The Cora Carmack New Adult Boxed Set: Losing It, Keeping Her, Faking It, and Finding It plus bonus material

by Cora Carmack

  Bliss said, “Speaking of matadors . . . any dangerously sexy Spanish men I should know about?”

  “I’m taking a break from that, too.”

  I couldn’t even think about sex right now. It just . . . it wasn’t what it used to be for me, like a word with a new definition.

  Silence took up the other end of the phone.

  “I think that’s smart, Kels. You’re going to get through this. You’re bold and brave and strong. You’ll be fine.”

  “You’re obligated as my best friend to say things like that.”

  “It’s the truth. The only reason I’m as happy as I am now is because one night in a bar, I borrowed your bravery. Have I ever thanked you for that, by the way?”

  “You have, and you’re welcome. But I’m not nearly as brave as I pretend to be.”

  “Bull-massive-shit. Do you realize how much courage you had to have to tell me about all this? It took me until senior year to even admit to you that I was a virgin.”

  I gave an almost laugh. “Oh, those were the days.”

  “Feel free to relive my moments of awkwardness if it cheers you up.”

  I smiled, small but real. “Thanks for the pep talk. And for listening.”

  “Of course. I love you.”

  “Like family,” I answered. The only one that mattered to me now.

  “Call me again soon!”

  “I will. Bye, Bliss.”

  Hunt was many things, many of them not good. But in this what instance, he’d been dead right.

  Because even as the cold concrete floor kissed my skin, and the stringent smell of cleaner dulled my senses, I excavated a full smile. It had been brief—like a too-short touch— but I had felt it.

  Just a whisper of home.

  30

  After months of wandering and wanting with no direction, it was good to finally have a tangible thing at which to direct my energies.

  A job. Money. A place to stay.

  I could handle that.

  As it turned out, there was a high demand in Madrid for English-speakers to teach or assist in classrooms in bilingual programs. I’d never been a teacher, but I had a degree. And Hunt’s mention of the career had stuck with me. After growing up in Texas, I had enough basic Spanish skills to get around. When I saw the ad in an English-language newspaper in my hostel, and it said no teaching experience was necessary, I knew it was perfect. Like when you find the perfect dress that somehow makes you feel better for having slipped it on.

  I applied for a work visa and contacted the Ministry of Education. By the end of the month, I had a job as a Language and Culture Assistant. Well . . . two jobs, technically: one working part-time with teenagers and the other working with younger kids. Plus about four private lessons a week to help make ends meet.

  New Life Realization #1:

  Being an adult is hard work. I know people tell you this growing up, but it doesn’t really sink in until you’re living it, waist deep in the swamps of no-free-time and not-enough-money.

  New Life Realization #2:

  It’s worth it.

  It was a new kind of satisfaction, being on my own and being okay. More than okay, I was good.

  I had a job. Okay, lots of them. I had an apartment, too. And I’d sent a letter to my parents.

  I’d poured out every bitter hurt and vulnerable thought I’d ever suppressed and sealed a slice of my heart inside an envelope. It wasn’t the bravest way to face them, but the words were brave, and that was enough for now.

  Predictably, I didn’t hear back. I hadn’t expected to either. Answering would acknowledge that there was a problem, and they much preferred to pretend those didn’t exist. Even now they were probably telling some atrocious lie about why I wasn’t around.

  I was surprised by how little that bothered me. I wondered if everyone experienced a moment like this—a moment where you realize you’ve outgrown your own parents. Not just because I didn’t need them anymore, but because I’d finally realized that they were as stuck as I had been. I saw them with a kind of clarity that it’s impossible to see when you’re a kid, and when you’re parents are the end all and be all of your life.

  A reply did come eventually, but not from my parents.

  “Carlos? What is this?”

  Carlos was nine, and had the biggest attitude in class by far. That’s probably why I adored him.

  “My homework, Miss Summers.”

  “Not that, I mean this.” I held up the sealed envelope he’d turned in with his work.

  He smiled, a heartbreaker smirk in the making. “That’s for you, Miss.”

  “And what is it?”

  He shrugged in that way that kids do when they don’t know or care about the answer.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “A man.”

  “What man?”

  “I don’t know. Americano.”

  Señora Alvez, the lead teacher, shushed him. “English only, Carlos.”

  I didn’t ask any more questions because I didn’t want to get him in trouble. But when Señora Alvez began her lesson, I slipped my finger under the lip of the envelope and pried it open as quietly as possible.

  I’d never really seen Hunt’s handwriting, but I recognized it anyway. It just . . . looked like him. Strong. Meticulous. Aggravating.

  I couldn’t read the words. I wouldn’t. But I counted one, two, three pages, and a sketch. The playground. The one from Prague.

  My heart seized up, ice cold, frost spreading over the prison of my rib cage and piercing my lungs. My hands trembling, I shoved the papers back in the envelope and stood. Señora Alvez stared at me, and my blood roared in my ears.

  “I have to—I need to—” God. All I wanted to do was scream obscenities, but I was in a classroom full of children. “I have to go.”

  I didn’t give an explanation as I bolted for the door. Let them think I was sick. Because I was. To my very bones.

  I signed out in the office, this time lying about not feeling well. Then I left for home. I had the strangest instinct to run as I walked the blocks to my apartment. I wasn’t ready for this. I’d pieced together the other parts of my life, but this . . . this was still so raw. And the body’s instinct when wounded was to jerk away when touched, to run to prevent more injury.

  Running wouldn’t have done any good, though, because there was another letter waiting at my apartment. I picked it up from where it had been dropped outside my door. I didn’t know whether to crush it or tear it or hold it tight.

  I settled for ignoring it.

  But they kept coming. There was another slid under the classroom door when I arrived on Wednesday morning. They came through the mail. My landlord brought me another.

  I threw them on my desk unopened, but every time I entered my apartment, they called to me.

  A week after the first letter appeared, I came home from work to find the tenth letter on my doorstep. Rather than adding it to a pile, I fished a marker out of my purse. (My God, I kept markers in my purse. I was such a teacher.)

  Across the back I wrote, “Still following me? Still not okay.”

  Then I left it on my porch where he would presumably find it the next day.

  The next letter came from Carlos. He dropped it off at my desk the one day without the pretext of homework this time.

  “The American man said to read them, and he’ll stop following you.”

  “Carlos, I don’t want you to talk to that man again, okay? If he comes up to you, just walk away. Don’t take any more letters from him.”

  I thought maybe that had worked, that he’d finally taken the hint because I didn’t see another letter for a week.

  I was relieved for the first day or two. But then I started to look for them. I started to wonder why they were missing, why he’d stopped now. And more than anything . . . I wondered what they said.

  But I couldn’t read them. I wanted to stay mad. It was safer to stay mad. But considering the way the absence of the letters
made me feel, there was no way I could actually read their contents and stay strong.

  The following week, though, I realized he hadn’t stopped writing the letters—he’d just been waiting. I walked through the school courtyard on Monday, and saw a group of my kids gathered outside the doors, Carlos in the middle.

  He was handing something out, and when I got closer, they all switched to whispers and not-so-subtly stared at me as I passed. When the students took their seats that morning, every desk in the room had an envelope, all for me.

  I was angry and relieved, and a giant mess of wants.

  I trekked home that day with my arms full of envelopes and a head full of frustration.

  I thought about doing something to prove a point. I could throw all the letters out where he would find them. I could burn them. I could tear them up.

  Or I could open them.

  Maybe if I showed that I had opened them, he would stop.

  So, I plucked one out of the pile, my skin suddenly buzzing. I tried to swallow, but something knotted in my throat.

  It’s just a letter. Just words. Probably words that you’ve already heard.

  The shaking spread from my fingers to the rest of my body as I tore open the letter.

  A sketch tumbled out first.

  Even without having been there, I knew it was Venice. There was a gondola passing by a home that seemed to sit directly on the water. There were balconies with roses, and it looked so impossible and beautiful that I felt myself tearing up.

  The letter with this one was short.

  I can’t go anywhere beautiful without thinking of you. Hell, who am I kidding, I can’t go anywhere period without thinking of you. I wanted to take you here. I know there’s no excuse for what I did. I could explain the ways I reasoned with myself. I could explain that I needed the money, the job. I could explain that I waited because I was worried about you. But the real truth is that I just didn’t want it to end. I knew you’d leave when you found out. And I just kept telling myself . . . one more day. But if there’s anything I learned with you, it’s that one more day was never enough.

  I sunk down to the floor at the edge of my bed, a noise pulling from my chest that I couldn’t even put a word to. It wasn’t crying. It was something deeper. It unraveled from my lungs, low and keening and hollow. If I had to guess . . . I’d say it was what it sounds like to miss someone. To feel their absence like a second skin.

  I picked up another letter.

  This time, the sketch wasn’t of a beautiful sight or a grand city. It was four men in military fatigues. Their faces were detailed, realistic, alive. So either he sketched them from a picture or they were burned into his memory.

  I remembered what he’d told me about his unit, and how he’d lost them, and I gave up trying to wipe away the tears that rolled down my cheeks.

  I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more about me. That I didn’t open up. It’s just . . . I thought I lost all the parts of me that meant something when I lost these guys. They were family. That’s why I liked to jump off bridges and climb cliffs and do whatever other crazy stunt that could make me feel something. But even that had stopped working . . . until I met you. You made me feel more with a look than I felt jumping out of a plane. I felt more adrenaline from your touch than when I was moving into enemy territory or taking fire. I know how crazy I sound. I know how crazy this all is. And I’m probably doing it all wrong. But my only excuse is that I’m crazy about you. And life is not living unless I’m with you. You’re my adventure. The only one I want to have. So, if this doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. If the military taught me anything, it was to be persistent. To weather the storms. So, that’s what I’ll do.

  I opened every letter.

  My bedroom was a sea of paper, words with the depth of an ocean and sketches with all the power of the tide. When I had read them all, when the words had filled the empty spaces he’d left behind, I wrote a letter of my own and put it outside my door.

  31

  I sat on the swing, my heart hurdling back and forth even though I was still. What if he didn’t come? The letter disappeared while I was at work, so unless there was a mail thief in the neighborhood, he’d gotten it.

  I’d given him directions to get here, but what if they weren’t good enough? Or what if I’d waited too long?

  I squeezed the chain links of the swing until they imprinted on my palms. I ducked my head, and closed my eyes, trying to stay calm. This situation was mine to control. Nothing had to happen unless I said so. This was my choice.

  “I’m glad you gave me directions. I’m afraid the picture wasn’t very . . . ah, informative.”

  My head popped up, and Hunt was there, his tall frame blocking out the sun and casting me in shadow. It took a few long moments for me to focus, for me to do anything other than stare at him.

  It sounds cliché, but I’d forgotten how gorgeous he was. I’d forgotten the way that smile was magnetic enough to pull the sun across the sky.

  He was holding one of the pages from my letter, my attempt to sketch the playground where I’d set for us to meet.

  I shrugged, the weight on my shoulders almost too heavy to lift.

  “I’m not an artist,” I said. “Stick figures and squiggles were about the best I could do.”

  His smiled widened, and his eyes skipped across my face like he couldn’t quite believe I was there.

  “I like the stick figures. I’m guessing the tall one is me?”

  God, he couldn’t even tell which one was the girl. How embarrassing.

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d called this meeting. I should be the one to say something, the one to take control. But when I looked at him, my mind was full with all the things that had happened and all the things that hadn’t. And he looked at me like a man that had been starved. Of food and light and attention and everything.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked.

  I cleared my throat. “Not the playground, but I come to the park sometimes. It’s nice. Relaxing.”

  Silence settled again, loud and uncomfortable.

  I said, “I read your letters,” at the same time that he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “You did?” he said. “I’m sorry if I went overboard. In my defense, the whole classroom thing was Carlos’s idea.”

  Of course. Carlos wasn’t just a messenger. My favorite student was a co-conspirator.

  “No.” I cleared my throat again. My mouth was dry, and words kept tangling on my tongue. “The letters were . . . good. I mean, excessive, yes. But they were good.”

  His hands were shoved into his pockets, and I could see the way his firsts were clenched tight beneath the fabric.

  “You hurt me,” I said.

  His expression contorted, pain and shame written in his features.

  “I know.” His voice was thick, deep. “The biggest mistake I’ve ever made. And I’ve made a lot.”

  I didn’t know what the right answer was here. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

  My heart and every romantic comedy ever made told me I was supposed to leap into his arms and forget it all ever happened.

  My head told me to run. To close myself off. To never let him close, never let anyone close.

  And me . . . the me that was neither my head, nor my heart, but something else . . . it told me that there was no right answer. Forgiving him would be hard and painful, but so would living without him. I didn’t know if I could ever trust him again. But I knew I wanted to.

  I wanted to be able to leap into his arms, and believe that he would catch me. I wanted the confidence I’d had when we toppled over the side of that bridge in Prague.

  I said, “What I felt for you”—he stood up straighter, and I watched his mouth purse and straighten, riddled with tension—“it’s never been like that. Not with anyone. But you have to understand, my whole life was built on lies. And I’d felt that way for you because you were the one thing that felt true. Real.”

/>   I didn’t know how to make it work, how to make it hurt less. All I knew was that I was done living out of fear. Afraid of everything. Of growing up and growing old. Of living and of love.

  I was happy here in Madrid. It was a different kind of happy than what I’d been with Hunt, less incendiary, but it was stable. It didn’t burn me up, but it filled some of the empty spaces.

  I looked into his gray eyes. I could forget a hundred things looking into his eyes, but could I forget this? He must have seen my walls weakening, because slowly, he approached me. He knelt before me on the swing, and ever so slowly, his hand touched my cheek.

  “Every day. I will prove every day how much you mean to me. How real this is. You told me once that history matters, but it’s frozen, set in stone. This is part of our history. I can’t change it or undo it. But it doesn’t have to dictate our future.”

  Our future.

  Those two simple words hooked into my heart, and it felt almost like we’d never been apart. Like I’d just been sleeping.

  I’d known I wanted to see him when I came here today, and I had thought about the possibility of us being together, but I hadn’t honestly known if I could handle it.

  But now, I was making the decision. I could.

  Because every time, every single time, I would choose our future over my future. Because in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t imagine how the best future without him could even compare to the worst future with him. Because even though the life I’d made here in Madrid filled the empty spaces, I didn’t burn without him. Of all the things I’d wanted in life—the places I wanted to see and the things I want to accomplish—the thing I’d always wanted most was to be the kind of person that burned.

  I leaned into his hand, and said, “Jackson?”

  His breaths were shallow, and I could imagine the way his heart was beating. As fast as mine, I guessed.

  “Yes?”

  “Do I have another dare left?”

  His lips pulled into a smile, the faintest dimple showing in one cheek.