. Maybe this is all that life is: an endless series of assembling a life only to take it apart later. I hope not. The endings are too hard for me.

I grab another scrapbook and slowly flip through the pages. The door opens and I look up. Jeez, Rene and Neil are already back from the food run.

Rene’s eyes do a fast examination of the room as she marches briskly toward the kitchen, Chinese cartons in hand. “It doesn’t look like you’ve packed even one thing. Crap, Chrissie. We were gone an hour. You’re not leaving everything for me to get done, are you?”

I flush. “Nope. Just trying to figure out how to split the photo albums. You’ve left me the hard decisions.”

Rene pauses in the kitchen doorway and rolls her eyes at me. “Keep them. I don’t care anymore. I just want this done so I can go to bed.”

She sounds agitated and impatient, and her words hit me like a punch. She’s so excited about the future, her new life, medical school, her new apartment, her new everything…
without me.

I scoop up the scrapbooks and drop them into the box Rene said was mine.

“There. I’ve packed something. Happy now, Rene?”

She rolls her eyes and continues into the kitchen. I turn and find Neil watching me strangely.

“Come eat, Chrissie,” he says quietly. “We’ll finish this together after we eat.”

That
has the unpardonable power to make me feel like crying. Stupid. My emotions are so lame today. Without a word, I follow Neil into the kitchen. Rene is busily setting paper plates on the table since she’s packed up absolutely everything in here she could take for her new apartment, and Neil is opening the cartons.

I drop heavily into my chair. Neil starts scooping chicken chow mein onto my plate and then settles at the table in his chair between mine and Rene.

There is a heavy tension in the room and I know that the tension is me and I hate that.

I move my chopsticks in my food and don’t really eat. “What would I do if I go to Seattle and on the road with you?” I ask softly.

Neil looks up and sits back in his chair. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. Maybe just be with me. We’d be together, Chrissie. I haven’t thought beyond that.”

Rene’s face snaps up from her plate. “What? What have I missed?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

She frowns. “Are you moving to Seattle? Not Santa Barbara? Does Jack know? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I shrug and say, “I haven’t decided,” and then drop my gaze to fix back on my plate.

“Would someone tell me what’s going on here?” Rene demands, alarmed.

I feel the pressure of Neil’s gaze and lift my chin, meeting the lush green of his eyes. “Nothing is going on, Rene. Stay out of it for once, for Christ’s sake.”

Rene’s eyes widen and I don’t like the way her expression changes. In a minute, Neil picks up his empty plate, dumps it in the trash and leaves the room.

My eyes follow him from the kitchen, then shift to Rene. Damn, she’s staring at me in that way she has—
overly analytical and not pleased with Chrissie.

Rene frowns. “Did he ask you to move to Seattle with him? Does he want to get back together with you?”

I ignore the question.

“God, you’re an idiot,” she hisses under her breath.

My temper flares. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Rene springs up from the table and starts to angrily scrape the food from the plate into the garbage disposal.

“You’ve been fucked up since you broke up with him. Neil is a great guy and you’ve done nothing but mess with him for four years,” Rene hisses, shaking her head angrily. “I’m sick of watching it. I’m glad I’m out of here.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She whirls from the sink to face me. “No? Well, here’s what I do know. Even a guy as crazy over you as Neil is will get fed up eventually with your shit and walk away. Grow up, Chrissie. Learn to think about someone else for a change.”

That was mean, so mean, Rene.

I am able to meet her stare for stare without flinching or crying, and I take a few more bites of my food and then toss what’s left into the trashcan.

When I get into the living room, I find Neil rummaging through things and tossing them into boxes. I start packing up my shit, and occasionally peek at Neil. He doesn’t say a word.

In the bedroom, he goes to his side of the closet and I go to mine. In less than an hour, I’m done. I undress, put on one of his t-shirts and climb into bed.

Neil is still packing up things from the drawers.

“I’m sorry I brought stuff up in front of Rene,” I say. “It’s a hard decision. I’m not messing with you. I hope you know that. I’m just not sure what I should do.”

He doesn’t look at me. “You’ll do what you decide to do,” is all he says, tossing the last of his junk into a box and then sealing it with packing tape.

He takes off his clothes, tosses them in a pile, and then climbs into bed. He turns off the light and settles back against his pillow. I become acutely aware of the space between our bodies.

I roll over on my pillow to face him. His eyes are open. He’s awake.

“I don’t want you pissed at me,” I say.

His head does an aggravated flutter on the pillow. “I’m not pissed, Chrissie.”

“Then why are you over there? You’re practically on the edge of the bed.”

“I’m just tired,” he says, but then he moves his arm so I can rest my head on his shoulder.

He kisses the top of my head and closes his eyes. I stare up at him, the lines of his face, the messy arrangement of his chestnut waves. I lean upward. I kiss the underside of his chin.

He adjusts me against him. “Don’t start anything unless you intend to follow through this time.”

I flush. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His eyes open and the way he looks at me makes me tense. “You sleep cuddled against me. You touch me. You kiss me. You let me hold you. But you don’t fuck me, Chrissie. I get it. But it doesn’t help. I’m horny as hell.”

I can feel the heat move from my cheeks to my neck. “I’m sorry.”

His arms tighten around me. “It’s OK. I get it. You couldn’t after…” He breaks off, not going
there.
“I know it might take a while to get there mentally again. I just really miss being with you, Chrissie. I love you.”

The way he effortlessly shares his heart makes me ashamed of how little of me I share with him. I don’t know why I hold back. Neil is safe and loving and unselfish. The kindest guy I’ve ever known.

I kiss his chest. “I want to make love with you. I’m just kind of afraid to try.”

“I know,” he says, and his body turns a little more into me, holding me closer. He kisses my brow. “Don’t be afraid. For once tell me everything you’re thinking. We can think it through together.”

Don’t be afraid?
He makes it sound so easy but it’s not. Not for me and it never has been. There are times I feel like I’m possessed by my fear, paralyzed in my life, unable to manage anything because I am afraid.

“I want to go to Seattle. I’m afraid,” I confess.

“I know, Chrissie.”

He brushes the hair from my face and kisses my cheek.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life, Neil.”

He kisses my mouth. Against my lips, he says, “I know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life either. I don’t think anyone knows for sure. I think we all just do.”

His mouth lightly trails down my neck and I can feel him starting to work the t-shirt from my body. In a minute, I’m naked and lying staring up at Neil.