“It was an accident,” Alex told him.
“But it changed everything.”
“I know how that feels.” Alex pulled away slightly to look Oscar squarely in the eye. “When I was fourteen I watched my father get shot and killed at a 7-Eleven after he stopped in to get me a drink.”
Oscar sat silent for a long time, looking deeply into Alex’s eyes, stunned at what she had just revealed, a mutual look of understanding developing between them. Finally moving, he pulled Alex towards him, their lips connecting as they lost themselves to a deep, passionate kiss, desperately trying to devour one another after all the pent-up months of longing came flooding to the surface.
****
“I missed this,” Alex whispered as she looked up at the ceiling of Oscar’s dorm room. Nothing had changed since she had last been there. The air still smelt of stale smoke and cologne, the posters on the wall were still of his favorite movies and bands. It was as though time had stood still within the four small walls and their breakup had never even happened.
“I missed you,” Oscar said fondly, leaning to kiss Alex’s forehead as she lay nestled in the crook of his arm, both of them on their backs in his bed beneath the sheets.
“I just wish you’d called me, or at least texted.” Alex sighed.
“I couldn’t.” Oscar’s jaw clenched as he spoke. “Pushing people away, it’s been my thing since Olivia…”
He was still unable to really talk about his sister’s death. Since the revelation about the accident he’d admitted small details to Alex, like her name, when it had happened and how it had torn his family apart, but his parents now placed especially high expectations upon Oscar, as he was now the sole torchbearer of all the hopes and dreams they’d had for both of the twins.
“I understand.” Alex moved her hand to find Oscar’s and intertwined her fingers with his.
“I never thought I’d find anyone who could, who would have been through the same stuff. Most people our age are so naïve it infuriates me.”
The couple were silent for a while, focusing on their own thoughts and on soaking up one another’s company. Alex liked how Oscar smelt, she liked how his sheets carried that scent and how after being in bed with him, she too would faintly carry his odor as though she were stealing away a part of his essence.
“How did you deal when your dad died?” Oscar asked after a while. He didn’t deliver the question with delicate precautions like most people did. Usually when someone asked about Alex’s father, they acted as though they were walking on eggshells, terrified of saying the wrong thing, but Oscar’s question had been direct, as though he were asking her what she’d want for breakfast. She liked that their shared understanding of grief meant that they could be frank with one another. It was refreshing.
“Denial, I guess,” Alex admitted. “We lost everything, our home, all our money. I had to go to a really lame school, so I lost all my friends too, and I just pretended to be someone else, because that way it sort of felt like it hadn’t happened to me.”
“So who did you pretend to be?” Oscar asked, intrigued.
“I stopped being Alexandra Heron the perfect student and became Alex Heron, head cheerleader.” Alex laughed at herself as she spoke. It felt surreal to say out loud what had happened, who she had once been.
“Head cheerleader.” Oscar smiled to himself at this. “See, I had you pegged as a cheerleader.”
“But I was only a pretend one.”
“Even better.” He smirked cheekily. Then his face stiffened as he became more serious. “But did it help? Being a different Alex, did you get over your dad easier?”
“No.” Alex’s voice was soft and regretful. “It made it harder because I had no one to talk to about it.”
“That sucks.”
“Mmm.”
“But you ended up here, in Princeton, so studious Alex must have returned at some point, so how did that happen?” Oscar asked with genuine interest.
Alex opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. Mark was the reason she’d got her life together. He’d believed in her enough to support her getting into Princeton. He’d started out as her mentor but evolved into something more, but she couldn’t tell Oscar that, not when they’d just rekindled their relationship.
“I just finally got my act together and realized what was important,” Alex said flippantly.
“I admire that, it took me so long to accept what happened. What am I saying? I’ve still not accepted it.” Oscar sat up and ran a disgruntled hand through his hair. “I flunk out of school and treat you like crap, all because of my inability to accept that I’m alive and that she died. It sucks.” His fists bunched together in anger.
“It takes time.” Alex sat up and began to gently caress Oscar’s bare back. His skin was warm and moist with sweat.
“The worst part is that I’m starting to forget her, like how her voice sounded or what she looked like when she really laughed.” Oscar hung his head. “Forgetting parts of her is like losing her all over again.”
“I feel the same way about my dad. I struggle to remember how he smelt or even how tall he was. Because he seemed giant to a fourteen-year-old me, but he can’t have been.” Alex stopped rubbing Oscar’s back and instead wrapped her arms around him, kissing his cheek as she did so.
“I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about it like this,” Oscar admitted.
“Me neither.” Alex tightened her embrace around him. She held him for a few moments before he suddenly spun around, using his arms to push Alex back onto the bed so that he was looking down on her.
“Do you think that you can save me, Alex Heron? Because I badly need saving.” His eyes were both pleading and sad.
“I’ll save you if you save me?” Alex suggested.
“Deal,” Oscar declared before leaning down to passionately kiss her, lifting her hands up above her head and lacing their fingers together.
The intensity of their discussion, of their promise of salvation, soon evaporated in the heat of their union. Alex panted beneath him, her body longing for him. Oscar moved from kissing her to placing his lips seductively upon her neck, making Alex groan with pleasure.
“Oscar, I love you,” she panted to him.
“I love you,” he answered before things intensified and there was no longer any need for words between them.
****
“Hey, is that Alex?” Ashley sprang up from her bed when she heard her bedroom door open and positioned herself directly in front of her friend.
“I’m not sure it is since I’ve forgotten what she looks like.” Mockingly Ashley scrutinized Alex’s face.
“I mean, you look like Alex, but you can’t be Alex.” Finally Ashley stood back, hands on hips, and allowed Alex to enter the room.
“I’m sorry, Ash. I know I haven’t been here much.” Alex threw herself onto her bed, exhausted from lack of sleep.
“You’ve been gone for, like, two days. The last time I saw you, you’d gone to meet up with him of whom we do not speak. What happened? Did you kill him, and you’ve been busy disposing of the body? If so, I’ll be your alibi, no problem.” Ashley positioned herself back on her own bed and looked across at Alex expectantly, eager to learn about where her friend had been.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t kill him.”
“Then where have you been?”
“I’ve been with Oscar,” Alex admitted sheepishly, knowing that Ashley would fervently disapprove of such behavior.
“With Oscar!” Ashley’s eyes widened with shock and rage. “Alex, how could you go back to him after how badly he treated you! What are you thinking!”
“I know, I know, but… well, he explained himself to me. He explained why he behaves the way he does.”
“He better have a pretty impressive explanation!”
“Five years ago his twin sister died in a car accident. He was driving.” Alex decided it was best to be honest with Ashley. The two girls shared everythin
g, and she didn’t want there to be any secrets between them.
“Oh my God, seriously?” Ashley was subdued and looked slightly shamed by her previous outburst.
“He opened up to me about it all.”
“That’s… so terrible. And with you having lost your dad, you two must understand each other.”
“Yeah, we do.”
“Well, now I feel bad.” Ashley sighed, flopping back onto her mountain of pink scatter cushions.
“I’ve been ragging on the guy for months, and he’s actually just carrying some serious baggage about a dead sister. Urgh, I’m a bitch.”
“You’re not a bitch,” Alex comforted her. “Neither of us knew. I’ve been hating him all through the summer, having no idea he was just going through similar issues to me.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I know.”
“So are you two like… back together now?” Ashley asked tentatively.
“Yeah.”
“And that’s what you want? Because if it’s what you want, then I support you completely. You know that, don’t you?” Ashley raised herself up on one arm so she could look across at Alex directly.
“I feel like he’s my soul mate,” Alex admitted. “We’ve got so much in common.”
“Commonalities does not a soul mate make,” Ashley commented, a bitter edge coating her words.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked, concerned.
“Pierre broke up with me.” Ashley tried to sound flippant, but her quivering lip belied her true emotions.
“And I wasn’t here for you!” Alex sprang from one bed to another, immediately embracing Ashley, who began to weep.
“I’m so, so sorry. What happened?”
“He met someone in Paris.” Ashley snivelled despondently. “Apparently she’s more convenient for him.”
“What a bastard,” Alex seethed.
“I thought he loved me,” Ashley wailed mournfully as Alex held her tightly.
“I’m sorry, Ash.”
“I’m just so hurt and so mad.”
“I know.”
“Why can’t love be easy? Like in the movies?”
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted sadly.
“Do you think that when it’s true love, it’s easy, and that’s how you know?”
“I don’t know, maybe.”
****
Oscar was leaning against a column, waiting for Alex as she came out of class. He caught her eye and smiled fondly, and she felt a flutter of butterflies dance wildly in her stomach.
“I didn’t know you’d be here waiting.” Alex smiled, slipping her hand into his as they began walking away from the building.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Have you been there all morning?” Alex asked, suddenly sounding concerned.
“Yes, Alex, I’ve been standing there for the past three hours since you’re the only thing that matters in my life,” Oscar replied sarcastically. “I’ve been to class, and it was only in the building across from yours, so I thought I’d wait for you like a nice, thoughtful boyfriend.”
“You went to class?” Alex asked, surprised.
“I’m trying this new thing where I’m actually attending college to learn,” Oscar answered mockingly.
“What made you want to go?”
“You did,” Oscar declared fondly. “You got over all the stuff with your dad. I can’t let what happened to Olivia hold me back; she wouldn’t have wanted that.” His face tensed when he mentioned his sister, but Alex knew it was a positive enough step that he was talking about her at all and accepting what had happened.
“Exactly, she’d want you to do well.”
“My folks are thrilled, too, that I’m finally sorting myself out. They want to meet you.”
“Your parents want to meet me?” Alex had to stop walking as she suddenly felt unbalanced.
“Yeah, is that okay?” Oscar looked at her questioningly.
“Yeah, of course, it’s just…” She shuffled uneasily in her ballet pumps. “I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“Aren’t we a big deal?”
“The biggest,” Alex quipped.
“Seriously, though, I’m crazy about you, Alex, and I know I messed up majorly, but I want to show you how committed I am to this, to us.”
“So we’re serious about each other?” Alex teased.
“Of course we are.” Oscar smiled. “And I want to meet your family too, unless you’re ashamed of me.”
“Of course I’m not.”
“I don’t see this as just some college romance that burns out when we leave here. We’ve already been through so much together, Alex. I love you, and I’m thinking long-term for us,” Oscar told her sincerely.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Alex smiled. “Because I’m thinking forever.”
****
Alex looked at her final results for the year and smiled. She finally had results that she could be proud of.
“Let me see.” From beside her in bed Oscar raised a hand, pulling the sheet of crisp, white paper closer to him. He squinted at the grades typed in neat, black ink.
“I knew it must be good when you started smiling,” he remarked, smiling himself.
“I’m pleased. It’s certainly an improvement on last year.” Alex continued to look down at the paper, still in disbelief at having passed her third year.
“You should be pleased. You’ve done well.” Oscar kissed the hand that was holding the paper and then lay back down.
“Yeah.” Alex released the paper and lay down too, moving to thread her legs between his, their bodies intertwining until it was difficult to tell where one of them began and the other ended.
“So it’s almost summer,” Oscar said wistfully. “And without the penance of summer school, you’re free to spend your summer however you want.”
“Uh huh.”
The prospect of the long summer vacation had been on Alex’s mind for some time, though she’d not raised it with Oscar. Since their reconciliation, they’d been inseparable, parting only to go to their classes or to spend time with friends. Not a day had gone by when she hadn’t seen him, and suddenly there was a stretch of three long months when they could be apart. Alex didn’t want to go that long without seeing him again but didn’t know how to tell him that. Perhaps Oscar would welcome the break and feel smothered by her desire not to part.
“Do you have any plans for the summer?” Alex tried to sound like she didn’t care what his answer might be.
Oscar shrugged, his shoulder grazing her own as he did so.
“Oh.” Alex was struggling to hide her disappointment.
“I did have a thought,” Oscar said suddenly, his tone brightening. He turned so that he was lying face to face with Alex, his dark eyes boring into hers, making her blush.
“It all depends on you, really,” he continued.
“On me?” Alex was surprised.
“Yeah, well, I was kinda hoping you’d come spend the summer with me back in Boston, meet my folks and some of my high school buddies, but you might want to go back home yourself. Like I say, it depends on you, but honestly, I’m not sure I could last the whole summer not seeing you every day.”
“I’d love to come to Boston!” Alex squealed with glee, sealing the deal with a passionate kiss on Oscar’s lips.
“Really?” It was Oscar’s turn to be surprised as he ran a hand up and down her bare back. “I thought that since you didn’t get to go home last summer, you’d want to go back this year.”
A sudden pang of guilt pinched at the nape of Alex’s neck, but she brushed it away.
“It’s okay. My mom will understand.”
“Great, I’ll let my folks know that you’ll be coming up. They are going to be so stoked to meet you!” Oscar sprang up from the bed and went off in search of his cell phone among the pile of clothes on his dorm room floor that served as a closet.
Alex lay on the bed,
quietly contemplating her impending summer in Boston and wondering why she was so reluctant to return to Woodsdale. She almost felt relieved to have another excuse not to have to go back there. She wondered if perhaps she still felt shame over living in a trailer, but everyone at Princeton knew the truth about her home life and didn’t judge her, so she doubted it was that. The trailer was no longer the social taboo it had once been. Searching her feelings, Alex was determined to get to the root of her reluctance, but as the reason surfaced, she immediately wanted to suppress it once more.
She didn’t want to go back to Woodsdale because she was avoiding Mark. Leaving him had been so difficult. The only way she’d been able to cope was to push him out of her mind completely. If she went back home, she’d be flooded with reminders of him, and doubtless he’d moved on with his life, she’d barely heard from him in months. And she’d certainly moved on with hers.
Watching Oscar rummaging for his cell phone made Alex feel terrible about the fact that her mind was currently consumed with thoughts of another man. It was stupid to think about Mark, she berated herself. Things would never have worked out for them. It was better that they just each lived out their individual lives. Then why couldn’t she even face him? Why avoid him?
“You okay?” Oscar’s voice shook Alex from her thoughts.
“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Okay, you just looked kinda lost, that’s all.”
“No, I’m not lost. I’m fine.”
****
“Boston?” Ashley didn’t sound impressed as Alex’s imparted the news about her summer plans.
“Yeah, Oscar wants me to meet his family and stuff.”
“And your family won’t mind spending another summer without you?” Ashley asked, concerned.
“They’re cool about it.” In truth Alex hadn’t yet broken the news about her plans to her mother.
“Okay, but don’t you see enough of the boy? It’s like the two of you have merged into one entity. It’s nauseating!” Ashley made a fake retching sound.
Letters of Love (Lessons in Love) Page 11
