Forever Innocent

I passed the calibration chart and sank down on the roof next to one of the lights, where a couple other girls were reading over the lab instructions.

If I sat just so, Gavin was visible from the corner of my eye. He looked so lean, so strong, and his thighs filled out those jeans like they never had before. I wondered about the rest of him, how he might have changed, and the image of his face over mine, his body propped on his arms, made all the chilly parts of me grow hot. Everything I held tightly inside, my desire to be held close, to lose myself, began to unfurl.

For just a moment, I let myself remember how happy I’d once been. I hadn’t basked in those memories for a long time, not since New Mexico and the disaster there, when I discovered a shocking side of myself, how in a split second despair could turn to violence.

I set my backpack down on the roof and pretended to read the assignment, although Gavin was still in my field of vision. I didn’t want to think of the bad things, just the good ones.

When Finn was just born, literally the first few minutes, I felt completely and utterly blessed. Labor hadn’t been anything like the horror stories everyone had been teasing me with. Sure, the baby was pretty early at 32 weeks, and small. But he was plenty old enough. Babies that age survived all the time.

His little lungs managed just fine at first, and even though they had placed him in an isolette with his eyes covered and monitors on his tiny body, no one seemed overly alarmed.

Gavin sat on the edge of the bed, holding my hand. “He’s beautiful. He’s perfect.”

They wheeled him down to NICU and I remembered sinking back on the pillow, exhausted, but there was no reason to worry. The last happy memory, possibly my very last happy memory, was Gavin leaning down and pressing his lips into my hair and whispering, “You are so amazing.”

Up on the roof, I couldn’t help it, but I turned so I could see him clearly. He was hunched over his popsicle stick, a shadow against the bright lights of the city. Emotion welled up, and for a moment I thought, he can just look up, and I can smile at him, and it can be like it always was.

But then he frowned, struggling to line up the cover of a notebook on his popsicle stick, his eyebrows drawing together. His expression reminded me of how he acted during the funeral, agitated and bitter, getting up before the minister said, “Amen.” He stormed down the aisle, shrugging the too-large jacket off his shoulders and dropping it to the floor.

Nothing good could stay pure, not even a memory.

I forced myself to look back at my instructions. This was why I didn’t want to have class with him. It would take so much mental energy to manage with him so near.

The girls by the light leaned their heads together.

“Amy is totally losing it over that guy,” one said to the other.

“Out of her league,” the other said.

“Sort of sad how she keeps staring at him.”

“I’d stare at him.”

I didn’t want to pay any attention to their gossip, but still, it was a distraction from my thoughts. I looked over at the TA. She was trying not to be obvious, but every six seconds she glanced over her shoulder at the ledge. I followed her gaze. Good Lord. She was obsessing over Gavin.

I turned back to my page. Draw a line. Do your assignment. Get your degree. Get the hell out.

I unzipped my bag and fished around for a ruler.

The two girls headed for the wall chart, and damn it, I sneaked another peek at Gavin. He was strung out. I could tell by the way his chin jutted forward. He kept setting and resetting the cardboard on the tiny stick, trying to keep it straight. His frustration was growing, and he was going to explode any minute.

Too bad. I aligned the ruler with my stick and drew a thin solid line. Next, I measured out the five sections and ticked off the centimeters. I would not look. I would finish this. Go home. Forget.

I stood up and headed to the wall chart to calibrate the cross-staff. I held out the stick and determined the degrees that corresponded to the lines I’d drawn. Now to map out the Big Dipper and I could go.

I turned around, and God, I couldn’t help it, but my gaze went back to him. Gavin was still sitting there, elbow on his knee, chin in his hand. He looked at his popsicle stick again and suddenly it was winging its way out into the night sky.

Amy apparently saw it as well, as she walked over to him and handed him another stick. “Need help?” she asked.

He shook his head, but the TA persisted, standing close. Too close.

I yanked the ruler from my bag. I was going to do something stupid. I closed the gap and held out the ruler. “You never did have the right school supplies.”

Gavin swallowed, his Adam’s apple starting high, then bobbing down. “You always were there with your organized binders and perfectly sharpened pencils.” His eyes didn’t seem so blue in the dark, and his lips were quirked in that little lopsided smile I teased him about when we were small, but not so much later, when kissing it became my primary obsession.

Amy set the new stick on the ledge and backed away. I should leave this alone, let her have him. Anyone had to be better for him than me.

He accepted the ruler and laid it on the stick. I picked up his little flashlight and held it for him. The new line halved the piece of wood neatly, and he quickly marked off the five segments. When he was done, he returned the ruler. “Thanks.”

I held the plastic, still warm from his hands. I didn’t know what to do or say, so as he moved toward the wall chart, I followed, like a groupie dying for any acknowledgment from the rock star she obsessed over.