Forever Innocent (2 page)

Stay mad, I warned myself, but all the things I wanted to forget came back, moments I’d shoved into the back of my brain. Impulsively, I touched my stomach, still bearing stretch marks, tiny white rivers like lightning bolts from my hips to my navel. And without wanting to, I saw that little face, his sweet cheeks and nubby nose, the tiniest perfect fingers.

I sobbed out loud, a horrid sound that echoed against the walls.

“Corabelle. Come here.” Gavin tried to put his arm around me.

I jerked away and stood, accidentally smacking his face with my backpack as I went up. Damn it, who cares, I had to GO.

I raced down the stairs again, trying to be more sure-footed this time. I couldn’t take a class with Gavin. I couldn’t be around him at all. Even if I could find a way to suck it up, to stuff our past down and away, he’d be a distraction. We never were able to keep our hands off each other, back when we were together. Of course our birth control failed. We pushed every limit.

Then pregnancy had failed. Then parenthood itself.

This was too much. I couldn’t be in his group. Stargazing. Spectrum lab. Graded together. No way. No no no no way.

I couldn’t help but look up as I descended the stairs. Gavin was above me, blue eyes piercing in the yellow light. He had so much rage coming off him, like he had earned it. Well, I had too.

“Why did this happen?” My voice was powerful in the chamber, stronger and bolder than I felt.

“Which part?” he asked.

I knew what he meant. The baby or his death? Gavin’s desertion or finding each other again?

Disgust with him burned in my belly. Gavin had been my best friend since I was a child, the one person I thought would be there for me all my life. But he walked out of our baby’s funeral, shucking his jacket and tie as he stormed out, missing graduation, disappearing completely. Gone from my life, just like little Finn.

He came down the stairs, slowly, like he wasn’t sure he should. “Do you believe in second chances?” he asked. His voice had gone soft, losing its edge.

No way. Our baby had not been given a second chance. And Gavin had left me, discarded like his clothing in the aisle of the church. A person capable of that was not the sort of man I could depend on for anything.

But he was holding out his hand, those fingers I had once known so well. My gaze moved up his arm, darker and hairier than it had been, to the sleeve of his T-shirt, and his shoulder, broader now, like a man’s instead of a boy’s. Then back up to that chiseled face. And those eyes, piercing blue. I was sure the baby would have them. But I never got to see. He never opened his eyes.

Life rushed at me too hard then and I felt light, like I was floating. My old habit of holding my breath too long when I was in distress kicked in without my thinking about it. I was going to faint, escape into black oblivion, my one safe place.

My knees buckled and I bent over the rail. Gavin rushed down the last steps and held on to me, pulling me into that familiar embrace. He smelled of outdoors, boyish soap, and the life I once loved.

As my vision turned to spots, I realized that maybe I’d arrived at the college by the sea just to come home.

Chapter 3: Gavin

Corabelle had to have known I’d be here. She HAD to.

I held her against the rail, making sure she didn’t fall. Her black hair was all tied up, and her face was so pale. She’d never been super sturdy, and the whole time she was pregnant I feared she would just slip away.

I had no answers for her. Why I left. Why I stayed away. Or why I came to UCSD, which was a risk. It had always been our plan, and we were both accepted our senior year. But then we found out about the baby. New Mexico State had been closer to people who could help us out as we navigated work, college, and family.

Her breathing was shallow and fast. I held on to her, waiting for her to come back around.

I figured I knew what she was seeing behind those closed eyes, her lashes curled against her cheek. Finn. Despite what Corabelle might think, that I wanted to erase the memory of him and those seven days we had him, I still had his picture. One was always with me.

When she began to move around again, I used my free hand to tug my wallet out and flipped it to the center. “I never forgot.”

Corabelle’s eyes fluttered open, but when she saw the picture I held out, she pushed away from me, despite her unsteadiness. “Why do you have that? You don’t deserve it!”

I jumped in front of her and took her arm. “I was Finn’s father. I do too deserve it.”

“You didn’t do ANYTHING! You took off!” Her eyes were going red, like she’d cry. Damn it, I hated it when she cried. But I had nothing to say to that.

She jerked her arm away from me, and I actually felt relief that she was angry rather than in tears. Anger I could deal with.

“I’m dropping this class,” she said. “But I can’t leave here. I have to finish my degree.”

“Wait. You didn’t finish in New Mexico?”

“How did you know where I went?” Corabelle stood straight as a crowbar.

“I assumed. I planned to find you.”

“But you didn’t.” Her brown eyes flashed with little sparks of light, like they always did when she got mad. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever known, something I’d taken for granted when I was a numbskull teen.

“It was too late by then,” I said. Too late on all counts, even the ones she didn’t know about.

Her hand shook a little as she gripped the metal slats of the railing. “Probably so.”

I wanted to ask what happened at NMSU, but she had changed from upset to fear, as if she had something to hide. She never did have much of a poker face.

I didn’t want to be the cause of any more distress for her. “I’ll drop the class. Hell, I’m on the ten-year plan already. It won’t matter.”

“Why aren’t YOU finished yet?” she asked.

“Work. I have to pay every dollar for school myself.”

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” she said. “I thought you’d be done with college.”

“Yeah, well, when you ditch the school that was giving you a free ride, it’s hard to convince another one to cough up any dough.”

She nodded, and I figured something similar had happened to her. At least she was calm again.

“Can I walk you somewhere?” I didn’t really want to leave her alone after all this.

“No, I need to figure things out.” Corabelle squeezed the bridge of her nose, a little gesture I had forgotten, something she did when she was stressed.

“I’m serious. I’ll drop the course,” I said.

“Don’t you need it? What’s your major?”

“Geology.”

“Rocks? Seriously? What happened to teaching?”

I didn’t answer, and she looked away. She knew why. Kids were not my thing, not now, not anymore.

She twisted at her ponytail. “I switched to literature. I plan to teach college instead of elementary.”

That made sense to me. “Professor suits you.”

“Maybe. I’d hoped to be a TA by now. This is just an elective. I can pick another.”

“So can I.”

She sighed. “I’ll go talk to my counselor, see what I can get into.”

I squeezed her shoulder, relieved when she didn’t flinch. “You were always doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Inconveniencing yourself for others. You always took care of everyone else first.”

She brushed a chunk of hair out of her eye. “Old habits die hard.”

“Let me do it this time.”

Corabelle gave me a hard look. “I have to make sure it happens. So I’m going to do it.”

She didn’t trust me. But then, I hadn’t given her much reason to. “All right.”

“I have to stay here. I can’t transfer again, lose more credits, another year. But it’s a big campus, right?”

I nodded. “Plenty big enough for two undergrads to get lost in.”

She went around me and descended the last few stairs. I thought she might look back again, like she had earlier, but this time she pushed through the exit door and was gone.

I sat back down. Hell, I was more wound up than I’d been in a long time. Corabelle was mine. She’d always been mine. Going without her had been easy when she was out of sight, but thinking about crossing campus and spotting her, or worse, running into her on a date with some other jerk undergrad —

I smashed my fist into the metal rail. She hated me enough to avoid me at all costs. I had to get out of here. Had to make sure we didn’t cross paths. I’d just drop out this quarter. Or more. Let her finish the year, and then I could come back.

I reconciled myself to losing the fees I had paid, and the damn textbooks. I’d have to just sell these back and take the loss.

I jumped to my feet. It took me months to save up for each class, and now it’d be lost. More hours at the garage. My life was eternally screwed.

I pushed the exit door too hard and it flew open, startling a couple girls just inside the hall. I yanked my hat from the side pocket of my backpack and pulled it low over my eyes, ignoring their interested expressions. Young and stupid, thinking I was someone they should tangle with. They had no idea what life could deal you. What I could deal them. What I’d been dealt.

The quad seemed full of color, green diamonds of grass cut by white stripes of sidewalk. I knew if I could see past the buildings, the big blue of the Pacific would spread wide like the giant crayoned pictures Corabelle and I used to tack to the wall when we set up our pretend school. Growing up with unrelenting New Mexico dry spells, most kids got into fantasies about the sea.

In high school, we discovered San Diego had a college that overlooked the ocean and decided to apply there. Marriage was a long way off, with miles of growing up to do in between. But we wanted to stay together as long as it made sense.

Then came the baby, and disaster after disaster.

But now she was here and wanted nothing to do with me. Just as well. If she knew what all I’d done since leaving that funeral, she’d hate me even more.

Chapter 4: Gavin

My boss never missed a thing.

“Roll all the tires out to recycling,” Bud said. “They’re filling up the back.”

I stuck my punch card in the sleeve dangling beneath the clock. “You hatin’ on me today?”

“You look like you need a chore that won’t cost me money if you screw it up.” Bud coughed into his elbow. “Class that tough?”

I tossed my backpack beneath a scuffed-up desk by the door. “You have no idea.”

“Don’t need no degree to hold a socket wrench.” Bud wiped his hands on his overalls, leaving a long black smear.

I forced a laugh. “And that’s a good thing, since I’ll be sixty-five before I graduate.”

“You got your schedule? I’ll figure up your hours.”

“Nah. I’m dropping out.”

Bud pulled off his hat and wiped his head with a red rag. “That’s bull.”

“Nope. Not feeling it this year.”

Bud’s meaty hand gripped my shoulder in a vise. “I know I just said you don’t need a degree. But you’re not cut out for this work long-term. I like you, and you’ve got a job here as long as you need one, but I’m not going to stand by and let you quit school.”

I turned away, shrugging off his hand. “Then fire me.”

He spun me back around. “Get out there and roll tires until you change your mind.”

“Not enough tires out there for that.”

“You ain’t been back there in a while.”

Fine. I stormed through the bays where Randy and Carl were changing oil on a couple SUVs. Mario had the guts of a 1997 Camaro spread on a tarp, shaking his head over a gunked-up intake manifold.

I stopped short, seeing the car. Why would this car be in the shop at this very moment?

Mario lifted a gasket and peered through the hole. “People don’t treat their babies right.”

I ran my hand along the roof, shiny and clean. “They kept it waxed and purty on the outside.”

Mario grunted. “The engine is beyond gone. These people should be lined up and executed.”

I thumbed the door handle, unable to resist a look inside. I had saved up and bought a very similar Camaro when I turned eighteen. Corabelle and I had broken it in pretty fast, and just looking at the slope of the passenger seat brought up visions of her, sweaty hair sticking to her forehead, looking down on me as she straddled my lap.

I slammed the door closed.

“Easy, friend. Everything’s loose and hanging.” Mario reached for a rag. “You don’t like the car?”

“I used to have one.”

“Ah, a woman. Always a woman.”

“How did you get from the car to a girl?”

“A man slams a door, it’s always about a woman.” He grinned.

I had to be wearing my damn past on my shoulders. First Bud, now Mario. “I got to go roll tires.”

Mario laughed. “You piss off the boss man again?”

“Apparently I’ve pissed off the world.”

Mario chortled as I walked on through to the back, where the old and new tires were stored. Some we repaired and resold as used. The ones too far gone were rolled behind the shop and heaved into a short dumpster that would be picked up by a recycler when it got full. It was a backbreaking chore, tumbling the flat and sometimes shredded tires and tossing them over the side wall.

I tugged the first tire off the stack and braced it on my shoulder. It was too thrashed to wheel out, and I knew from experience to take these first, as once you got worn down, you wanted to be rolling, not lugging.

A girl with long black hair stepped out of a car on the side lot as I pushed through the back door. I stared so hard that I stumbled off the curb, sure it was Corabelle, and my heart nearly thumped right out of my skin.

But when she looked my way, I realized she was just some other girl. She peered up at the sign to Bud’s Garage and headed toward the front door. I wondered if Corabelle had already gone to see her counselor and dropped out of astronomy. I picked the class because of the star parties, like most undergrads. I didn’t really need more science electives, as my geology courses were plenty, but it seemed a good balance, the earth and the heavens, staying grounded but looking up to the infinite.

I tossed the tire into the bin. Damn, I hadn’t waxed all poetic like this in years. Life had been practical for a long time. Work. Class. Beer. Studies. Occasional women, when I could afford one. I didn’t have much of a clue what I’d actually do with a degree in geology. But rocks were solid. They didn’t change, not easily. If they got worn down, it took time.