by Leigh, Tara
It’s only later, at a brainstorming session for future TeenCharter events, that I regret making the excuse. “What are you doing here?” Tucker asks.
I blink at him in confusion. “Where else would I be?”
“In bed,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “I was going to bring you some soup after the meeting.”
Wren. Of course. Tucker may have ditched her on New Year’s, but they are clearly still close.
“I was wrong. It’s not flu.” I slide into a chair and pull my notebook out of my bag. “The nurse said it was just allergies.”
“Allergies? In February?”
I don’t have the energy to make up any more lies. “Can you please just drop it,” I hiss quietly.
Tucker’s expression changes, his features tightening with hurt.
I was going to bring you some soup.
Guilt hits me like an incoming tide. Ever since we spent New Year’s Eve together, Tucker has been nothing but kind and thoughtful. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s my boyfriend… I don’t want to put a name to what we are, actually. I spent so much of last year forcing labels on things, on feelings, on people. Hiding behind doors and shoving my emotions into boxes I’d seal shut.
Sometimes Tucker and I study together. Sometimes we eat together. Sometimes we kiss and make out and have sex.
We don’t drink together. We don’t party together.
We don’t argue or tease or stay up all night telling secrets and sharing dreams.
What I have with Tucker is nothing like what I had with Gavin.
But that’s okay.
Because what I had with Gavin taught me that passion leads to pain. Promises turn out to be lies. And love… love hurts.
With Tucker, I know what I’m getting. We are careful and cautious with each other. On our best behavior.
After the meeting ends, and I have a page full of notes on possible future events for the TeenCharter kids, I smooth the wrinkles creasing the letter terminating my scholarship and hand it to Tucker. “I saw Wren just after I opened this. I’m sure I looked like crap, and when she asked if I was sick, I just went with it rather than explain why I was upset.”
I don’t mention the grudge Wren is holding against me. It has more to do with her and Tucker anyway, and I’m not dumb enough to get in the middle of them. As it is, Wren looked ready to scratch my eyes out in the mailroom. There’s no reason to put myself on her bad side any more than I have already. I have enough problems of my own.
He quickly scans the page. “But, why did you lie to me?”
I fight the sting of tears. “It’s embarrassing, Tucker. I can’t afford to stay here without a scholarship. And all I needed to do was maintain a B average. But…” I lose the battle and they overflow my lashes, not in a steady stream but slowly, one tiny droplet at a time. “I couldn’t. Last year, I just couldn’t.”
He holds my gaze, lifting his hands to cup his palms over my cheeks. His calloused thumbs are gentle as they wipe at my skin. “You’re not going anywhere, Poppy.”
I try to shake my head but Tucker’s hands prevent the movement. “I’m not a charity case.”
Technically, that’s not true. I’m a scholarship student. I am a charity case.
“The Stockton Family Foundation gives grants and scholarships all the time. All you have to do is apply.”
“But …”
“No buts,” he says. “Welcome to the real world, Poppy. Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know?’”
“Sure.”
“Well, now you know me. And I owe you.”
I pull away from him, my stomach churning. “No, you don’t.”
Tucker drops his hands, his thumbs wet from my tears. “Yeah. I do.”
Chapter 25
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Junior Year
“Let me guess, you need a little sugar fix today.”
I grin at Roz, the woman from the registrar’s office I met on my very first day at Worthington. There’s something about the warmth of her embrace and her drawer filled with butterscotch candies that I find comforting. “The hug doesn’t hurt either,” I tease.
There is a plaque on her desk that reads, I GIVE GOOD HUGS, so I have a feeling that I’m not the only student who swings by Roz’s desk for reasons that have nothing to do with school and everything to do with her.
Today though, I stopped by because I was meeting with my advisor and his office is right next to the main administration building. I feel… good. My grades are back up, I was approved for a scholarship through the Stockton Family Foundation, and our outreach program with TeenCharter is a success.
Tucker and I have continued hanging out, too.
I almost feel like a normal college girl these days. Of course, I’ll never be the same Poppy that came to campus, but I’m finally okay with that.
Roz squeezes my shoulders as she pulls away. “Look at you, Poppy. Is that a genuine smile I see?”
I laugh. “I think it is.”
She opens her top drawer but doesn’t pull out a candy. “I don’t know, I usually reserve these for kids that come in here with their heads hanging low.”
I force my lips into a frown and hunch my shoulders. “Will this do?”
Roz clucks her tongue and tosses me the cellophane-wrapped treat. “Don’t you dare. Happiness should never be hidden.”
After a quick chat and another hug I head back outside, jumping out of the way of a guy holding a Worthington campus map to his face. The door hasn’t quite closed yet when I hear, “I’m looking for a student.”
I know that voice. It rolls through me like thunder, shaking me to the core.
I would gasp, but the wind’s been knocked out of me. Surely, I’m mistaken. Because the man behind the map can’t be Gavin. Not now, after all this time. Not now that every thought of him, of us, isn’t a dull blade shredding my soul to bits.
Not after that night. Not after TeenCharter and New Year’s Eve and accepting Tucker’s help with my new scholarship.
Gavin abandoned me. Tucker took advantage of me.
But I’ve forgiven them both. And I’ve forgiven myself.
I might not be healed, though I’m definitely healing. I’ve stopped looking back, mourning what I’ve lost. I’m focused on the future now. My future.
The door opens behind me, and I hear Roz yell, “If you hurry, you might catch her.”
I am caught.
“Poppy.” Gavin says my name and it explodes inside my brain like a bomb. Anger, hot and thick, pollutes my veins as I spin around. I want to shove him away. I want to scream. I want to bombard him with questions. I want to hold him close and never let go. What the hell are you doing here? and Where have you been? and Why now?
But the words shrivel into black, bitter soot that coats my throat. Gavin.
It’s him. It’s really him.
Gavin is here, standing right in front of me. My eyes frantically rove over every inch of him. His gorgeous tawny hair is gone—not shaved, but certainly shorn—which only makes the blue of his eyes stand out more dramatically. Blues, actually. How had I forgotten how many shades existed inside the deep vortex of Gavin’s eyes? The pale aquamarine of sea glass, the seductive blue of the autumn sky an hour past sunset, the rich brightness of larkspur springing up from the forest floor like festive blue spires.
I devour Gavin’s broad, high forehead, his strong, straight nose, the sharp jut of his cheekbones. There is a scar on his face that wasn’t there before, a silvery groove etched into the skin between his chin and lower lip.
I press my own lips together, swallowing the urge to ask about it, to kiss it, and quickly drop my gaze to the broad expanse of his shoulders, the biceps bulging from his shirt. Gavin is taller and wider and stronger than he was the last time I saw him. Muscles bulging in places that were previously flat.
“It’s you,” I finally whispe
r, something inside me unlocking. I take a step toward him. He does the same and we meet in the middle, crashing into each other.
Gavin.
Holy shit. Nothing against Roz, but hugging Gavin… it has to be the best feeling in the world. And the worst. It’s everything. Every emotion. In his arms, I am lifted by my highest hopes, crushed by my deepest disappointments. Swallowed by our shared dreams and his broken promises.
It’s too much.
It’s not nearly enough.
I must have pushed at Gavin’s chest, or maybe he felt it too. The tiny crack that splintered us apart.
Invisible.
Excruciating.
“You’re still perfect,” Gavin says, and I can practically hear the unspoken, for me that accompanies his words.
I bite down on the tender skin inside my cheek until the coppery taste of my own blood coats my tongue. I’m not perfect for you, Gavin. Not anymore.
Our arms drop and we each take a step back. A small one, but it feels like a chasm has opened up between us. “And you.” I gesture at him, realizing with a shock that he’s wearing military fatigues. My eyes again travel the length of Gavin’s body—God, his body—before returning to his face. He is still so damn beautiful. “You’re a GI Joe action hero come to life.”
An echo of memory cuts into me, hard and fast and deep.
Promise me one thing.
What’s that?
Never forget that you were my hero first, okay?
He reaches up to run a hand through his hair. What’s left of it, anyway. The last time we were together, he would have tugged at his unruly mane, curls flying every which way. “Well, you know I had to leave to—”
“Know?” I want to sound strong and self-assured but my voice is barely a squeak. “How would I know?”
He frowns. “The letter I left for you in our cave. I told you I had to disappear, that my mom finally decided to leave my father and needed my help. My foster dad understood the situation, and he told me to leave my phone behind, giving me a few burner phones from the gas station. I left one for you, with my new number programmed in it. But you never called. I thought—”
I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt on my lips. “There was a storm. A nor’easter. Our cave was flooded. I never got your letter, or the…” I pause, remembering. “I did find a phone in the mud, about a week later. But I never even considered that it might be from you.”
Gavin’s eyes burn into me, and I can see this is a possibly he never considered. “When I didn’t hear from you, I figured I had programmed in my number wrong. I cursed myself for not having simply called your phone from mine, then saved the number so there would be no chance of an error.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I still had my phone.”
Gavin looks away and shakes his head. “Fuck, Poppy.” A student approaches us, obviously heading into the administration building. I step aside, motioning for Gavin to follow me to a gnarled elm tree, the one I’d sat beneath for the first month or so of school, feeling comforted by the reminder of home.
I haven’t found comfort in this tree for a very long time.
Gavin continues talking as we sit beneath the unfurled green canopy, the grayish-brown bark rough at my back. “I didn’t call because I couldn’t take the chance that my father would somehow find you. He showed up at my foster family’s house, looking for me and my mom. When they wouldn’t tell him, he broke Bill’s nose and knocked Mary into a wall.”
At my gasp, Gavin sighs. “Doug was there too. My father beat him to a pulp, apparently.”
I make a small noise of acknowledgment, although my sympathy lies solely with his foster parents. They were nice people. “I went to the gas station a few times. I tried asking about you but he didn’t…”
“Bill didn’t say anything to anyone. Especially once he saw the lengths my father was willing to go to track down my mother.” Gavin squeezes my hand. “Things were crazy with my mom. Moving from place to place. One minute she’d be crying, thanking me for getting her away from him. The next she’d be yelling, hating me for keeping her away. I didn’t want to bring you into my mess and since my note explained everything, I thought you would understand. Then I got shot and—”
Pain shoots through me. “You what?”
He sighs. “Turns out my mom called my dad, told him where we were. He decided to follow through on his threat—that if she ever left him, he’d kill her. Except that I got in the way.”
“Oh my God.” I narrow in on the scar between his lip and chin. “Did he do that to you?”
He nods, then pulls the collar of his shirt away from his neck. A raised stripe mars the otherwise smooth skin. “We fought. The gun went off, hit me, I survived. It went off again, he died.”
“Gavin.” I say his name because I don’t know what else to say.
“I hated him, Poppy. So much. But after I killed him… I was pretty fucked up. I was in no shape to be with anyone, even you, for a really long time.” His voice is a hoarse rasp that scrapes at my nerve endings.
“What about your mom?”
Gavin’s features tighten, pain etched into the grooves crossing his forehead, bracketing his mouth. “When she saw what I’d done, she tried to take the gun away from me. She wanted to kill me.”
I suck in a deep breath, the air stinging my lungs. “No.”
“Yeah. She still hasn’t forgiven me.”
“But you nearly died protecting her.” Just like Gavin said he would, years ago.
If she left him, I’d protect her. Whatever it took.
And it nearly took his life.
“She doesn’t see it that way.”
I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“I thought about finding you then. I missed you so—”
A frisbee whizzes by and I look up, startled by the intrusion of real life. People are going about their day. Walking to class, hanging out with friends, playing fucking frisbee.
“So, what did you do? After…”
“A lot of it’s a blur. But, and I know this sounds really weird, the only thing that made sense to me was math. Numbers. We were in Michigan at the time, and the only way I could afford to go back to school was through a program with the military.”
“But now you’re here, at Worthington. Are you transferring?”
Before my hopes can rise, he dashes them. “No. One of my professors is ex-Coast Guard. He still consults for them and invited me onto one of his projects. Their research facility isn’t far from here, so I flew out to get up to speed. I knew I had to come see you. To explain what happened in person, and to see if there was any chance of us—” At my wince, Gavin breaks off.
Us. I’m too confused and overwhelmed with all that I’ve learned to think about us yet. Staring at Gavin’s fatigues, I put off grappling with my emotions by trying to follow his timeline. Clinging to facts rather than feelings. “So… you’re joining the Coast Guard?”
“Not exactly. But any opportunity to work on cutting-edge applications could be a stepping stone to get where I really want to be.”
I take a minute to digest what he just said before asking, “And where’s that?”
He looks at me strangely, as if I should know. “The FBI.”
Of course. “Always a hero, huh?”
“Not always, Poppy.” His eyes drop to my lips, and the yearning inside their depths slays me. “I didn’t save us, did I?”
Chapter 26
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Junior Year
Gavin and I spend the rest of the afternoon under the elm tree, talking and reminiscing. It’s like being inside that old John Mellencamp song, “Hurts So Good.” I can feel my bones shattering inside my body. Tiny splintered cracks that run the length of my limbs, aching with every laugh, every sigh.
They say that when broken bones heal properly, they are even stronger than before. And by the time Gavin stands up, extending his hand to me, I actually do feel
stronger. Healed by seeing him, finally knowing the truth of why he left and what had kept us apart.
I don’t tell him about that night. I don’t even hint at it. While I was kissing and flirting with Tucker, he’d been protecting his mom. Tequila shots had put me in the hospital. Gavin had been shot.
The sun hovers low on the horizon by the time Gavin walks me to my dorm. I tip my head back, marveling at the cumulous clouds set ablaze in shades of pink and lavender like swirls of cotton candy. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”
He’s not looking at the sky when he answers. “Stunning.”
My breath stills in my lungs. “Gavin, I—”
I lose track of whatever I was about to say when his hand lands on the exposed triangle of skin at the base of my throat. “I don’t blame you for not wearing it anymore,” he says softly.
“That’s not…” Losing the moonstone pendant Gavin gave me for my seventeenth birthday was agonizing. But explaining the circumstances would be worse. A teardrop bursting with shame drops onto the tip of my shoe. “I’m so sorry.”
“You must have hated me for leaving you.”
“No. I never hated you.” The admission is a pained rasp. Every syllable stings.
What Gavin says next just twists the knife deeper. “I never stopped loving you.”
My heart clenches, regret and remorse flooding through me. “How do we—” I stop myself. “How can we move forward?”
“That’s what we’ll have to figure out.” Gavin smooths a wayward lock of hair behind my ear. “Look, I know we can’t go back to the way things were. For now, you’re here and I’m in Michigan. But I can’t lose you again, Poppy.”
Possibilities flutter in the air between us like gossamer-winged butterflies. “When do you go back?”
“Not until tomorrow.”
“What are you doing later tonight, or tomorrow before you leave?” I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.
Gavin has a dinner tonight and a briefing tomorrow afternoon, so we arrange to meet under the tree at the quad first thing in the morning. This time, he calls my phone from his so I have his new number just in case. I barely glance at the missed calls and texts from Sadie filling my screen. She can wait.
