Forever Innocent

“I’m Robert,” the TA said. “Our group will be stargazing every other Thursday. If you miss one, you can make it up with another study group.” He passed out a stack of papers. “On this list, you’ll get your spectrum lab assignments. Five of you will work together and be graded together for those.”

A girl passed a page back. I scanned for my name but caught something else. I gripped the strap of my bag, not believing it. Impossible. Gavin couldn’t be here. He hadn’t even graduated high school. Just took off without telling anybody where he was going.

I searched the cluster of students until I saw him, holding the paper to his face, also not believing. He looked up, no doubt to find me.

His face was partially obscured by a ball cap, but he pulled it off as he scanned the cluster of students. Then he saw me and our gazes clashed.

The rest of the room dissolved. I had forgotten everything — his hard jaw lined with stubble, his fierce expression. Shock splintered through us both. I could see it in those unsettled blue eyes, the drawing together of his brows. He swallowed and I could only stare at his neck and chest and arms, the places where I once felt completely safe.

“Corabelle,” he said, and then, as if he’d been expecting me all along, “you came to the school by the sea.”

My head whipped around to the door as if I could x-ray all the way through the walls, across campus, and down the short path to the Pacific. Our school by the ocean. The pictures we had drawn when we played teacher as children. Of course.

How had I not realized the real reason why I had come here? And how had I not known he would too?

Chapter 2: Corabelle

I couldn’t do this.

Screw this elective, screw getting dropped. Hell, maybe screw this school. I turned and dashed for the door.

“Wait! Who are you?” the TA called out. “I need to check roll.”

“She’s Corabelle Rotheford,” Gavin said. “And I’m Gavin Mays. Don’t drop us.” His voice had an edge to it, like he was not to be messed with. The Gavin I knew never talked that way, but I had no time to think about it.

I wrenched open the door and hurtled into the hall. He’d follow me, and I had to lose him, had to think. I darted down the corridor and flung myself through the exit to the stairwell.

I slipped on the third step and began sliding, but managed to clutch the rail before I hit the ground. I pulled my backpack around to avoid crunching anything I couldn’t afford to replace. This was crazy. I had to pull myself together.

My sneakers found a solid step, and I wriggled back to standing. The door blew open above me, no doubt Gavin. I sat down. If he wanted to talk, we would talk. It wouldn’t kill me. Hell, he was the one who deserted me on the worst day of my life.

I heard his footfalls on the stairs and sensed him sitting beside me even though I looked away, down the hole of the stairwell.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he said. “Did you come for me?”

I whipped around at that. “Is that what you think?”

He frowned. “I just assumed you found out.”

“If I had known you were here, I never would have come.”

His jaw tightened. “Right. Makes sense. Stupid kid thing, us wanting to teach by the sea.”

I could see he’d changed, was jaded inside. I couldn’t blame him. I fought the urge every day to hate everyone and everything, to hate life.

The air grew stuffier, hotter, as if we brought too much emotion inside the concrete walls. My chest hurt from holding it all in, the anger threatening to dissolve into grief.

Stay mad, I warned myself, but all the things I wanted to forget came back, moments I’d shoved into the back of my brain. Impulsively, I touched my stomach, still bearing stretch marks, tiny white rivers like lightning bolts from my hips to my navel. And without wanting to, I saw that little face, his sweet cheeks and nubby nose, the tiniest perfect fingers.

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.