Deanna Roy - Forever Loved

“She had a bottle of cough syrup in her drawer, and back then we thought that’s what it really was. One time, Michael Rollins decided to steal it and take it on the playground.”

His words rolled over me like the sea sounds on the white-noise machine we once had. I didn’t think I was tired, but his story kept skipping parts, and I realized that it wasn’t him, but me, and that sleep was going to snatch me away.

Gavin was still on the chair, looking at his phone, when I woke up.

“Hey, sleepyhead.”

“No word from my parents?” I tried to prop myself up, but it was too much effort.

“It’s only eight a.m.”

“Oh, so I didn’t sleep long.”

“Nope.”

“I’m used to waking up and having days pass.”

He laughed. “I wish I could do that.”

“I guess they have my phone still.”

“They have all your things. But I would expect to see them anytime now.”

I fumbled for the button to the bed and buzzed the head up a little so it was easier to breathe. “I did get loose of the social worker, at least.”

“Really?” A dark expression crossed his face.

“You think I should talk to her?”

“No, no. I mean, not unless you want to.” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket.

“I just want to get out of here.”

“Me too.”

A knock at the door made us both tense up. “Playtime’s over,” I said.

But the face that peeked in wasn’t my mother or father, but surrounded by tiny sprigged-out pigtails.

“Tina?” I pushed the button to sit up even more. “You’re here already?”

“They flew me in for a thirty-day contract. If it works out, they’ll keep me on.”

“Really?”

“Yup. I set up the art room yesterday, but you were in ICU, so I couldn’t see you.” She stood at the end of the bed, all respectable looking in a blue ribbed sweater and long black skirt. Only when I saw her legs did I see her personality in her outfit — black-and-blue-striped leggings.

She turned to Gavin. “You must be the boy.”

“Tina, this is Gavin.”

She extended a hand and they shook. “Nice to meet you.” She turned back to me. “So what’s all this?” She swirled her hand in the air.

I glanced over at Gavin as he shifted in his chair.

Tina missed nothing. “Something happened.”

“I had a mishap,” I said.

She glanced down at my wrists, a movement neither Gavin nor I missed.

“No, not like that. I mean, I ended up in the ocean, and I caught pneumonia.”

Tina looked back and forth between us. “Interesting timing.”

I didn’t know what else to say. I had only met Tina once. She was the one who had convinced me to come clean to Gavin.

“We’re good,” I said. “I told him everything.”

“And he’s still here. That’s a promising sign.”

We stared awkwardly at each other for another minute.

“Well,” Tina said, “I have to go set up for my first art therapy. I just wanted to come by and say, ‘Thank you.’ It’s a career move I didn’t see coming.”

“I think you’ll be great,” I said. “Who knows, I might end up in your class.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “That might not be a bad thing, you know. Sometimes we have to admit that we can’t do everything on our own.”

Gavin stiffened, and I could see he was taking this all wrong. “I’m here now,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

Tina turned to him. “I believe you. Just — just don’t take anything for granted. It’s a slippery slope.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

She held his gaze for a moment, challenging him. I could see she knew all the ways men could fail and expected him to do the same. “I’ll drop by again later.” She waved and slipped through the door.

“What’s the story with her?” Gavin asked.

“I met her a week ago, after she did a suicide talk.”

Gavin snapped his fingers. “I remember her. She’s come before. I’ve seen posters.”

“Yeah.”

His forehead creased. “So you went to a suicide talk?”

“No, I just drove her to the airport after.” I realized I was giving him the same runaround I’d done with the social worker. It shouldn’t be that way. “The doctor thought it would be a good idea. She lost a baby too. He lived three hours.”

Gavin looked at the door as if he could see the pain in her wake. “She had a tragic air about her.”

“She’s been some bad places.”

“Suicide, obviously, if she does talks.”

“Yeah.”

The muscle in his jaw started to twitch, and I braced myself for what he might say next. After a lengthy pause, he asked, “Do you — do you think about that?”

“No,” I said reflexively. “I mean, not really. I guess I do things that are probably…not…typical.” He didn’t know about the black, my escape. It was in my past, and I had planned to leave it there. But then I had just done it two days ago.

“Corabelle, when I was at your apartment,” he paused, trying to find the words.

My brain raced. What might he have found? I didn’t keep a journal. I never left any clues about what I did.

“I took out your trash.”

I knew where this was going. “You found the bags.”

“With holes in them.”

I pictured my moment in the dorm, the sack on my head, throwing up into the plastic. “It’s a quirk I have.”

“Why do you do it?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I had a rough time, a year ago, after the professor.” I stopped, squeezing my eyes shut.

He reached for my hand. “You can tell me anything.”

No secrets. We’d agreed. “I had been doing this thing when I got distressed, where I hyperventilate until I sort of…black out.”

“Like pass out? All the way? Unconscious?”

I nodded.

He expelled his breath in a rush. “Okay.”

“And one night, that night, I guess I thought I would take it a step further, with the bag.”

“Corabelle…”

I turned to him, seeing the distress all over his face. “It was okay. My body saved itself. But since then, I just didn’t want the temptation. The risk.”

He brought my fingers to his lips, warm against the chill of my skin. “I’m going to be here from now on.”

“I know. I’ll be fine.”

“When was the last time you did it?”

“The bags? Not since that one time.”

“The blacking out.”

My chest hurt so much more with his question. To lie? Or tell the truth? “Friday.”

“Here? In the hospital?”

“Yes.”

He held my hand in both of his now, his head bowed as if he couldn’t bear to look at me.

“I’m sorry if I seem too crazy. I get it if it’s too much for you.”

His grip on me was so tight, like he was hanging on to the last rope before being cast out to sea. “You’re not too crazy. Whatever there is about you, I accept it. We’ll work it out. We’ll figure it out.”

My belly heaved with the release of all the emotion I’d held so tightly inside. “I love you, Gavin. I don’t know how I got through those years without you. I should have looked for you. I should have known where you’d be.”

“You did find me.” He lowered our hands and pressed them to his chest so he could look at me again. His eyes were so blue against the slate walls, bright below the dark mop of hair. I could picture him in every stage of his life, from little boy, to lanky adolescent, to the man I’d surrendered to so many times since we rediscovered each other. “You came right to my door.”

Another knock surely meant my parents were arriving. Gavin took his last private moment with me to lean across the bed and kiss me lightly on the lips. “I’ll love you all your life,” he whispered.

Then the room overflowed with people and flowers and chatter, and once more, life moved forward.

After Corabelle suggested I head on to class to alleviate the tension in the hospital room with all of us filling the little space, I decided to go ahead and put in a shift at work. And I didn’t care how much grease I had on me, if she called or texted, I was going to answer.

I felt like we’d gotten past some horrible part of our lives, not as awful as with Finn, but just as hard. The past couldn’t get to us anymore. Corabelle would get well and continue class and figure out where she wanted to go to grad school. I’d pluck away at a few more credit hours and transfer to wherever she got in.

The urge to whistle as I stepped off the bike and headed into the garage was surprising and a relief. I hadn’t felt so light, like things were going my way, since high school.

Bud looked up from his desk as I entered the front office. “How is she?”

“Out of ICU. Not great, but better.”

“That’s a relief.”

I sensed he had something else to say, so I hung back a moment, waiting for a mother and her little girl to pass by and head out the door. No one else was in the waiting area.

Bud leaned back in his oversized office chair, which tilted perilously under his ponderous weight. He wasn’t wearing overalls today, but a beige snap shirt and khakis. He must not have intended to pitch in with the grunt work today.

He rubbed his chin, bristly with a five o’clock shadow that seemed to spring up by ten a.m., a source of jokes among the crew. “So, how long did you say you’ve known this girl?”

“We grew up together.”

“Ah. Makes sense. But when did you find her again?”

I dropped my backpack off my shoulder and let it slide to the floor. “A few weeks ago.”

“She the one who’s got you all distracted and out of sorts?”

“Probably.”