I sobbed out loud, a horrid sound that echoed against the walls.

“Corabelle. Come here.” Gavin tried to put his arm around me.

I jerked away and stood, accidentally smacking his face with my backpack as I went up. Damn it, who cares, I had to GO.

I raced down the stairs again, trying to be more sure-footed this time. I couldn’t take a class with Gavin. I couldn’t be around him at all. Even if I could find a way to suck it up, to stuff our past down and away, he’d be a distraction. We never were able to keep our hands off each other, back when we were together. Of course our birth control failed. We pushed every limit.

Then pregnancy had failed. Then parenthood itself.

This was too much. I couldn’t be in his group. Stargazing. Spectrum lab. Graded together. No way. No no no no way.

I couldn’t help but look up as I descended the stairs. Gavin was above me, blue eyes piercing in the yellow light. He had so much rage coming off him, like he had earned it. Well, I had too.

“Why did this happen?” My voice was powerful in the chamber, stronger and bolder than I felt.

“Which part?” he asked.

I knew what he meant. The baby or his death? Gavin’s desertion or finding each other again?

Disgust with him burned in my belly. Gavin had been my best friend since I was a child, the one person I thought would be there for me all my life. But he walked out of our baby’s funeral, shucking his jacket and tie as he stormed out, missing graduation, disappearing completely. Gone from my life, just like little Finn.

He came down the stairs, slowly, like he wasn’t sure he should. “Do you believe in second chances?” he asked. His voice had gone soft, losing its edge.

No way. Our baby had not been given a second chance. And Gavin had left me, discarded like his clothing in the aisle of the church. A person capable of that was not the sort of man I could depend on for anything.

But he was holding out his hand, those fingers I had once known so well. My gaze moved up his arm, darker and hairier than it had been, to the sleeve of his T-shirt, and his shoulder, broader now, like a man’s instead of a boy’s. Then back up to that chiseled face. And those eyes, piercing blue. I was sure the baby would have them. But I never got to see. He never opened his eyes.

Life rushed at me too hard then and I felt light, like I was floating. My old habit of holding my breath too long when I was in distress kicked in without my thinking about it. I was going to faint, escape into black oblivion, my one safe place.

My knees buckled and I bent over the rail. Gavin rushed down the last steps and held on to me, pulling me into that familiar embrace. He smelled of outdoors, boyish soap, and the life I once loved.

As my vision turned to spots, I realized that maybe I’d arrived at the college by the sea just to come home. 

Chapter 3: Gavin

Corabelle had to have known I’d be here. She HAD to.

I held her against the rail, making sure she didn’t fall. Her black hair was all tied up, and her face was so pale. She’d never been super sturdy, and the whole time she was pregnant I feared she would just slip away.

I had no answers for her. Why I left. Why I stayed away. Or why I came to UCSD, which was a risk. It had always been our plan, and we were both accepted our senior year. But then we found out about the baby. New Mexico State had been closer to people who could help us out as we navigated work, college, and family.

Her breathing was shallow and fast. I held on to her, waiting for her to come back around.

I figured I knew what she was seeing behind those closed eyes, her lashes curled against her cheek. Finn. Despite what Corabelle might think, that I wanted to erase the memory of him and those seven days we had him, I still had his picture. One was always with me.

When she began to move around again, I used my free hand to tug my wallet out and flipped it to the center. “I never forgot.”

Corabelle’s eyes fluttered open, but when she saw the picture I held out, she pushed away from me, despite her unsteadiness. “Why do you have that? You don’t deserve it!”

I jumped in front of her and took her arm. “I was Finn’s father. I do too deserve it.”

“You didn’t do ANYTHING! You took off!” Her eyes were going red, like she’d cry. Damn it, I hated it when she cried. But I had nothing to say to that.

She jerked her arm away from me, and I actually felt relief that she was angry rather than in tears. Anger I could deal with.

“I’m dropping this class,” she said. “But I can’t leave here. I have to finish my degree.”

“Wait. You didn’t finish in New Mexico?”

“How did you know where I went?” Corabelle stood straight as a crowbar.

“I assumed. I planned to find you.”

“But you didn’t.” Her brown eyes flashed with little sparks of light, like they always did when she got mad. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever known, something I’d taken for granted when I was a numbskull teen.

“It was too late by then,” I said. Too late on all counts, even the ones she didn’t know about.

Her hand shook a little as she gripped the metal slats of the railing. “Probably so.”

I wanted to ask what happened at NMSU, but she had changed from upset to fear, as if she had something to hide. She never did have much of a poker face.

I didn’t want to be the cause of any more distress for her. “I’ll drop the class. Hell, I’m on the ten-year plan already. It won’t matter.”

“Why aren’t YOU finished yet?” she asked.

“Work. I have to pay every dollar for school myself.”

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” she said. “I thought you’d be done with college.”

“Yeah, well, when you ditch the school that was giving you a free ride, it’s hard to convince another one to cough up any dough.”

She nodded, and I figured something similar had happened to her. At least she was calm again.

“Can I walk you somewhere?” I didn’t really want to leave her alone after all this.

“No, I need to figure things out.” Corabelle squeezed the bridge of her nose, a little gesture I had forgotten, something she did when she was stressed.

“I’m serious. I’ll drop the course,” I said.

“Don’t you need it? What’s your major?”

“Geology.”

“Rocks? Seriously? What happened to teaching?”

I didn’t answer, and she looked away. She knew why. Kids were not my thing, not now, not anymore.

She twisted at her ponytail. “I switched to literature. I plan to teach college instead of elementary.”

That made sense to me. “Professor suits you.”

“Maybe. I’d hoped to be a TA by now. This is just an elective. I can pick another.”

“So can I.”

She sighed. “I’ll go talk to my counselor, see what I can get into.”

I squeezed her shoulder, relieved when she didn’t flinch. “You were always doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Inconveniencing yourself for others. You always took care of everyone else first.”

She brushed a chunk of hair out of her eye. “Old habits die hard.”

“Let me do it this time.”

Corabelle gave me a hard look. “I have to make sure it happens. So I’m going to do it.”

She didn’t trust me. But then, I hadn’t given her much reason to. “All right.”

“I have to stay here. I can’t transfer again, lose more credits, another year. But it’s a big campus, right?”

I nodded. “Plenty big enough for two undergrads to get lost in.”

She went around me and descended the last few stairs. I thought she might look back again, like she had earlier, but this time she pushed through the exit door and was gone.

I sat back down. Hell, I was more wound up than I’d been in a long time. Corabelle was mine. She’d always been mine. Going without her had been easy when she was out of sight, but thinking about crossing campus and spotting her, or worse, running into her on a date with some other jerk undergrad —

I smashed my fist into the metal rail. She hated me enough to avoid me at all costs. I had to get out of here. Had to make sure we didn’t cross paths. I’d just drop out this quarter. Or more. Let her finish the year, and then I could come back.

I reconciled myself to losing the fees I had paid, and the damn textbooks. I’d have to just sell these back and take the loss.

I jumped to my feet. It took me months to save up for each class, and now it’d be lost. More hours at the garage. My life was eternally screwed.

I pushed the exit door too hard and it flew open, startling a couple girls just inside the hall. I yanked my hat from the side pocket of my backpack and pulled it low over my eyes, ignoring their interested expressions. Young and stupid, thinking I was someone they should tangle with. They had no idea what life could deal you. What I could deal them. What I’d been dealt.

The quad seemed full of color, green diamonds of grass cut by white stripes of sidewalk. I knew if I could see past the buildings, the big blue of the Pacific would spread wide like the giant crayoned pictures Corabelle and I used to tack to the wall when we set up our pretend school. Growing up with unrelenting New Mexico dry spells, most kids got into fantasies about the sea.

In high school, we discovered San Diego had a college that overlooked the ocean and decided to apply there. Marriage was a long way off, with miles of growing up to do in between. But we wanted to stay together as long as it made sense.

Then came the baby, and disaster after disaster.