Forever With You (Silver State Series)

by Renae Kelleigh

  Seriously, what the hell is happening to me?

  The thought has entered my mind more than once that I may be going crazy – I think of my mom and consider the old adage “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Times like these, when I feel so inescapably restless, I can see the appeal in just taking off, sort of the way she did and continues to do. Doesn’t mean I’ll ever come close to forgiving her for it – it just scares the shit out of me that I may be catching a firsthand glimpse of what it feels like to be inside her fucked up head.

  I finish the assignment I’ve been working on, a feature story for Summit on a comparative lit student who speaks seven languages fluently. I attach it to an email to the section editor and click “Send” without even bothering to proofread it. Placing my hands on the desk, I prepare to shove back, get out of this chair for a change and get some fresh air. That’s when my eyes land on the blue, quarter-sized memory card for about the billionth time in the last three weeks. It’s lying atop a stack of notebooks on the corner of the desk, and it seems to glow red every time I glance at it.

  I haven’t touched it since I removed it from my camera the day after Tawny and I recorded ourselves having sex. I figured I’d let it lie there until I had a chance to talk to her about what we want to do with it – but now she won’t return my calls or my text messages. Turns out my moment of clarity after we bumped into Macary had been spot-on – in addition to crazy, I might be fucking clairvoyant.

  At first I was confused, but now I’m just pissed. I’m pissed at her, but I’m also pissed at myself. I’m man enough to admit I was wrong – I knew from the beginning Tawny was special, and yet I still managed to treat her the same way I treat every other girl – like she was just another pretty face, somebody else to bury my dick inside. It’s not her fault I realized too late that I wasn’t just in it for the sex – not this time.

  Then again, I didn’t really treat her the same, did I? I cooked her dinner; I showed her a good time at a party she’d been hating till I showed up; I let her sleep in my bed – and what’s more, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed every fucking second I spent with her, and that includes the times when we weren’t having sex. For Christ’s sake, it has to mean something that when I found out Donna was diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, Tawny Read was the first person I called. She had to have known she meant more to me than any of those other girls I’ve been with.

  But how could she know if I didn’t even realize it myself? My head has been shoved so far up my ass, I don’t even know what’s what anymore. Still, better late than never, right? That’s why I decided the very same day I dropped her off at her dorm for the last time that I was going to finally bite the bullet and ask her on a legitimate date. I kind of felt like we had been dating already, in a sense, but I wanted to make it official.

  Too bad she never gave me the fucking chance.

  Whatever. She’s too good for me anyway – and what’s more, she knows it. Fuck it – if she wants to forget me, I’ll forget her, too.

  I pick up the goddamn memory card and stash in the very back of one of my desk drawers, tucking it away for good.

  Chapter 20 – Contest

  Friday, October 14

  Tawny – 10:45 AM

  Damn girl, have you seen your pic hanging up in the union?

  I read the text message from Harumi three times to be sure I didn’t miss anything. Maybe she meant to send it to someone else?

  Huh?

  I’m in German class, and Frau Mueller is shooting me a stern look for having my cell phone out. I give her a sheepish grin, then move my phone into my lap beneath the desk to conceal it from her dissecting glare as I wait on Harumi’s response.

  There’s a big framed portrait of you that won some kind of photo contest. It’s fantastic.

  My heart thumps faster. I sneak a discrete glance up at the clock above Frau Mueller’s head – only five minutes left of class. I begin to squirm anxiously in my seat, desperate to get over to the union and see what Harumi is talking about. Obviously, if there’s really a picture of me, it had to have been taken by Kyle.

  Apparently I’m not the only one who seemed antsy, because Frau Mueller decides to end class a couple of minutes early. Her expression remains dour as she rounds her desk and takes a seat behind it, then watches in clear disdain as the fifteen of us file out of the classroom.

  As I exit the building I glance down again at my phone and see a message from Aiden.

  Wow Tawny, you didn’t tell me you were a model

  Jesus, where’s all this coming from all of a sudden? I begin to walk faster, barreling straight through a knot of people congregating on the sidewalk in my haste to reach the union.

  I push through the front doors and begin texting Harumi to ask her where the photo is – but then I see it. It’s a blown-up print set in an ivory-colored matte with a thin black frame around it, and it’s prominently displayed on an easel in the front hall next to the information desk. I see two other frames set up on adjacent easels beside it, and each one is festooned with a big, colorful ribbon. The largest ribbon, however, belongs to Kyle’s photo.

  I take a step forward in the direction of the display, but suddenly I hear my name. I turn my head and almost collide with another student walking purposefully toward the door I just entered through.

  Aiden is coming out of the Starbucks, his backpack slung over one shoulder and a paper cup of coffee in his hand. His face is lit up with a gigantic smile as he walks toward me. Just as he steps across my path, a girl walking by gives me a hard stare, then flicks a glance back over her shoulder at the photo. She looks back at me and quirks an eyebrow in curious recognition, then keeps walking.

  Aiden stares after the girl with an amused grin on his face before he shifts his gaze back to me. “You’re kind of famous, you know.” I sigh, feeling embarrassed as we approach Kyle’s work of art.

  It really is a stunning photo – and in a way that doesn’t even really have anything to do with me. It could have been anybody in the picture, because it isn’t the subject matter that makes it so beautiful – it’s the play of light and shadows, the contrast of light versus dark, and the hazy background that hints at the vastness of the environment. I remember when Kyle took this shot – as is evident from the more relaxed grin on my face, it was sometime after he’d gotten me to dance with him. I’m standing in the doorway of the barn, angled in such a way that the frame appears to be divided in thirds. The left third is the dark space of the barn’s interior, the center panel shows the peeling red paint on the exterior of the barn, and the rightmost third is filled with the dusty tan of the desert floor and the blue-gray of the sky. In the foreground of the photo, I’m leaning back against the doorframe, smiling over my left shoulder at some unspecified object.

  An elaborate blue “Grand Prize” ribbon is suspended from the top left corner of the frame, and a small placard is wedged in the bottom left. The type on the card reads:

  Dulcinea

  By Kyle Freeman

  I wonder at the significance of the title.

  A little while later, I’m still gazing in wonder at the photo when Aiden’s voice shakes me from my reverie. “Who’s Kyle Freeman?” he asks. “Friend of yours?”

  The heat that rises to my cheeks is as inevitable as it is unwelcome. I clear my throat and angle my head to the side in hopes Aiden won’t notice. “Um, yeah,” I reply. My tongue feels thick in my mouth; suddenly I need a drink of water.

  “It’s amazing,” he murmurs, his eyes darting from the photo to me. I hold my breath as they rake over me from my head to my feet. There’s a glimmer of something I hadn’t noticed before lurking in their green depths, and I’m not sure whether to feel flattered or unsettled by it.

  Kyle – 12:00 PM

  Until this morning I had mostly forgotten about having submitted an entry to the photo contest – it was close to a month ago, after all. A lot of shit has gone down since then. In any case, I must’ve sounded like a re
al moron when one of the fine arts majors from the judging panel called to tell me I’d won first place, considering he had to remind me what he was even talking about.

  After hanging up the phone, two thoughts occur to me in quick succession. The first, of course, is Tawny. I never told her I’d submitted the photo, because it wasn’t long after that she stopped talking to me. I wonder if she’s seen it yet, and I wonder what she thinks of it.

  The second thought is of the five hundred dollar award check with my name on it. Finally, I can afford to take myself out for a night on the town and have just enough left over to replace my telephoto lens, stupid cat be damned. And come to think of it, I think a celebratory night out is just exactly what I need.

  Tawny – 6:15 PM

  “I’m heading down for dinner, you wanna come?”

  I glance up from my anthropology textbook, which I hadn’t really been reading anyway, to see Harumi standing next to the door with her hand on the knob. I’m not really hungry, but I drag myself up off the bed anyway. It’s going to look suspicious if I stay up here and refrain from eating, and I don’t want my mood to attract any undue attention.

  We ride the elevator down to the dining hall. Harumi loads a plate with spinach salad and a gelatinous slab of lasagna, while I ladle out a bowl of chicken noodle soup. We find a small table in the center of the seating area and set down our trays.

  As soon as we’re seated, Harumi unrolls her silverware and says, “So did you go check out your picture?” I nod as I slurp up some chicken broth. “It’s good, yeah?” she probes.

  “It is good,” I admit. “Kyle’s a talented photographer.”

  Harumi watches me with her trademark thoughtful expression as she tucks into her salad. I could say something to change the subject, divert her attention to another, safer topic, but I don’t bother. Instead I stare down at my soup as I stir the noodles and bits of carrots and peas around in the oily yellow liquid.

  “Is it safe to assume you two are on the outs?” Harumi finally asks. She’s leveling me with the same frank, laissez-faire expression she used weeks ago when she somehow talked me into having sex with Kyle in the first place. I didn’t exactly do a good job keeping her abreast of the results of our conversation.

  “Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “It was fun while it lasted.” To my own ears, it sounds like I was able to effect a respectable air of indifference, but Harumi doesn’t appear to be fooled.

  “What went wrong?” she asks.

  “It was like I said,” I reply, hating that I feel slightly defensive. “It was just about the sex…for both of us.” I meet her gaze with an unblinking expression of my own, daring her to challenge me on it.

  She surprises me when she simply clucks her tongue and looks back down at her food. “Interesting,” she says, almost as if to herself.

  “What’s interesting?” I ask.

  “Are you sure he just wanted sex?”

  “Yes. Why?” I cross my arms and lean back, waiting to hear what she has to say.

  She chews and swallows her bite before responding. “Well. The title of your portrait for one. Do you know who Dulcinea is?”

  I shake my head, unable to keep from gawking at her as she prepares to clear up that bit of mystery for me.

  “She’s one of the most famous literary characters in history,” Harumi clarifies. “Ever read Don Quixote?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s about a man who actually turns out to be kind of a nutcase. But he has this woman, his one true love, named Dulcinea. He describes her as having superhuman beauty, I think, and he idealizes her throughout the book. She sort of represents this model woman, the one nobody else can possibly measure up to. She’s what grounds him, the one he anchors himself to during his travels.” I can only gape, slack-jawed, as Harumi dabs at her mouth with her napkin.

  “Anyway,” she continues, “she ends up being a figment of his imagination, but volumes have been written about the symbolism inherent in her character. To be someone’s ‘Dulcinea’ denotes hopeless devotion…unrequited love.”

  Chapter 21 – Dating You

  Tuesday & Wednesday, November 1-2

  Tawny – Tuesday, 3:30 PM

  I sigh as I check the time on my cell phone for about the fiftieth time since stepping into this god-awful line. It’s Election Day, and countless students, faculty and staff are queued up inside the union to cast their ballots. I’m teetering on the verge of renouncing my constitutional right and privilege to vote when, at long last, the line begins to move.

  After twenty more grueling minutes, it’s finally my turn to step behind the blue curtain. I show my driver’s license and student ID to the volunteer, and she checks me off in her computer before indicating the booth on the far right. All that waiting, and it takes me a grand total of two minutes to cast my ballot.

  My cell phone vibrates with the arrival of a text message just as I emerge from the booth feeling like a good and conscientious citizen.

  I’d like to take you out tonight. Would that be OK?

  I stop short of the door that opens outside to reply affirmatively to Aiden’s message. I’d wonder at the fact he’s asking me out in a text message, but this isn’t his first time doing so.

  I shove out the front door onto the sidewalk and begin my trek back to the dorm. I have a date tonight, I think to myself. And this is a good thing. Right?

  Tuesday, 7:45 PM

  I concentrate on swinging my arm back and forth in a perfect pendulum, squeezing one eye shut as I focus on the center pin. Finally, on the fourth or fifth swing, I release the ball, allowing it to drop from my fingers and land with a heavy thud on the scuffed up wooden floor. The ball rolls straight forward for the first ten feet or so, then veers sharply left. I watch with helpless resignation as it drifts closer to the edge, then finally spins into the gutter.

  I flush with embarrassment as I turn back around to face Aiden – I can tell he’s trying his hardest to hold in his laughter. It’s the third frame, and so far my score is a big whopping zero. Aiden, on the other hand, is clearly a bowling fanatic – he’s gotten two spares and a strike.

  “You’ll get it next time,” he says with a huge smile as he passes me to take his turn. I’d almost say he’s glad to see how much I suck. I sigh as I plop down in one of the chairs behind the computer monitor and pick up my cup of Sprite.

  Bowling is sort of a weird idea for a date if you think about it. Aiden and I have barely spent any time together since we got here, since we’re alternating turns.

  I sit back and watch as he plucks his neon orange ball from the ball return. He grins back at me as if to say Watch this, then turns, squaring his hips and shoulders as he prepares his approach. I stare at the back of his head as he moves forward and releases the ball. It curves to the left but then nips back around to the right and strikes the headpin, toppling the others directly behind it. They scatter, leaving only one stubborn, solitary pin. I watch Aiden’s shoulders tense as he waits – it wobbles as if in slow motion, then finally falls.

  Aiden whirls around with fists raised, and I flash him a thumbs up. He’s sort of fun to watch when he’s excited.

  The rest of the game proceeds much the same way. We finish the tenth frame with final scores of 27 and 205 – I don’t think I need to specify which score belonged to whom.

  Aiden slings his arm around my shoulders as we walk out of the bowling alley and hugs me up against him. “Wasn’t that fun?” he exclaims, all smiles.

  He’s like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning – his excitement is infectious. “I had a good time,” I reply truthfully.

  Just as we reach his car I see a familiar face coming toward us – it’s Leila Anderson along with a handful of other girls. “Hey, Tawny,” she says with a quick smile.

  “Hi, Leila.”

  “Who was that?” asks Aiden casually as we slide into his car.

  I pause, trying to think of an accurate way to describe my relation to Leila.
“Friend of a friend,” I say after a moment. My stomach twists unconsciously as my mind strays from Leila to Les to Kyle, but I puff out a short breath to expel the thought. Aiden simply nods, letting it go as he cranks up the volume on some Top 40 station.

  It’s less than a ten minute drive back to the dorm. As we pass the first light on campus, Aiden looks at me and says, “Do you mind if I park at my place and then walk you to your dorm?”

  “That’s fine,” I tell him. I’m a little surprised by the question, but I don’t mind it – Aiden lives in an apartment building not far from Argenta.

  Once we’re parked, he gets out and joins me on my side of the car. He holds his hand out to me, and I take it. He waits for us to cross the street before he speaks. “You look really good tonight, by the way – I meant to tell you earlier.”

  I glance down dubiously at my flats, jeans and peasant blouse. I hadn’t bothered changing after class before he came to pick me up. “Thanks,” I reply. “You do, too.” And he does look good. He’s in a nicely fitted pair of jeans and a close-cut shirt that shows off his brawny arms and chest. He tips his face down to grin at me, and my heart skips a beat at the appearance of his dimples.

  In no time at all, we’re standing outside my dorm while a few other students come and go around us. Aiden steps in front of me and turns to face me, then places a hand against my cheek. My heart begins to beat faster. Here we go, I think to myself. This is it. I close my eyes as he leans closer, pursing my lips slightly in anticipation of our kiss. I flinch a little when he drops a light kiss on the tip of my nose instead of my lips, but then before I have time to fully react he bends down and brushes his lips over my now-slightly-open mouth. When he pulls back he has a smile on his face, but I’m not sure whether to read it as affectionate or amused. It might’ve actually been a pretty decent kiss if I hadn’t opened my mouth right before it.