[The Forever 01.0] Forever Innocent

by Deanna Roy

  A younger girl in a red beret saw me and smiled. “They lead to your door.” She pointed behind her. “See, there’s just a few up there, and then they get thicker as we get closer to you.”

  “Come see,” said the first women, her silver hair sparkling as she gestured for me to walk up the sidewalk. I stepped out carefully in bare feet, avoiding the bits of bramble and fallen acorns on the path. I saw what they were talking about. As I arrived at the street and turned around, I could see a clever progression of the butterflies in color, depth, and density.

  The young girl held one close to her face. “These are all hand cut.” She glanced over at me. “Whoever did this for you spent a lot of time on it.”

  I moved up the path again. White butterflies with iridescent sparkle gave way to pale blues, then pinks and gentle yellows, moving to minty greens and lavenders that shifted to plum and fuchsia and deep red and sapphire. I caught a movement at the corner of the building and we all turned to it. Gavin stepped out, as beautiful as I’d ever seen him, fresh and combed and wearing a crisp button-down shirt loose over khaki shorts.

  My breath caught and the women murmured their appreciation as he came toward me, holding out his hands with another butterfly, a lovely, opulent eggshell blue. “One more,” he said and handed it to me by the slender wire. “For Finn.”

  He held my hand as we both lifted it to the branch closest to the door and tied it around the slender limb. The other women moved away as I brought my palms to my hot cheeks. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll spend the day with me.” He backed away, giving me space.

  The setting was like a fairy tale, Gavin, looking so much like he had in high school, the trees and morning sun striking the glittering butterflies. A breeze wafted through, shifting the strings and making the bits of color dance among the falling leaves. I nodded; what else could I do? Each of these moments were new wonders, memories I could hold on to. Even if it all fell apart later, we would have this.

  Chapter 27: Gavin

  The sand packed beneath our feet as Corabelle and I walked along the shore at La Jolla. She’d refused to ride my motorcycle over, which made me laugh, but I climbed into her car and let her drive us.

  My fingers were cut up and sore from all the butterflies, but making them half the night had been bittersweet, remembering doing it years ago for Finn’s crib. Corabelle had gotten the idea from some Etsy shop. I resisted, saying we should just buy a plastic one with a battery and music. But she had this vision for the nursery, all our hopes and dreams with the drawings we’d made of the sea.

  So I dutifully cut butterflies from card stock, laying them out on newspaper to be spray-painted. Served me right to be making hundreds more years later, since I was pretty sure I grumbled and complained the whole time we did it the first time.

  The wind whipped Corabelle’s hair into a frenzy, and she fought it constantly, twisting it in her free hand, holding her shoes in the other. This was probably a good thing, as it kept me from reaching for her, which I knew was too much for the moment, despite the other night. She was distant and reluctant, and I had to tread carefully.

  “Do you come down here much?” I asked her.

  “Not this far. It’s quiet.”

  We’d walked about half a mile from the parking lot, the umbrella rentals, and the beachgoers trying to get a last weekend of sun before it got any colder. Compared to New Mexico, the temperature was downright chilly, but I had gotten used to it. “I prefer to stay away from the crowds.”

  “You always did,” she said.

  Rocks rose to our right, brown and sparse and dotted with tide pools. The great expanse of the ocean spread to our left, blue and sparkling, occasional white crests breaking across the surface. Gulls swooped along the shore, their distinctive caw the only sound other than the roar of the waves. It seemed we were the only two people in the world.

  Shouts broke the peace of the moment and we turned to the rocks, where a father and his two sons scrabbled along a path. “Wait for me!” the dad called. The boys were young, maybe seven and four. The little one tripped and skidded in a bit of sand. Before he could cry, the father had scooped him up. “Almost there, Champ, no tears.”

  I realized I had stopped walking, watching the man with the boy the age Finn would be now. Corabelle slipped her hand in mine, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. The threesome continued past us back the way we’d come and I forced myself to look ahead, not to turn and see them go. The missing part of our picture was very real and all my optimism that Corabelle and I would move on together began to crumble.

  She leaned her head on my shoulder. “It is always that hard for you?”

  “No. I normally don’t pay any attention.”

  “Then it’s me.” She tried to pull away, but I gripped her hand hard. Her hair was completely wild, blowing like a black specter, a haunting image against the backdrop of the tumultuous sea.

  “I’m glad it’s you,” I said. “I didn’t know how numb I’d been until you came back.”

  She nodded, her expression lost in her hair.

  “Here,” I said. “I think I remember how this goes.” I dropped my shoes and let go of her hand to gather up the wild mane. She turned into the wind so it all blew back and I separated it into three sections. I learned to make a braid when we were in middle school, after she left me one weekend for a slumber party with other girls. I felt lonely and betrayed and when I asked her why she chose the girls over me, no doubt with some pathetic sulky look on my face, she said they could fix each other’s hair.

  I stole one of my sister’s dolls to practice this, working out the pattern. The dolls were easier than the real thing, though, as the layers and head shape made the lengths inconsistent, and I never quite knew what to do with the ends. But I wanted to learn. I wanted Corabelle to never find me lacking in any way.

  My fingers felt fumbly and uncoordinated as I tugged her hair into a braid. When I got to the end, I told her, “Hold this,” and reached for my boot, swiftly removing the lace. I tied her hair down, weaving the lace back and forth across the bottom half of the braid so that it wouldn’t come out easily.

  When I let go, she ran her fingers along its length. “Not too bad.”

  I scooped up all our shoes, lashing them together with the ends of the other lace, and didn’t hesitate, but took her hand again. She accepted this, more relaxed than before. It wasn’t until we resumed walking, this time with our feet in the water, that I realized we’d gotten past that hard moment together, and I felt sorrow for all the other times we could have shared those hardships instead of bearing them alone.

  “So are you going to feed me or do I get to walk for hours on an empty stomach?” Corabelle asked. She looked so young with the braid, her face so innocent, a few stray tendrils curling along her forehead.

  “We’ll have to turn back to La Jolla for food,” I said. “Ahead is Black’s Beach and there’s nothing there but naked sunbathers.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “I’ve heard about that beach. I’ve never been.”

  Just the idea of her there, her body laid out in the sand, made my blood start jumping. “Go with me and I’ll be your slave forever.”

  “You’re already my slave forever.” She cracked the smallest smile, but still it was a smile.

  “We’d get arrested. I couldn’t possibly keep my hands off your delectable body.” I pulled her toward me, letting the shoes drop again.

  She didn’t resist, tilting her head up so that I could kiss her. She tasted like sand and salt, and her cheek beneath my thumb was gritty. I pictured her skin drenched by the sun, and I could scarcely keep myself in check, pulling her in so tight that she fitted against me, my mouth feverish over hers, tongue sliding between her lips into her warm waiting mouth.

  When our hips moved together, she broke away, gasping. “This is so hard,” she said.

  I pressed her face into my shoulder and just held her. “It doesn’t have to be.
”

  “I don’t know what I want.”

  “I do. I know that I want you.”

  She shuddered against me. “The butterflies. I destroyed the mobile.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Tore it apart with my bare hands.”

  “I’m sure it’s what you needed to do at the time.” I stroked her head.

  “I shouldn’t have done that. It was Finn’s.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Her breaths were fast and shallow, like they had been in the stairwell that day. I started to worry about her fainting again, but she quieted down, slowing down her exhales. I just held on and waited for her to come back around. At last she looked back up at me. “Thank you for the new ones.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “You can thank me by getting naked on Black’s Beach.”

  She half-smiled again and pulled away, punching me on the chest. “In your dreams. Besides, you’d pummel anybody who looked at me.”

  I snatched up the shoes. “True. They’d have to call it Blood Beach.” I turned to lead her back to La Jolla and get her something to eat, but she stood staring at the waves. “You okay, Corabelle?”

  She looked at me, her brown eyes so full of sorrow. “I don’t know how to be happy.”

  My heart squeezed. “I think it can be a choice.”

  “But I’m trying to choose it.”

  “Here’s what I think.” I knelt and picked up a stick that had been washed ashore. “I can draw this line.” The end of the stick cut through the smooth surface of sand between us. “On your side is grief.” I pointed at her feet. “On my side is happiness.”

  I stood up and tossed the stick away. “Now you can step across it and not look back.”

  Corabelle kept looking at the line, the sharpness of it stark against the miles of smooth unbroken sand. “But I want to look back. I want to remember Finn.”

  “Crossing the line isn’t about forgetting the people we love. It’s about not letting our past sorrow steal our future joy.”

  She still didn’t move. I knew this was hard for her. I crossed over years ago, not exactly into happiness, but at least away from the misery. Our lives were made up of hundreds of these lines. Choosing when to cross was different for each person. We each had our own timeline for letting go.

  She looked up at me, and I held out my hand. Her eyes shifted to it, waiting there for her to accept what I offered, hovering between us like an unspoken promise. Then she reached for it, closed her fingers around mine, and took that first tremulous step, out of her old world, and across the line into mine.

  Chapter 28: Corabelle

  I was pretty sure I’d never had a hot dog as good as this one.

  Gavin laughed at me, mustard topping his upper lip like a mustache. He reached over with a yellow fingertip and traced my upper lip. I felt something cold left behind, and ran my hand over my mouth. It came back yellow. “You have not grown up one bit, Gavin Mays!”

  We sat on the beach at La Jolla, surrounded by people soaking up the sun. Nobody was venturing into the water, due to the chill. My butt was covered in sand and the hot dog was gritty, but something about stepping over that line must have worked because I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You used to love it when I gave you a mustard mustache!” Gavin put on a goofy grin and rolled his eyes. “Mr. and Mrs. Mustardash!”

  “When I was six!” I laughed and swiped his lip with a napkin, only succeeding in smearing it up to his nose. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “You can take me to Black’s Beach. We don’t have to wear anything but our ’stach.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  Heat rose up from my belly, and I knew I’d be taking him into my bed again that night. I vibrated with need for him and already lamented wasting a day with my angst and indecision. Just going with it was so much easier, so much more natural.

  He misunderstood my silence, running his hand along my arm. “I would never push you on this, Corabelle. I can wait for you to come back to me.”

  I stuck my hot dog back in the paper tray and crashed into him, knocking us both into the sand. I leaned over him, ignoring the stares of families around us. “I think I’m already done waiting.”

  He lifted his head, his mouth perilously close to my lips. “Then what the hell are we doing on this beach?” he whispered.

  We snatched up our trash and dumped it into the nearest bin. Sand kicked up from our feet as we hightailed it back to my car. “You better drive fast!” Gavin insisted as we backed out of the parking space.

  “I might run over small children!” I shouted, then realized I’d just made a reference to kids without feeling horrible inside. Gavin was right. We could choose to let go of the stranglehold our past had on us.

  I careened through town, flooring it between lights as we headed back to my apartment. “God, remember that time the police pulled me over just a block away from my house?” I asked.

  Gavin laughed. “The one time I thought it would be clever and sexy to unbutton your pants in the car.”

  My face burned just remembering. “I just knew he was going to ask me to get out, then my parents would come and see me both half-dressed and with the cops.”

  “What had you done?”

  “I think a taillight was out or something.”

  “It certainly wasn’t speeding.”

  I stomped on the gas. “You mean like this?”

  He laughed. “You are one terrible driver.” His hand snaked over to my thigh. “I think it was something like this, right?” He unsnapped my jeans.

  Sparks shot through my body, and I eased off the gas, unable to drive irrationally if I couldn’t focus on the road.

  “Or was it more like this?” Gavin lowered the zipper and slid his thumb along the edge of my panties.

  We came to a red light, and I was relieved, because I was afraid I’d start swerving if he did anything more. “Gavin, we’re going to have a wreck.”

  “Then I better make the most of this traffic light.” His palm flattened against my belly, and he reached farther down.

  Now I couldn’t think about anything but his fingers, slipping inside me, pressed tight inside the jeans. The light turned green and a car behind me honked. I jumped, startled, and Gavin chuckled. “I’ll be good,” he said, but he didn’t remove his hand, just kept it still.

  I stayed off the freeway, taking side streets since I didn’t trust him not to distract me, even if he didn’t intend to. His hand was hot against my skin. When we got to the next light, he started up again, a gentle pulse in just the right spot. My breathing grew faster. I wished it was dark so we could simply pull over somewhere, but the midafternoon sun was merciless and bright.

  When I hit the gas again, his hand stilled, but the ache was so fierce I couldn’t concentrate. “We’re closer to my place,” he said. “You can turn right here and it’s two streets down.”

  I jerked the wheel and followed his directions to a set of aging apartments. I didn’t relax until I’d pulled into a spot and killed the engine. “Can we go in now?” I asked, my body trembling all over.

  “Not just yet.” Gavin released his seat belt but left his hand in my pants. He couldn’t unbuckle mine without pulling out, so he left it but turned toward me, letting his free hand trace my collarbone. “I like it right here.”

  I shut my eyes to the open windshield and let the movements of his fingers send cascades of pleasure through me. I felt completely wanton, spreading my knees as he found the perfect placement, spiraling me up into showering sparks.

  “I want to hear you, Corabelle. Talk to me.”

  We’d always had to be so quiet when he snuck in my window that when we finally got our own place, he always asked me to talk to him, to let him know what I was feeling with sounds.

  I began with a whimper, the smallest noise. He began to work faster, deeper, and shifted his free hand down to my breast, tweaking the nipple. I forgot everything then, where we were, who migh
t see, and my voice grew to an elongated “oh.”

  “That’s my girl,” Gavin said, and now the second hand aided the first, spreading me more open, and his fingers worked that perfect pattern until I hit a peak.

  “Gavin!” I cried, then kept it going, “Oh my God, Gavin Gavin Gavin Gavin.” I couldn’t take any more, everything was swollen and writhing and painful with need until finally I was over the top and clutching his hands, keeping them still as the orgasm crashed through me, long and rhythmic. I didn’t even know what sound I was making, just that it must have been loud, as Gavin covered my mouth with his, kissing me as I came down and back to reality.

  We sat there a while, my hands on top of his, hiding my exposed belly as people passed by on the walkway through the complex. I closed my eyes again, not wanting to think about anybody knowing what we had done.

  Gavin knew what I was thinking. “Nobody saw,” he whispered. “You were amazing.”

  My mouth was dry. I swallowed and said, “I think you were the amazing one.” He had skills now, beyond what he had done to me when we were teens. I tried to push away the thought of the girls he might have practiced on, but realized too that my responses were different, and he might be wondering the same thing. And there had been no one.

  Don’t let your past steal your future. It applied to both of us. Whoever they might have been or however many, they were the past. I was his future. He meant what he said, and he was willing to show it, to do whatever it took.

  I opened my eyes, and Gavin was right there, looking at me with amusement. “You ready to face the world?” he asked.

  I nodded. He withdrew from me and I buttoned back up. “I’m going to make you suffer for that,” I told him.

  He kissed me quickly on the cheek. “I look forward to my punishment.”

  We hustled from the car and he led me by the hand to where he lived. His home. I could look forward to another night in his arms, to revel in the company of someone who had known me as long as I’d been alive.