Forever Innocent

I flipped through to the answer key, realizing the room was getting hazy. Katie was really going at it. The first few questions checked off fine. I ran my fingers down the line. Correct. Correct. Correct.

Holy crap, I hadn’t missed a single question. It was just a set, twenty problems, but still.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Katie said. “You killed it, didn’t you?”

“Might be a coincidence.” I packed up my books, feeling happy and loose. I’d walked over, thankfully. I wasn’t sure I was up for driving. Now that I was done concentrating, I could feel something off, like I noticed each step a second after my foot hit the ground.

Katie followed me to the door. “Let’s try it again tomorrow. Do a longer bit. It’s an experiment.”

I walked out into the night. “Maybe.”

Katie laughed. “You’ll be back!”

In the bath, I rose from the water with a gasp. I’d been holding my breath again, waiting for the black.

Not in the tub. Shower sometimes, but a bath was dangerous. I never knew exactly how long it took me to come back around. Possibly long enough to drown. Another car drove by, illuminating the room for just a moment.

The boys in Austin’s bedroom were a flash of memory, sitting around a table, a big glass bong in the center. Austin probably smoked. If I were around it again, if things progressed, the whole thing could start all over. Relationship. Sex. Pregnancy. Death. Secrets. Guilt.

I wiped my eyes. No more Austin. No more Gavin. I had to get back to where I’d been on Monday, before I saw him again, before everything caved in.

My phone buzzed in my jeans, lying somewhere in the bathroom. I could make out a lump on the white rug and I reached for it, wiping my hands on the denim before I tugged the phone out.

Sixteen texts from Jenny. Good grief. I scrolled through. Most were about Gavin, how he was persistent, desperate to see me. She listed his phone number and said she refused to give him mine.

The next message almost made me drop the phone.

He told me about your baby.

I read it twice then flung the phone away, not caring if it cracked. What was he doing? Why had he done that?

Water flew across the tub as my hand smacked the water over and over again. I came here to get away. I needed to escape.

My face was wet, and I wasn’t sure if I was crying finally or just splashed. I rushed with hate for my high school friend Katie, for her idea, because it had worked too well. I smoked and smoked and smoked and learned exactly how much weed I needed to maximize my test taking. We went through her stash so quickly that we had to drive up to her brother’s college to get more.

I sank below the water, looking up into the blackness. It was almost as good as holding my breath, but not quite. The water was cooling off, and my mind still whirred. I wanted to shut it off, stop thinking.

If only I hadn’t smoked so much. If only I had trusted myself to take the test without it.

I held my breath, bubbles flowing from my lips and rising to the surface.

Spots filled my vision. My body wanted to come up for air, but I didn’t let it.

I stayed away from everyone for a reason. Too many triggers. Too much history. Small things, like college boys with a bong, became huge, looming over me like the ocean swallowing the stars.

Gavin couldn’t know. He could never know. If Austin talked. If Gavin heard. If he connected the dots.

My lungs were bursting but then suddenly they weren’t. I exhaled everything in my body and sank farther against the hard curve of the tub. Would my body save itself in this black water?

I opened my eyes and saw Finn, curled up like he’d been in the sonograms, and how I’d imagined him to look while he was still tucked safely in my belly. He floated, the curling line of his umbilical cord snaking between us. I reached for him, hoping maybe he’d open his eyes this time, and breathe without a machine. But we were underwater, and he couldn’t breathe. His lungs wouldn’t work here any more than they had when he was in his little plastic bed, the ventilator taped to his mouth, forcing air in and out in a loud mechanical whine.

He shifted, rotating, almost as though he were coming closer, then opened his mouth and blew out a long exhale of gray smoke.

I gulped water and everything went quiet, so black, and I couldn’t see anything at all.

Chapter 17: Gavin

I flung my helmet on the sofa, glad to be home from Tijuana. The phone buzzed and my heart raced, thinking maybe Corabelle’s friend had given her my number, but it was just Mario, asking if I wanted to shoot pool.

Saying yes would be wise, get out of my head, stop thinking about Corabelle. But instead of heeding my own advice, I put Mario off and pulled out my ancient laptop, wondering if a web search might help me locate her.

Corabelle Rotheford had plenty of hits, mostly hometown articles. National Merit Scholar lists. A piece on where students were going to college. I saw my name with hers, saying we were going to UCSD, before we realized we couldn’t. The article had been right in the end, because now we both were.

I scrolled through, looking for anything more recent. Corabelle had worked in the admissions office at New Mexico, it seemed. She was quoted in some article about student employees by the school paper. Seems strange she would leave a university where she had such a great job and contacts. I remembered the fear that crossed her face on the first day we talked in the stairwell. If someone there had tried to hurt her, I would hunt them down. Anger flared through me. I had to get to her. Had to find out about the years we lost. We could fix this, I knew it. We were meant to be together.