Deanna Roy - Forever Innocent

“Will you return to the dish room for a grand finale?”

I laughed. “I don’t think so.” Although I silently thought, maybe.

“Huh. Corabelle laughs.” Jenny stuck another cardboard sign into a metal frame. “Maybe this hunk boy isn’t such a bad thing.”

“We always used to be good together.”

“Until he walked, right?” Jenny snatched up a handful of the table signs. She handed several to me, and I followed her out into the main room.

Jenny was always quick to the point. “He did. It was bad.”

She set a frame down, cutting her eyes at me. “And you think he’s changed his ways?”

I moved to the other tables, dropping the signs in the center of each one. “We’re not teenagers anymore.”

“Doesn’t mean we grow up.” Jenny pointed to her cotton-candy hair. “I mean, look at me. Who’d guess that I’m legal to drink?”

Anger started simmering. What did Jenny know about Gavin or how he might have changed? I smacked a couple more signs on the far tables.

“Don’t start getting upset, Corabelle. I’m only worried about you. The whole time I’ve known you, you’ve been crazy cautious, ignoring anyone who glanced your way.” She slid the last frame across the corner table, the one Austin used to sit at. “Now you’re jumping in with both feet. Just strikes me as sudden.”

She weaved through the chairs. “What do you really know about Gavin, as he is right now? People can change a lot in four years, especially after something like that.”

I had changed too. Jenny didn’t know that I was the one with everything to hide. But I’d crossed that line, just like Gavin told me to, and I wouldn’t think about it anymore. It didn’t matter now. My future would not be stolen.

“I don’t know what I’m risking here, exactly,” I said. Although I did. Another pregnancy. My heart. Another disaster.

“Okay. I get it. He’s worth it.” Jenny headed back to the counter as a family of four entered the shop. “I’ll be here if it turns out he isn’t.”

Dang it. Now I was blue. I walked to the back room to check on how many beans were ground and what desserts might have been delivered for the evening shift. I didn’t appreciate being dragged from my happy-cloud, but it had to happen sometime. Gavin and I had only been back together for a day. We hadn’t exactly been put to any tests.

•*´`*•*´`*•

Gavin opened his apartment door. “Breathe the fantastic aroma of my cooking,” he said.

I yanked the price tag off his immaculate oven mitt. “I have a feeling you’re new at this.”

“I’m hoping for beginner’s luck.”

I walked inside. The old smell of sweaty socks and gym equipment had been replaced with garlic and warm bread. “I stand corrected. Maybe you can cook.”

The living room was mostly clear of workout gear, and a tablecloth covered the crates that he used as a coffee table. On it was a fat candle and two mismatched plates. “Wine for my lady?” Gavin asked, handing me a plastic stemmed cup filled with something red.

“You’re outdoing yourself,” I said.

“Not really. It’s a frozen lasagna and store-bought garlic bread. But it’s a start.” He clinked his plastic cup against mine.

I sniffed. “Something might be burning.”

He stuck his wine glass on the shelf of a listing bookcase and hurried to the kitchen. I tried not to giggle.

Gavin brought out a cookie sheet with a loaf of garlic bread, blackened on the edges. “We can eat the middle,” he said.

“Absolutely.” I moved out of his way as he set the tray on the coffee table.

“Let me check on the lasagna.”

I followed him into the kitchen. He pulled the aluminum dish out of the oven. “Looks right,” he said.

“Let me see.” I picked up a spatula and poked the surface of the noodles. The edges were bubbly and soft, but the middle was still frozen solid.

“I wrecked it, didn’t I?” he asked.

“You can put it back in.”

“But the bread is done.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry. We can eat around the edges.”

Gavin went for the plates, and I pushed through the layers to find the thawed parts. He had a microwave at least, so we could heat up the pieces if necessary.

“I’m not used to cooking anything more than leftover pizza,” he said.

I plopped a lukewarm slice of lasagna onto one plate. “You did great.”

He handed me the second plate. “You were always diplomatic.”

“Just where you’re concerned.”

We returned to the living room. “Drink faster,” Gavin said. “Then everything will taste perfect.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I lifted my glass. “To making the best of things.”

Gavin picked up his cup. “To making the best of things.”

The dinner reminded me of those two months we’d lived together, other than the wine, which made me feel light and loose before we’d finished eating. When Gavin leaned back on the sofa, drawing me into him, I let out a happy sigh. “We’ve got this now,” he said. “It’s going to be like it should have been.”

My heart rebelled. “It will never be like that. Finn changed things.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course. But we’re here. We’re together. We can go on now.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the wine, or the mention of the baby, but suddenly I felt like weeping. I turned my face into Gavin’s shoulder, trying to bring back my happiness, to stay on his side of the line.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to act like he didn’t exist.”

I shook my head against his shirt. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk at all. Instead I put my hands on either side of his face, holding him firmly, and kissed him. Gavin knew the places to go to make me forget. I could hate him for leaving, for taking away my escape. But I had him now, and I didn’t have to do this alone any longer.

He lifted my legs and swung them across his lap. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes,” he said.

“So, take care of it.”

Gavin slid his arm beneath my knees and stood, lifting me with him. He’d always been strong, but now the workouts and mass of muscles eclipsed the body of the boy he’d been at eighteen. I held on to his neck as we moved down the hall to his bedroom, ready to revel in another night where I didn’t have to think about anything but each moment as it came.

•*´`*•*´`*•

Sometime in the night I awoke with a pain in my side, like a stitch, but lower, in my abdomen near my hip. I crawled from the bed and padded to the bathroom, wincing at the light. On the birth control shot, I didn’t bleed often, but sometimes it came lightly. I wiped carefully, grimacing at the tiny smear of pink. That wasn’t typical.

I flushed the toilet paper, trying to calm my panic. Maybe Gavin should wear a condom, make doubly certain nothing happened. I had no idea when to expect cycles and wouldn’t know if I got pregnant any more than I had the first time.

Remembering the positive test, just a week after the SAT and that period where I’d smoked more weed than a 1960s stoner, made my breath speed up out of habit. I gulped in air, trying to slow it down. I’d just drunk a half bottle of wine, and that was no better if I got pregnant and didn’t know. I hadn’t learned anything. I hadn’t grown up one bit.

I knelt on the hard tile, trying to pull myself together. But my body was used to this, and as soon as my mind wandered, I realized I was holding my breath again and my vision dissolved into black and white.

I sucked in a fast breath. I didn’t need to hit the floor here at Gavin’s. I was done with that, totally finished. I had crossed the line, and I didn’t need this anymore.

The bed squeaked. Gavin. He might come in here, see me. I scrambled to my feet, wavering when the sudden movement made the spots come. I turned on the water and splashed my face. Control. I had to get in control.

Gavin’s head poked into the doorway. “You okay, baby?”

“Yes. All good.” The towel was rough against my skin. “Time to teach you about fabric softener.”

“That’s an extra fifty cents at the laundromat.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “But I guess you’re worth it.”

I turned in to him, accepting the comfort of his arms. I’d bring up the subject of condoms tomorrow. 

The week settled into a pattern. On my late work nights, we stayed at Gavin’s and he made dinner. On his late nights, we stayed at my apartment and I made something for him. We went to astronomy class together since it was our only class that day and we had time to get home and go to work separately. Tuesdays and Thursdays were my longer class days, and I stayed on campus since I was taking more coursework than him.

I started to recognize what he’d already seen that night of the ruined lasagna. We were back to where we were meant to be.

Friday morning, the astronomy professor gave us a star assignment to do over the weekend. “You will use the two pointer stars, Dubhe and Merak, to locate Polaris, the North Star,” he said and leaned forward on his podium to stare at us intently, as if imparting some great truth. “You may think you know where the star is, but I trust you will find in this assignment that you do not yet know your place on this earth.”

“He sounds like Dumbledore,” the boy next to me said, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to avoid laughing out loud.

Gavin looked down the row at me, scowling, and I sat back to keep him from staring. He hadn’t shown any jealousy back in high school, but he definitely seemed sensitive to it after the incident with Austin. I focused my attention back on the professor.