Suddenly Forbidden

by Ella Fields

  Confused, I shook my head. “What?”

  “You survived having your heart destroyed.”

  Toby. What had he done? “Pip,” I said, my hand moving to her face and shifting some of her brown hair back from it. “What the hell happened?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Toby? What do you mean gone?”

  She reached blindly for her nightstand, gave up, and just pointed.

  There was a note. “Found it when I went to his place. In his room.” A shuddering breath left her, followed by another loud sniffle. “He’s gone.”

  If Quinn was annoyed I couldn’t sleep over very often the week following our return to Gray Springs, he didn’t show it. If anything, he was trying to be as supportive as possible while I spent my nights eating ice cream straight from the tub with Pippa and drawing her funny pictures.

  But with finals approaching, Pippa grew determined and at least got out of bed long enough to shower and attend class. Tim had given her all the time she needed off from the parlor, and I picked up one of her shifts for her until she returned.

  As Christmas break neared, she perked up enough to allow Quinn to take us out for dinner and even came over to the townhouse once or twice to watch movies with us.

  Quinn hadn’t said a lot about Toby’s sudden disappearing act, just that he’d heard he’d been kicked off the team and nobody had seen or heard from him since he left.

  I could tell it bothered and worried him, though, and did my best to remain positive. I knew, though, or rather, had heard enough from Pippa. Football was everything to Toby. Getting kicked off the team and losing his scholarship would’ve crushed him.

  It was just too bad he had to crush someone else in the midst of his despair.

  Pippa had excuses some days. “He doesn’t think the same way we do. He’s unable to see outside himself when it gets that bad.”

  Other days, she was just plain angry. And rightfully so.

  I didn’t know much about mental health disorders, but I still didn’t think it was right that it’d been almost a month since he left, and he hadn’t even bothered to return calls or contact anyone.

  But I’d learned a lot in my time at Gray Springs. Funnily enough, not all of it had anything to do with academia. The biggest thing being, you couldn’t control everything. Least of all how others were going to act or feel.

  I did something horrible. But I wouldn’t let the guilt drown me, and I wouldn’t let it define who I was or who I was becoming.

  Friday afternoon, the week before Christmas break, I was leaving the visual arts building, stopping to button my coat with my portfolio wedged between my legs when the professor called me back. I walked into the room with my heart pounding, wondering if maybe my final project wasn’t good enough. Or if I’d flunked my final exam.

  “Have a seat,” Professor Sanders said, digging around for something in her desk drawer.

  I did, sliding my portfolio onto the paint flecked counter in front of me and sitting on a stool.

  “Now,” she said, closing the drawer and smiling. “I was supposed to catch you before you left, but you were in a hurry.”

  Her smile made me feel a little more at ease. A little. “Sorry.”

  She waved a hand. “Don’t be. Congratulations.” Pressing a sheet of paper down in front of me, she tapped it with a long, silver nail. ‘You’ve been nominated for the Claire Davies award.”

  “What?” I wheezed out.

  I’d heard about the award, how it could open many doors with studios, art museums, and other job opportunities. Three students were nominated each year.

  Claire Davies was a student who had attended Gray Springs in the early nineties. A very talented woman whose work still hung throughout the walls of the art building and auditorium on campus. She suffered a long battle with depression and bulimia, and no one was ever certain of how she died. But the rumors all circled around suicide.

  “Your piece. The Heart Left Behind?”

  I nodded, knowing exactly which one she meant. It was of two hearts, holding hands and walking away, bright red and pink in color. The third was a deep burgundy heart left at the bottom of the page, bleeding and reaching after them, lying squashed on the floor crumbling beneath it.

  Tears blurred my vision. The feelings I’d felt while painting it briefly resurfacing.

  I didn’t give much thought to it after completing it. Just left it hanging in the drying room. Nothing I’d made during that time felt worthy. In fact, that painting felt childlike. Half assed. As though I’d created it without wearing my glasses. I’d done it in class, during the first few weeks of having my heart broken after finding out Quinn had moved on.

  Except he hadn’t. Not really.

  I frowned, glancing from the paper to the professor. “But I didn’t submit it.”

  Her red lipped smile was a bit crooked. “Let’s just say you did.” She winked, walking back to her desk, and leaving me dumbfounded.

  “It’s not … it’s not even that good. I was in a bad place and not myself when I painted it.”

  I had half a mind to beg her to let me submit something else in its place.

  “Ah,” she tsked. “That’s where you’re wrong. We don’t always need to be tortured to create. But I won’t lie; heartbreak, recklessness, and heavy emotion have sprung some of the best works of art I’ve come across.”

  At my gaping expression, a little laugh tinkled out of her. “Its brutality and honesty leap from the paper.” Her hands spread out in front of her. “You can’t look at that painting without feeling it. The pain, the sorrow, and the fear. It’s all there. And the rough, raw, unpolished quality to it only makes the emotion speak louder, telling a story that’s hard to read but important and real nonetheless.”

  After she’d excused me, my feet carried me out of the room as though I were made of air, and I’d disappear or splinter apart at any moment.

  I stopped in the hall on the way out, my eyes roaming over the artwork on the walls until they landed on the largest piece made by Claire Davies.

  Reaching up, I brushed my fingers over the golden frame, my excitement dimming as I surveyed the harsh strokes and red lines running violently over the old piece of art paper. A stenciled face stared back at me from beneath the chaos. A beautiful, expressionless face. It was a mess. An incredible, soul wrenching mess of despair, created with slashes of paint that told so much yet so little at the same time.

  Happy endings didn’t always arrive for a lot of people.

  I stepped back, letting the sorrow of that particular truth wash over me. But instead of feeling miserable, I sucked in a deep breath and set it free with a wobbly smile.

  I could acknowledge how fortunate I was and had no intentions of taking it for granted. Especially after I thought he might be lost to me forever.

  Running outside to the steps, I saw Quinn standing at the bottom, waiting with a hand over his eyes to shield them from the winter sun as he watched me.

  I leaped down them, almost stumbling in my haste to get to him.

  He jumped forward, collecting me before the pavement did, and swinging me around. “You’re still a bit of a clutz.”

  “And you’re still capable of making me trip and fall whenever I see you.”

  His loud laughter was absorbed by my mouth, seeping into my heart and soul as I clutched his head and devoured his lips with mine. My legs wrapped around him, and my portfolio fell to the ground. But I didn’t care.

  It was true. Not everyone would get a happy ending.

  But I’d gotten mine.

  And I wouldn’t apologize for it anymore.

  Ten years later

  Sweat rolled down my temple, the summer heat that filled the barn to the rafters made even the smallest of tasks hard to bear. I wouldn’t change it for the world, though.

  It felt like I was right where I was meant to be.

  Standing back from the workbench, I eyed the gate I’d been reconstructing all afternoon. Al
most done.

  I put my tools away and grabbed a rag, swiping it over my hairline and neck as I glanced out the door. Twilight had come to visit once again. Days out here felt infinite with the rise of the sun, yet never long enough by the time you saw it fade from existence for the night.

  Tossing the rag on the bench, I locked up and made my way to my truck.

  “Quinn!” My dad’s voice had me stopping inside the opened door.

  He walked down the steps, his gait a little slower nowadays, but otherwise, for a man in his fifties, he was pretty damn fit. Farm life had a way of ensuring that, no matter how much I told him he needed to take it easy now that I was home.

  “You called Rutley’s back?”

  The livestock courier we sometimes used. “Sure did.” I closed the door, leaning against it. “Did it first thing this morning. She’s halfway to the border by now.”

  His posture eased, and I smirked. Slowly, but surely, he was letting go of the proverbial reins and handing them over to me. “Good. Oh, and here.” He handed over a bag, and I opened it to find some clothes. “Y’all left them here yesterday. Your mom’s gone and washed them already. You know what she’s like.”

  Smiling, I lifted my gaze to the house, where Mom was probably in the kitchen cooking dinner. “Thanks, we seem to always be forgetting stuff.”

  “Part of the territory.” He slapped me on the shoulder and walked back to the house.

  The headlights illuminated the bugs and grasshoppers, jumping out of the way on the short dirt road home.

  Home. It wasn’t the house I grew up in, but it was the next best thing.

  The blue and white sea theme had been restored back to its white and yellow. Brightly painted pots overflowing with even brighter flowers nestled along the pathway and on the porch. Parking behind Daisy’s SUV, I turned the truck off, watching through the window as Daisy walked by, oblivious to me sitting here as she rocked our son in her arms.

  A warmth made from love and contentment washed over me.

  We’d moved back here almost nine months ago after I’d torn my ACL for the second time playing for the Bears.

  I was drafted in my third year of college but chose to stay and wait it out. I couldn’t leave. Not until she could. But despite our fears of being separated, and at Daisy’s urging, I went straight from Gray Springs to Chicago as soon as I graduated.

  I wasn’t happy that I’d made it. Sure, I’d dreamed about playing ball until I could head home and spend my days on the farm.

  No, I was happy that we’d made it instead.

  Perhaps, the hard lessons we’d learned years ago helped, or maybe it was just our time. Every chance I got, I flew Daisy out to see me until she graduated and joined me in Chicago.

  She didn’t give me a chance to feel bad for squandering any of her dreams. I was her dream, and anything else was just a bonus, she’d said.

  And what a bonus she got.

  Her art was in museums within months of her arriving in the Windy City. She got so overwhelmed that she didn’t create a thing for anyone for years, not until the offers finally stopped coming in and she felt the pressure roll off her slim shoulders.

  Now, she had her sights set on teaching art at the same elementary school we’d attended as kids, despite having earned almost half of the large sum of money that sat in our savings account.

  Grabbing the bag from the passenger seat, I jumped out and made my way inside before she discovered me sitting out here like some creeper.

  Life sometimes called for that, though—not being creepy, but appreciative. I had a lot to be appreciative for, and I damn well knew it.

  As soon as the door shut behind me, arms wrapped around my legs. “Daddy!”

  I kept walking, and she clung on as she usually did until we reached the kitchen. I set the clothes on the counter and picked her up. “Did you draw me something today?”

  Ivy nodded, her tiny four-year-old hands lifting to clasp my cheeks. “It’s a super-special secret.”

  “Is it?” I made my eyes widen.

  She giggled, then unknowingly ruined her secret. “The cow is supposed to be dancing, but it just looks like he’s walking real fast. Lemme go gets it.”

  I set her down and watched as she ran out and down the hallway to her room, dumping my keys on the counter just as Daisy walked in. “He’s finally asleep.”

  Even looking like she hadn’t slept in a month, she was the most breathtaking thing I’d ever seen. I tore my eyes from her rumpled hair and the baby puke covering the neckline of her shirt, shifting them to our son, Ben.

  Stepping forward, I ran a finger down his feather soft cheek. At four months old, he was a chunker and liked to party at night. Ivy had slept through the night after only a few months, so we were unaccustomed to the late nights.

  “Want me to take him to bed?”

  “You’re covered in sawdust.”

  Grinning, I tugged off my shirt, tossing it on the floor and loving the way her brown eyes went from tired to instantly alert. “All right, wise guy. No need to show off.”

  Washing my hands, I chuckled quietly, then took our boy from her and gently situated him against my chest. He stirred but shoved his fist into his mouth and resettled as I walked down the hall to our room.

  I set him in his crib by the end of our bed and carefully pulled his light blue sheet over his tiny body.

  “Daddy,” Ivy hissed from the doorway.

  I glanced up, and she waved a sheet of paper in the air.

  Looking back down at Ben one last time, I smoothed my palm over the light blond fuzz on the top of his head before closing the door halfway behind me.

  “Come on, then.” I took Ivy’s picture and her hand in my free one, moving to the living room where Daisy was cleaning up Ivy’s pencils.

  The picture kind of resembled a penguin, not a cow, but I didn’t dare tell her that. “He looks like he’s dancing, all right,” I said, tapping the paper. “I think we should put it on the fridge.”

  Ivy gasped, jumping up and down excitedly on the couch. “Really? It’s good enough for the fridge?”

  I bit back my laughter. The fridge got so overloaded with Ivy’s artwork that we had to cut it back. So now, only a select few made the cut, while the rest went into a special folder Daisy had gotten her.

  “What do you think, Mommy?” I asked, leaning against the couch.

  Daisy put down Ivy’s pencil case, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she eyed the paper I was holding up. “Hmm, I dunno.”

  “Please, oh, please!”

  “You know what?” Daisy said after keeping Ivy in suspense a moment longer. “I think it might even deserve a prime piece of real estate.”

  I followed them into the kitchen, where Daisy had rearranged the thirty odd pieces of paper that already covered the fridge and were clinging on for dear life, thanks to a hundred magnets.

  Grabbing a magnet to attach it in the middle, Daisy stood back with her hands on her hips. “There.”

  Ivy clapped her hands, and I scooped her up. “Time for bath and bed, little Miss Picasso.”

  Once she was tucked in bed, her star night light setting a soft glow in her rainbow painted room, I pulled the door closed halfway and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

  I’d just stripped out of my jeans and worked my briefs over my ass when the door opened, and I turned around to find Daisy watching me.

  She closed it and immediately stripped out of her clothes while I stood there, growing rock hard with my jaw hanging open.

  I snapped it shut as she sauntered slowly toward me, her nipples hardening with every step. “Aren’t you getting in?”

  I kicked off my briefs, still eyeing her perky tits, which had grown a little bigger due to breastfeeding. “That depends.”

  “On?”

  I turned on the water, testing it while keeping my eyes on her body. Her hips flared slightly, another change since having kids. One that I loved to run my hands over and grip as I dro
ve into her from behind. “On where I’m getting in to.”

  She ducked her head, trying to hide her smile.

  I stepped into the shower, wishing it was a little bigger but knowing we’d make do. We always found a way with what little time or space we had these days.

  Her wedding ring glinted as she followed me into the shower, her hands reaching for my waist. I shivered, not only from her touch and having her pressed against me, but from also simply remembering she was mine. Forever. I’d made sure of that when we came home for summer break in her junior year, and we’d married a few weeks later. Just us, our parents, and close friends under our willow tree.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked, her hands moving up my back. “Your eyes are swirling.”

  “You.”

  “Just me?” She kissed my chest, and I wrapped my arms around her, moving us under the spray as I hovered my lips over hers. “Just you.”

  Lifting her, her legs wound around my waist, her neck arching as the water sprayed down on our faces, my lips and tongue roaming over her fluttering pulse.

  “One day,” I said, testing her entrance. I moved myself into position before grabbing her ass cheeks. “I’m gonna put another baby in you, Daisy June.”

  Her gasp was loud, and I wasn’t sure if it was from my words or the friction of my cock sliding inside her, but either way, I absorbed it. My hips stilled, her thighs clenching around me as we breathed heavily into each other’s mouths. “Really?” she asked, trying and failing to sound defiant as I pulled out of her and slid back in.

  “Really.”

  Her brown eyes glazed, her breath coming in tiny pants that mixed with my own. “Forever, I’ll love you.”

  My chest expanded, my mouth diving on hers.

  Forever was a term often thrown around with too much ease and little thought for what it really meant. I was an idiot to lose hope once our forever had been interrupted. To think that what we had couldn’t endure anything that came our way.