The Girl Who Fell (25 page)

I roll my eyes. “Forget I asked.”

“I will since there isn't much to tell. So, gin rummy or five hundred?”

“Five hundred.”

“A vintage favorite.” He deals the cards. “Just like the old days.”

And that's exactly how this feels, being here with Gregg. Safe and simple and just like it's always been.

The following night, I knock at Alec's door. He opens it quickly, pulls me in with his smile. “It took you too long to get here.”

His front room has stockings hung over the fireplace, complete with roaring fire.

“Come upstairs.”

My body warms. Remembers.

Alec leads me to his bedroom with its dark blue walls and light wood furniture. He stops at the side of his bed, pecks at my neck.

“You're sure your parents aren't coming home?”

“Dad's in the Far East. My mom's at book club. Don't worry.” He puts his hand to my hip, fingers the skin above my jeans. Anticipation floods my veins. “I'll always watch out for you.”

He could never know how deeply I need to believe his promise. “Always?”

“And more.” His unwavering commitment flicks a switch somewhere deep inside of me, somewhere I didn't know existed until Alec. A place where love can last an eternity. A place the two of us can protect if we love hard enough.

He begins to undress me, taking care with every piece of clothing. When I wear nothing except my bra and underwear, he lays me across the bed and
tsks
. “When will you learn not to wear these silly things?”

I smile, my body on fire. He pulls the underwear from my hips and slides them over my bare legs. His hand reaches for the drawer of the bedside table, drops my underwear inside. He drinks me in, inch by inch, and I let him. Though the shade is drawn, it's still light in the large room and I watch his every expression, how his jaw tightens with longing. How his eyes survey me with need. My skin goosefleshes under his delicate touch. I rise to him.

He kisses my toes, his eyes cut to mine. He sees my body arch with pleasure. And then we are wrapped in his comforter, lost to civilization. We kiss with our bodies pressed into each other, me trying to crawl into him, him into me. When our tongues become violent, he pulls away, finds my gaze.

He fumbles with something in the bedside drawer. The top of a cardboard box pops. The wrinkle of a condom follows. Alec lies next to me, touches me to him. He is hard in my hand and something else. Pulsing. Like a heartbeat.

“I can't think of being without you,” he tells me.

My breath hitches. For him. “I'm not going anywhere.”

He pulls away. “So you've changed your mind?”

His sudden distance surprises me. I prop my head onto my elbow. “I'm lost.”

“You said you're not going anywhere. That means you'll come with me to Michigan.”

“That's not what I meant.”

Seriousness draws over his features like a mask. “Are you playing with me?” He sits up, the blankets slipping. I can't help the way my hand reaches for the middle of his chest, where his muscles slope together. That place just over his heart.

“No, of course not. It's just that I can't.”

“You can't or you won't?”

Can't? Won't? “Both, maybe . . . I don't know.”

He lifts away my hand and instantly my skin feels cold. “So then what are we doing?”

I sit up, gathering the comforter to my chest. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what's the point of this”—he gestures over our bodies entwined on the bed—“if it won't last?”

“Why can't it last?”

“Because you insist on going to Boston.”

“Insist? That's been my plan since—”

“Since before you met me, I know. I'd go there too, Zephyr, I swear I would, but I've already accepted Michigan's offer, or my mom has anyway. If I'd met you earlier it could all be different. But it can't be, not for me.”

“We can make it work.”

“Everyone says that. I've seen guys from school try to keep girlfriends at home. Long distance never works.”

The air turns colder, as if someone's opened a window, as if a December breeze is taunting us. “Do we have to think about all this now? I don't even know if I've gotten into Boston College yet, so I can't really make plans.”

“But you'll consider it?” he asks hopefully.

“If I don't get into Boston College, I'll have to consider it.”

“Good. That makes me happy.” He leans in to kiss me and then quickly draws away. “Except I'm the asshole boyfriend now, aren't I?”

The word “boyfriend” still makes my heart dance. Even now. “How so?”

“Because I know how important Boston College is to you and I'm wishing you don't get accepted.”

“That is shitty.” I raise my brows, teasing. “Supremely shitty.”

“See? Told you.” He slides next to me. “If you're not with me next year, I can't do this.” He disappears under the covers and kisses me between my legs until my head spins and my skin boils, a screaming, screeching tea kettle for his touch. Then he kisses my stomach, looks up at me with pleading eyes. “You wouldn't want that, would you?”

My head shakes. My body trembles.

“Or this.” His fingers explore me now. My breath is short, hitching. I want more of him, all of him. I want him to love me again and again. And in this fog of pleasure I can't imagine being without him next year. Or ever.

This time I'm the one who reaches for the condom in the drawer. My fingers search greedily for the coin.

“So forward,” he teases. “I like the way you think.”

His movements are hurried and powerful and beyond exhilarating. This is so not our first time. My body gives over to his pulses, begging him for more even as he gives me everything.

When we separate, my body is still shaking. He finds my hand under the covers, lifts it to his mouth and kisses each finger. “Even your fingers turn me on.”

I wiggle them playfully.

That's when I hear the metal crash. A pan dropping hard against a tile floor. I bolt upright. Alec dashes out of bed, throws me my clothes. “Go into the bathroom. Get dressed.” I scramble out of bed, clutching my clothes against my private bits, and tiptoe the few steps into the hall and then the bathroom. I lock the door and fumble my jeans over my legs, my shirt over my head. In the mirror, I see my hair is a mess. Bed head. Sex hair. Oh shit.

I grab a hair tie from my back pocket and rake my curls into a ponytail. I run water, splash it over my face in an attempt to erase the red splotches on my cheeks. Then a voice from the lower hall, calling up the stairs.

“Alec?” His mother. Oh shit, shit! I press my ear to the door.

“Up here!”

Her footsteps sound impossibly loud as she climbs the carpeted stairs. “Whose car is out front?”

“I thought you were at your book club.”

“Becky got sick. We decided to try again next week.” A beat of dead air. “Who's here with you?”

“Zephyr.” Alec's voice is calm, casual. My ear melts into the door. My heart is about to pound out of my chest and he's as cool as if he were answering a question in French class.

More silence. I imagine Mrs. Lord at the entrance to his room, peering in, surveying. “
Just
Zephyr?”

“Yup.”

“What were you two doing in your room?”

“She's helping me with French. I didn't think it would be a big deal.”

“Where is she?”

Oh shit. Shit. Shit.

“Mom, relax. She went to the bathroom. Please don't embarrass her. She'll be out in, like, a minute. Can we just come down when she's done? She can probably hear you, you know.”

Another drum of silence. I expect she's looking at the disheveled bed, but then she says. “Yes, of course, I just thought because of . . . Just come down. I'd feel better about you studying in the living room.”

“Yeah, okay. No problem.”

When I'm sure she's gone, I return to his room. The bed is meticulous, the shiny condom coin nowhere in sight. Alec's at his desk with his laptop open, Mrs. Sarter's Google page on the screen. He doesn't look fazed. At all.

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Is she going to kill you?” Hate me?

He looks at his laptop, at his bed, at the extra study buddy chair he has pulled up to his desk. It all looks perfectly innocent. “Everything's fine. I told you I'd always look out for you.”

Relief feels like oxygen refilling my lungs. “What if we'd gotten caught? That was way too close.”

Alec stands, strokes my ponytail. “It wouldn't matter to me. I want the whole world to know you're mine.”

“But your mom? That's creepy.”

“Then prepare to be creeped out. She wants us downstairs.” Alec takes my hand, leads me to the door. My feet can hardly move. How can I meet his mother knowing what we were really doing? When she might know what we were really doing.

As if he knows what I'm thinking, Alec says, “You'll be fine. Take this.” He plucks his French text from his shelf, hands it to me. “Props always make for good storytelling. Adds authenticity.”

“Right.” God, he's good.

Almost too good.

Mrs. Lord is filling a pot at the sink in the island when we come down. My nerves rattle as I white-knuckle the textbook that grounds me in the lie.

“Mom, this is Zephyr. Zephyr, my mom, Ellen.”

I force eye contact, feign innocence. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lord.”

“Please, call me Ellen.”

“Yes ma'am.” I want to kick myself. Where did
ma'am
come from? My brain is completely fried.

She laughs. “And you definitely are not allowed to call me ma'am.” She transfers the full pot to the stove, wipes her manicured hands on a dish towel. She has kind eyes and an easy smile. It's hard to believe she's the same controlling woman Alec's described.

“I'm going to walk Zephyr out, Mom.”

“So soon?” A silent language exchanges between them before Mrs. Lord forces cheer. “Well, it's too bad you can't stay. Will we see you again, Zephyr?”

Alec squeezes my hand, too hard.

“I look forward to it,” I say.

Her gentle smile widens. “Merry Christmas, Zephyr.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Alec walks me to my car. “You okay?”

“Hardly. That was beyond awkward.” I peer around him, looking for Ellen's face in one of the gatrillion windows.

“But nothing happened. Everything's so okay.” He kisses me gently and my mouth responds obediently. “I wish you didn't have to go, though. I wish I could lie in bed with you forever.”

“Me too. Without your mom home, of course.”

“We could have that next year.” When he opens my door, I slide onto the cold seat. He pulls a paper tube from his back pocket. When did he pick that up? He hands it to me. A booklet? A magazine? “I'm glad you'll think about it.” He extends my seat belt over my front, clipping me in safely. I place the roll onto the passenger seat and it spreads open. A lapis blue brochure for University of Michigan. “Go Blue,” Alec says.

I can't help but smile. “Subtle.”

“Just hopeful.”

He shuts my door and flattens his palm to the window. I reach up and mirror his touch, our good-bye that allows us to avoid saying the actual word.

Alec is my bridge across limbo. Protecting me no matter what. Loving me for me.

At the stoplight on Main, I glance over at the University of Michigan brochure and let myself wonder, what if?

But after only a few minutes, my mind attaches to the college catalog with the solitary girl on the cover. Is that student alone because her boyfriend is at another school? In another state? Does she miss his touch the way I know I will miss Alec?

I'm no closer to an answer when I arrive home and empty our mailbox of useless bills. The silence from Boston College is deafening.

I'm at my locker the next morning when there's a tap on my shoulder. I twist to find Lizzie, hands on her hips.

“So glad to see you in person instead of on the side of a milk carton.”

“Good morning to you too.” I slam my locker too loud.

“I haven't seen you around much.”

I duck my books into the crook of my arm. “Things have been crazy with the holidays. You know.”

“I get it. It's hard to balance the boy and friends, especially in the beginning.”

Beginning? Alec and I are so past the beginning. “Look, Lizzie. I know I've been lame.”

She holds up her hand. “You don't have to say it. Alec's gorgeous. Who wouldn't want to spend time with him? I just miss you is all.” She nudges her elbow into my side. “I did appreciate the updates on Slice, so you won points there.”

“I'll be better. I promise. I'll even toss in some Junior Mints as an apology.”

“Deal.”

When the bell rings, we scatter in our separate directions. Just like we'll be doing next year.

Change haunts me as I fight to pay attention in classes. My mind drifts to all the unknowns of next year, nebulous and undefined, like a dream I can't quite remember. Except next year hasn't happened yet. And the dream I can't remember is really the future I can't articulate.

When I get home I go for a run, check the cavern of disappointment that is my mailbox and then spread my textbooks across the table in an attempt to plant myself in the now. At least that I can control. I'm surprised when I hear Mom's car in the driveway so early.

“What are you doing home?” I ask as she walks through the door.

“I forgot a case file.” She takes in my spray of books. “I like seeing you buckling down.
Alone
.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means you've been spending a lot of time with Alec and I know all too well how a boy can distract from schoolwork.”