Unforgiven (18 page)

“Goodbye, Lilith,” he said coldly.

She cried out in agony, grabbed their marriage license, and flung it in the river. She was on her knees then, weeping, her arm extended toward the water as if she wished to take it back. He watched the last evidence of their love disappear with the current. Now it was only Cam who had to disappear.

In the dark days and decades that followed, every time Cam thought of Lilith, he remembered some ugly new detail that had never happened that day by the river.

Lilith spitting on him.

Lilith pinning him furiously to the ground.

Lilith giving up on their love.

Until the truth—the one that Cam refused to tell her—sank beneath his memory of her rage. Until, in his mind, Lilith had abandoned
him.
Until it got easier for him to live without her.

He would not let himself remember the tears cutting her cheeks or the way she touched the mighty carob tree as if saying goodbye. He waited until the sun set and the moon rose. When his white wings bloomed at his sides, they sent a burst of wind rippling across the grass.

The Cam who left the Jordan River that night would never return.

Seven Days

A
t breakfast the next day, Lilith whipped the stale Pop-Tart out of Bruce's hand and set before him a steaming bowl of oatmeal.

“Oats à la Lilith,” she said. “Bon appétit.”

She was proud of her concoction, which included pomegranate seeds, coconut shavings, walnuts, and fresh cream, all courtesy of Cam's groceries.

When she'd confronted him about her photocopied lyrics, he'd pretended not to know what she was talking about. But the groceries were a dead giveaway of a guilty conscience trying to bribe her into forgiveness.

“Smells amazing,” Bruce said, raising his spoon. He was dressed for school in a slightly rumpled collared shirt and a pair of khakis, his hair clean and slicked back. Lilith still wasn't used to seeing him out of pajamas. “Where'd you get all this fancy food?”

“Cam,” she said, slopping a ladleful of oatmeal into a bowl for her mother, who was blow-drying her hair.

“Why'd your face get all red and scowly when you said Cam's name?” Bruce asked. His bowl was already clean. “Is there more? And did Cam bring over any chocolate chips?”

“Because he's a jerk, and no.” Lilith gave him the bowl she'd been making for her mom and started fixing a third portion. There was no use trying to ration the good food—better to eat and enjoy it, especially now that Bruce was feeling better. He needed to stay healthy.

Lilith dropped into the chair next to her brother and tried to imagine someone ever hurting Bruce the way Cam had hurt her. “You have to be careful with people. We can only really trust each other. Okay?”

“Sounds lonely,” Bruce said.

“Yeah,” she agreed with a sigh. “It does.”

But it was better than letting people like Cam wreck your life.

“Go away,” Lilith said, slamming her locker as Cam approached in the hall before the bell. She ignored the bouquet of irises in his hand. Their soft scent, which Lilith had loved when she'd found the flowers on the antique desk two days ago, now nauseated her. Everything Cam touched nauseated her.

“These are for you,” he said, holding out the bouquet. “I'm really sorry.”

“Sorry for
what,
exactly? For making the photocopies?”

“No,” Cam said. “I'm sorry you had such an awful day yesterday. This is me trying to cheer you up.”

“You want to do something to cheer me up?” Lilith said. “Die.”

She yanked the flowers from him, threw them on the floor, and stormed away.

Cam backed off during homeroom and poetry, and after that Lilith had a lovely respite of classes without him. The black cloud over her even cleared a little in biology, because she'd actually done her homework, for a change.

“Can anyone tell me the difference between the mitochondrion and the Golgi apparatus?” Mrs. Lee asked from the whiteboard.

Lilith found herself gazing in amazement at the fingers outstretched above her head. She couldn't believe she was raising her hand, voluntarily, in biology.

Mrs. Lee snorted coffee when she saw Lilith in the front row, waiting patiently to be called upon. “Okay, Lilith,” she said, failing to mask her surprise, “give it a shot.

Lilith was only able to give it a shot because of Luis. Yesterday, during lunch, he had approached her in the lunch line.

“I was working on a new beat for ‘Flying Upside Down' last night,” he'd said, tapping out the syncopated rhythm on his tray.

“I was thinking we could speed up the tempo a little, too,” Lilith had said.

Luis paid for his burger, and Lilith used her coupon for free lunch. At first she was nervous that he would say something judgmental or snarky about it, but he hadn't said anything at all. Then they spotted Jean sitting by himself, and Luis went to sit down across from him, like it was no big deal, even though Lilith didn't think she'd ever seen them sit together before. The two boys looked up at Lilith, who'd been standing nervously over them.

“Do you need a formal invitation?” Jean patted the seat beside him. “Pop a squat.”

So she did. Lilith realized that from this vantage point, seated among friends, the cafeteria felt completely different. It was warm and bright and loud and fun and, for the first time, lunch went by too quickly.

They had lots to say about music, but what surprised Lilith most about that lunch period was that they had things to talk about
other
than music. Like how Jean was nervous Kimi's parents wouldn't extend her curfew on prom night.

“You gotta go over there, dude,” Luis said. “You gotta sit down on the awkward couch with her awkward dad, tell him about your college prospects or whatever. Pump yourself up, but be respectable and respectful. Girls' dads love that crap.”

“I can't believe I'm taking advice from a freshman,” Jean joked, taking a fry in the eye from Luis.

But the freshman turned out to be something close to a genius at biology. When Lilith moaned about her homework, Luis started singing:
“The plasma membrane is the bouncer keeping all the riffraff out.”

“What's that?” Lilith had asked.

“It's, like, my version of
Schoolhouse Rock!
” he'd said, and sang the rest of the song, which was catchy and contained a mnemonic device for every part of a cell. When he finished, Jean started clapping, and Lilith hugged Luis before she even realized what she was doing.

“I don't know why I never thought to make up songs to help me study,” she said.

“You don't have to.” Luis grinned. “I'll teach you everything I know. Which is, like, everything.”

Now, in biology, Lilith remembered Luis's low voice singing to her the day before—and amazingly, she got the answer right. She couldn't wait to tell him.

At lunchtime, she found him in the cafeteria, pumping the soda dispenser for more ice. She trotted up and started singing. He turned and grinned and harmonized the final line with her.

“Lifesaver,” she said. “Thank you.”