Forever and Never

by Ella Fields

  For every two breaths in, it felt like I was only letting half of one out, and my chest grew impossibly tight. A fire had lit inside it and spread behind my eyes.

  Forever.

  With one wrong move, I’d irrevocably changed my entire life.

  “Lars,” Mom barked, the door opening.

  I didn’t lift my head. Incapable of doing so even if I wanted to.

  “What’s wrong?” Her words were calmer yet urgent.

  I shook my head, and it rattled against my knees. “I can’t … can’t breathe.”

  She left the room and returned a moment later, a cool washcloth pressed to my back as her other hand smoothed my hair back from my head. “Slow breaths. Count each one. One, two, three …”

  I swallowed, but the saliva didn’t budge. It thickened over my tongue, collecting in my throat. I coughed, and my head bent farther forward.

  “I can’t do this,” I wheezed to Mom, to no one, to everyone. “I don’t want to. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Her hand shook over my forehead, and when she lifted my chin, her wet eyes meeting mine, I buckled and folded into her like a burning piece of wood.

  “Shhh.” Her arms tight around me, she began rocking as my eyes flooded and tears spilled over my cheeks, falling like rivers down them and bouncing off my chin. “Shhh, it’s going to be just fine. I promise.”

  Desperate to believe her, I clung to her arm, my body shaking with so many things I’d never thought I’d feel. The most prominent being fear. So much fucking fear I wondered if I’d ever breathe the same way again.

  Sometime later, I heard my mom call in sick for work, something she never did even when she was actually sick. Which only worsened the magnitude of the situation.

  She couldn’t go to work because her fuckup of a son, the one who, even after having his father walk, held such promise, such potential, had gone and ruined his life.

  My phone beeped, and I slapped for it blindly, squinting with swollen eyes at the screen.

  Cotton: Are you okay?

  My fist squeezed my phone so hard, I thought it’d crack.

  Am I fucking okay.

  A sour laugh escaped. I tossed my phone to the floor, then pulled the bedding up and over my head.

  From the porch, I watched as Jackson’s truck rumbled down the quiet street, blitzed out of my damn mind.

  Plucking a cigarette from my pocket, I looked at the front door of my house, then back at the street, and stumbled down the steps.

  I felt kind of bad, considering how hard it was for Jackson to help me up them after getting trashed at Rosetta’s party but not bad enough to stop moving.

  Inhaling deep, I coughed and closed my eyes, and promptly walked into someone’s mailbox. “Fucking fuck,” I mumbled, taking another drag after I’d steadied myself.

  I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was going, or what I was even doing. All I knew was that I couldn’t go back inside that house. I couldn’t go back to the dark room where my demons lay in wait. I couldn’t go back period, and that was the fucking crux of it all, wasn’t it?

  Fucking time. Fucking life. Fucking girls.

  Fucking parenthood.

  I laughed at the thought. Me as a dad. A brief spark of empathy had my smile falling as I empathized, just for a minute, with my own shit-bag of a dad.

  I should probably resolve not to be like him. I should want to rise above and be the man he hadn’t been. But I was only eighteen, and this past week had shown me I was hardly a man at all.

  Not where it counted.

  Annika had tried to call me, but fuck that. Waiting to tell me I was going to be a dad until I was happy. Until it would slice me into irreparable pieces.

  Yeah, she didn’t know, or maybe she did. I doubted that even had much to do with her decision. Deep down, I knew she was probably just as terrified as I was, if not more.

  That hadn’t helped me wake up from this nightmare yet, though. I wasn’t sure if I could.

  “She sure lucked out with me,” I said to a tree and flicked my cigarette butt to the ground. “What a lucky little bitch.”

  The creek that cut through town came into view, and I crossed a small bridge to the other side, then snuck through a few alleyways until the sound of the bay could be heard among the hooting of owls and distant cars. I continued down the never-ending road until the tips of the woods could be seen casting swaying shadows in the gray night sky.

  Before I could think better of it, I was walking down a familiar drive. “Oh, Cotton,” I called through cupped hands. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  Nothing.

  Huh.

  I dug out my phone, cursing when it smacked onto the asphalt, the screen cracking in the top corner. Pulling up her name, I hit call and listened as it rang out.

  I hit it again and again and then stumbled to her front door. “You made me do this.” I slapped my hand down on the doorbell as if it were the buzzer on a TV show.

  A moment later, one of the doors were pulled open, and Daphne’s sleep-lined face was peeking out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Grinning, I swayed forward. “I’ve come to see you.”

  She frowned, then glanced behind her before stepping outside and quietly shutting the door. “You’re drunk.”

  “And high.” I made to grab her face, but she sidestepped me, and I just caught myself before I went headfirst into the white rendered exterior of her colonial-style home.

  I hissed as my palm slapped the concrete, then straightened and laughed. “Why’d you do that for?”

  “Lars,” she said in a tone that had my hackles rising.

  “Daphne,” I mimicked the same tone back, wiggling my face in front of hers.

  She raised her brows. “Real mature.”

  “Gotta be. I’m about to be a daddy, didn’t you hear?”

  Her lips pinched, and her eyes shuttered, dropping to her curling toes.

  The breeze turned ice-cold, dousing my heated skin in goose bumps. “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “I’m that kind of screw-up, apparently.”

  Daphne wrapped her kimono tighter around her, her dark hair mussed and her beautiful face free of makeup. “I guess I should say congratulations, but I—”

  “No,” I cut her off, stumbling over to the steps. “I didn’t fuck around on you.”

  Her silence had my ass meeting the wood, and I turned to gaze up at her.

  She rubbed her cheek, staring off into the trees.

  “You think I did,” I said, a different kind of horror filling my bloodstream. “Jesus Christ.” I’d been so lost, so fucked up, I hadn’t even considered that she might’ve thought that. That she could be feeling all these things too. “It was when school was letting out. It was before you …” I went to get up, and the world turned hazy.

  She was there, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down to the step. “I swear,” I rasped to her. “I promise, I never—”

  “Lars,” she said, removing her hand from my arm. I wanted it back. I wanted it back immediately. “I don’t think it matters, but I know.”

  “It matters,” I snapped. “It fucking matters, Cotton.”

  She nodded but wouldn’t look at me.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” I swallowed hard when she turned her eyes to mine, glossy with unshed tears.

  I grabbed for her, pulling her close even as she tried to push me away. “Please,” she said, but we both had no idea what she was begging for. “You didn’t call me. You haven’t spoken to me.”

  “I couldn’t. I’m sorry.” I kept saying it, holding her head to my chest and inhaling the scent of her hair as I felt her shake in my arms. “I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure how long we stayed there like that, clinging to one another with wet cheeks and pounding, fearful hearts on the white steps to her house.

  The moon began to fade, and the stars struggled to sparkle when she raised her
head and wiped beneath her eyes. “Wait here,” she said, her voice scratchy and low.

  I didn’t want to let go of her. Ever. But I was so tired, so drained, that I had little fight to offer when she left my arms and went inside her house.

  My eyes were closing, my head leaning against the stair railing, when the sound of a car starting had them opening wide.

  Daphne backed her white Mercedes out of her garage, crawling to a stop in front of me.

  There was little point in arguing with her, and I knew I had to get home before Mom began to fret. After my breakdown, she was hesitant to even go to work and stayed awake long enough to see I’d gone to school before she went to bed.

  I opened the door and climbed inside.

  A band was playing, the music faint, and the sight of Daphne’s pale hands clenching the steering wheel followed me into one of the darkest sleeps I’d ever had.

  Daphne

  Glenda was already on the porch and stubbed out her cigarette in a small potted cactus when I got out and rounded the car.

  Together, we helped Lars inside the house and left him face down on his bed. All the while he’d mumbled incoherent things, his eyes slits when he’d tried to open them to see what was going on.

  He groaned and rolled over to face the wall, but other than that, he didn’t stir as I plucked his shoes off and pulled his phone, cigarettes, and wallet from his pockets, setting them on the nightstand.

  For a minute, or maybe even two, I watched his back rise and fall as his breathing steadied out, wondering where he’d gone in his dreams. Wondering if he might come back.

  For the past week, I’d done my best to hide how sorry I felt for myself, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how selfish I’d been. If I was breaking, then he was already in pieces, unable to gather them all before what remained of who he once was disappeared forever.

  He’d made a mistake, but who was I to even call it that?

  I took a seat beside his bent legs and laid my palm upon his back, feeling his heartbeat through the wall of his rib cage. It may have been a mistake, but the world didn’t work that way. Not all mistakes could be fixed or learned from. They had to be lived. Permanently.

  He was going to be a father, and I knew, with every shattering part of me, I knew he’d be the best father that baby could ever ask for.

  He just needed more time to see that, and my presence in his life would probably only prolong him from doing so, no matter how much I ached to be there for him.

  If seeing how messed up he was tonight was just a glimpse inside his suffering, then the sooner he stood back up and saw the world through new eyes, the better.

  With silent tears lacing my cheeks, I crawled over and pressed my lips to his cheek.

  Then I dragged my aching body to the door and closed it gently behind me.

  Glenda was on the couch with two steaming mugs of coffee on the distressed coffee table in front of her.

  Picking mine up, I took a seat, my hands clinging tight to the scalding mug.

  “He’s going to be okay,” I said, unsure if I believed my own words, unsure if I wanted to. For that part of me—the selfish, greedy part—wanted him to never be okay without me.

  But what I felt for him overpowered that. It was odd how the way you felt for someone could squash your own desires. How it gave you the ability to be so self-sacrificing when faced with happiness or heartbreak.

  “He has to be, doll.” Glenda sniffed. “He has to be.”

  Monday at school, I was beginning to think I was the freshest idiot out when I caught sight of Kayla smirking at me in the hall.

  How was I supposed to do this? I had no choice. We had no choice.

  We’re teenagers, and life will go on, I tried to tell myself as I watched Peggy stare blankly at the wall in second period. She’d finally woken up to how she felt about Dash and found the guts to do something about it.

  Only, it was too late, and it’d backfired in the worst way.

  And so there we were, nothing but slaves to our feelings.

  I was beginning to grow disgusted with the way I constantly searched for any glimpse of Lars.

  Forcing myself to stop by lunchtime, I berated myself anytime my head tried to lift while I ate. Within minutes, I was setting my sandwich down when the doors opened and Jackson and Lars entered the cafeteria.

  Lars’s eyes zeroed in on me, and he stumbled into Jackson as he made to walk over to our table.

  Jackson cursed and glanced around. “Get it together, man.”

  “Daph,” Lars slurred.

  He was drunk or high, maybe even both. His tie was nowhere to be seen and his hair more of a mess than usual, but his eyes were what really gave him away. Bloodshot, narrowed, and dilated, they held me trapped beneath their weight.

  I managed to move my lips. “Go eat something, Lars.” Looking away, I uncapped my water and took a sip through the straw. “You look like hell.”

  “I am in hell. We need to talk.” The whole cafeteria seemed to have quieted. He swayed closer, his hands slapping onto the table as he leaned over me.

  My shoulders tensed, and my heart ceased beating as his scent, mingled with weed and cigarettes, floated to my nose. “Go.” I tried not to plead.

  “Oh, fuck you. You don’t want me now, is that it?”

  My ears started to ring, and I felt moisture pool behind my averted eyes.

  “Huh?” Lars bellowed. “At least look at me when you lie through your ten-thousand-dollar teeth.”

  I couldn’t do this. I had to, but I was going to melt if he kept breathing fire directly over me. I went to get up, and then I heard the teacher. “Mr. Bradby. Head to the principal’s office. Now.”

  Lars’s hands slid off the table, and he threw his head back, a humorless laugh falling past his lips. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Why?”

  Mr. Denkins raised a brow, gesturing to the doors.

  Lars groaned, and Jackson smacked him on the back. “Get it over with.”

  My heart resumed beating as I watched him and Jackson leave, but it didn’t feel right. It was clunky, hard, and painful.

  “He’s high?” Peggy asked.

  “When is he not?” I said, tucking some hair behind my ear.

  Peggy folded the wrapper over her lunch. “I didn’t think they got high at school.”

  Willa swallowed a mouthful of her pasta. “They don’t. Well, not always.”

  “You are allowed to be upset, you know,” Peggy said.

  My eyes shot to hers, and I rolled them as I capped my water bottle. “I am, dummy. I’m just not letting him see that.”

  “Why?” Willa asked. “He clearly still wants you.”

  Jesus Christ.

  I slammed the bottle on the table. “He’s knocked up another girl. I’m not going to become an extra on some teenage parenting special.” A film of tears coated my eyes, and although I tried, I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep them at bay.

  Willa wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I shut my lids over the wetness. “Just because she’s having his baby doesn’t mean they need to be together. My parents are proof of that.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to be in the way of some poor kid’s parents potentially being able to raise he or she together.” Pulling away, I checked my phone as I grabbed my bag to hide what I knew was about to drip from my eyes. “You never know, this is high school. Annika might not be so intolerable five years from now, and I won’t be the reason they look at each other and wonder what if somewhere down the line.”

  I headed outside, praying they didn’t follow.

  Mr. Denkins took one look at my face and only nodded as I pushed through the doors.

  I didn’t dare use the girls’ bathroom on the lower level. Instead, I barreled up the stairs and snuck inside one of the abandoned, dust-covered classrooms.

  My bag slipped from my arm, my back slid down the door, and my hair curtained my face as I dropped it between my knees and struggled
to breathe.

  Lars hadn’t tried to see me since, and though I’d looked for him among the riffraff each day after, I’d seen him only once. I’d hoped he wasn’t letting his attendance slip. I knew how much that could affect his plans for going to an Ivy League school, which could, in turn, serve to break Glenda’s heart further.

  I wasn’t sure if it mattered anymore. I wasn’t sure if what once mattered to him would even be able to see the light of day beneath his graying world. The only thing I was sure of was that I was making the right decision even if it felt like it was tearing my soul in two.

  I could berate myself forever, tally and recite all the ways I could’ve avoided this, but doing so would be pointless and unnecessary. Sorrow and regret were great at joining forces. A slow leak that dripped incessantly.

  I grabbed a basket and began placing my favorite comfort foods inside. Carrots, cookie dough, and chocolate milk.

  Rounding the aisle, I stopped when I saw Annika halfway down it.

  She’d been at school, but she’d been quiet, and if I was being honest, I couldn’t look at her too long. Even now, my hands began to shake and my stomach quaked.

  Then I frowned and took a slow step closer, my eyes narrowing.

  “What are you doing?” I closed the distance.

  Annika froze with the pack of sanitary pads in her hand, and then stuffed them in her basket beside a box of tampons. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Fuck.” Then she was shaking her head, a hollow laugh preceding her mumbled words, “Of course, it’d be you who sees.”

  Staring back at the pads, I blinked and cursed. “You’re not pregnant?” Yes, that was a shred of relief coursing through me that raised my voice. “What the hell?”

  That relief was squashed. “No, I am.” She offered a thin, insincere smile. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  I swallowed hard, my palms growing slick as I clenched my hands, the plastic handle of the basket slipping. Inhaling slow through my nose, I took a step back. “Right, so you’re stocking up for after it’s born? Or are you one of the unfortunate ones who get their period while pregnant?”