BETWEEN NOW AND FOREVER: FOREVER TRILOGY BOOK 1 Page 3

  Instead, he we went to his former college fraternity house. He gave me a pill he called Molly and some vodka and we spent what felt like hours dancing.

  Attention that night came in the form of smiles and caresses instead of stares and whispers. On that crowded dance floor, pressed in between sweaty bodies while the music throbbed around us, I was just like everyone else.

  I told myself that if it meant nights like this, I’d wear pink dresses forever.

  When we got off the dance floor, I was sweaty and giddy, and he couldn’t take his hands off me.

  When he leaned down and whispered, “You wanna fuck?” in my ear, I didn’t even blink before I nodded yes.

  Dina lost her virginity when we were fifteen, and I was barreling toward twenty-one and was still afraid to use a tampon.

  I had been reading romance novels since I was thirteen and finding pleasure with my own fingers.

  But it wasn’t enough. I wanted that fullness I read about. I wanted the kisses and foreplay and pleasure. The kind that only a man’s body could give me.

  So, even though I was scared, I let him lead me up to one of the bedrooms and prayed that I was one of those girls who could lose her virginity with very little pain.

  I had visions of him laying me down on a bed of beautiful sheets and easing me into womanhood with kisses and compliments.

  Duke looks like every girl’s dream boyfriend. Gorgeous blond hair, muscles that never quit, a killer smile, beautiful dark eyes, and an outward veneer of charm that had girls following him around town like Gaston from Beauty and The Beast.

  But, Duke wasn’t the benign overly-confident douche in a Disney movie. Not even close.

  He gave me another drink and told me to take off my clothes.

  My stomach dips and lurches as the memories float around my head in a haze. That’s the last clear memory I have of that night—well that, and his friend who joined us. I don’t even know his name, and if I saw him today I wouldn’t know it was him.

  By the time it actually happened, I was drunk and dizzy and could barely see. The truth is, I’m not sure who went first—him or his friend. The only clear memory I have is of the pain. It was real and righteous. Then after that, I don’t remember anything at all.

  In the morning I woke up on the floor next to a girl who was naked but for the bits of toilet paper wrapped around her neck and waist.

  My dress was back on, but stained, and there was blood smeared on the inside of my thighs. And in my sleep, my makeup had rubbed off and was completely gone. I stumbled around the house, apologizing when I stepped on someone or walked in on people still enjoying each other.

  I found Duke in the kitchen with his friends. He paled when he saw me, like he forgot that I was there. He rushed toward me, shielding me from the view of his friends.

  “Liz? Your face. Come on,” he stammered, he grabbed my arm, and frog-marched me out to the car.

  I was too hungover to feel anything other than sick to my stomach with shame at his obvious embarrassment at being seen with me looking like this.

  The ride home was mercifully quiet. He didn’t say anything until we got to James’s and I was getting out of the car. He grabbed my arm and linked our fingers in a display of affection that surprised and excited me.

  “Don’t tell anyone about tonight. I could get in trouble. I’ll call you when I can see you again.”

  I nodded, desperate to get into the shower and then get into bed.

  When I walked into James’s house, hungover and sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore in, my brother had been up waiting. I told him I’d been with Duke, but just that I fell asleep and that nothing happened. He gave me hell, and read me the riot act before he let me go sleep it off.

  When I walked into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, he said by way of greeting, “I’ll kick your ass if I ever catch you out with Duke again.”

  I promised he wouldn’t have to worry about it and in the weeks that have passed without any word from Duke, he seems to have calmed down.

  I, on the other hand, have been on an emotional yo-yo.

  Some mornings, I wake up feeling like he used me, hurt me, shared me, and I’m glad he hasn’t called.

  But most days, I long for him to call me. Like in the books where the guy was terrible to the girl in the beginning but only because he was really fucked up inside, but by the end, he loved her, and I’d pray that maybe, by some miracle, that’s what would happen between him and me.

  I ordered this wig and waterproof foundation that promised to not rub off and waited for him to call.

  I saw Duke twice in the weeks that passed. He spoke to me like nothing happened. So, I’d resigned myself to reality of that night being a one off.

  Until his text from a couple of hours ago gave rise to my hope again.

  Party at the lake. Want to come?

  My initial response, the one straight from my gut, surprised me. I had a flashback to our night together, and for a second, I thought I would have to be stupid to say yes.

  But that thought was gone as quickly as it came.

  There’s not a girl in Winsome that wouldn’t kill to get a text like this.

  It would be stupid to say no.

  I haven’t ever been invited to a party at the lake. With the end of the school year approaching and everyone home from college, there would be a lot of people there.

  Including the girls who only talk to me when their mothers make them. They all idolize Duke.

  They’re going to see that, despite them treating me like I was defective and strange, and after they’ve laughed at me for most of my life, I achieved what they could only dream.

  I’m on his arm.

  I look down at my phone and read his message again. It doesn’t say anything about sex. A phantom pain between my thighs and a horrified thought that he may want to anyway, gives me the chills.

  Maybe I should stay home.

  I shake my head, expelling those thoughts.

  I’m being silly.

  It’s the lake.

  A hundred people will be there.

  We’ll be out in the open.

  There’s nowhere for him to do more than kiss me—which he has yet to do. Suddenly giddy at the thought of my first kiss, I wonder if it will be like my favorite fictional couple, Grip and Bristol.

  Maybe not a wonderous revelation at the top of a Ferris wheel, with Neruda as its muse, but the touch of his lips to mine, in any way at all would be amazing.

  My phone buzzes with another text from Duke.

  Be there in ten.

  My stomach sinks and I close my eyes. I stare at the screen and try to figure out how to respond.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  I scream and nearly jump out of my skin.

  I whirl on James.

  “Why the hell are you sneaking up…” My words die in my throat. He’s holding my iPad up to my face, my iMessage screen open.

  2

  Live Free

  ELISABETH

  “I was trying to be nice, Liz. Dad wouldn’t even let you go out with Dina. And you expect me to let you go out with Duke again after the way he brought you home last time? Are you high?”

  I clasp my hands together under my chin and stare beseechingly into his sea blue eyes, and for the second that our gazes lock, it’s like looking into a mirror.

  It’s the only feature we share.

  Otherwise, he’s my father’s spitting image, like they were cast in the same mold. He’s got the same dark blond hair, the height, athleticism, and graceful posture as my father, but that is where their similarities end.

  In every way, from their very core, they couldn’t be more different.

  He’s the light to my father’s dark.

  The give to his take.

  The tenderness to his rigidity.

  The love to his scorn.

  He’s so much more than my brother.

  He’s the canyon that keeps the winds of
life from sweeping me away.

  He’s the dam that holds back the raging rivers of family turmoil that would drown me otherwise.

  When my mother left, he was my lifeboat. Without him, I would’ve never survived. It was James’s hand in mine while I slept that evening that kept me anchored.

  But right now, he’s standing between me and what I want. So, I use the baby sister card and start to beg.

  His glare darkens as he looks up at me, but it’s more in frustration than anger. He’s wavering. I give him my sweetest, I-love-my-big-brother smile and prepare to taste triumph.

  “Fuck. No,” he grinds out.

  My own earlier indecision is long forgotten, and all I can think is that he’s going to ruin everything.

  This was supposed to be my night, and he’s going to ruin it.

  I throw a Hail Mary.

  “I’ll watch Ziggy for you when you go see Erin next week.”

  He scoffs.

  “Wow, you must be desperate to go. You hate that dog.”

  “I don’t hate it. I’m sacred of him.”

  He gives me a disbelieving stare. “That lie may work on Fiona, but it won’t work on me. I know you too well,” he says and then takes a sip of his water.

  “Fine. I don’t like dogs,” I admit grudgingly.

  He groans and mimes a frustrated yank of his hair. “Why don’t you just say that? Why pretend? Why are you so afraid to be yourself?” His voice grows louder with each question, and I hate how disappointed he looks.

  “Because, saying you don’t like dogs these days is like confessing to being a serial pedophile,” I say with a jaunty laugh that’s as hollow as my heart feels.

  He doesn’t even crack a smile. “They’re not going to like you more dressed like that. It’s not your clothes that make them uncomfortable. It’s you. You’re not like them and it makes them nervous.”

  The bite of judgment and condemnation in his voice cuts me to the quick. He’s never made me feel bad about being so different. I know he’s not trying to make me feel bad, now. But his words are the unvarnished truth and it hurts to hear them from the one person who I know loves me as I am. And it gets my ire up.

  I bite back the retort on the tip of my tongue. Pissing him off won’t make him more likely to say yes.

  And right now, that’s all I want.

  I have a chance tonight. One I’m desperate for. But I can’t get out of the door.

  “Duke is just a friend, J. I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of it.”

  His gaze turns accusing. “Do you still have stars in your eyes about him, Clo?”

  I feign indignation and draw back, my hand pressed to my chest. “I have never had stars in my eyes about him and don’t call me that.”

  He rolls his eyes and ignores the last part of my sentence. “You’ve always had stars in your eyes over him, and he’s the kind of guy to take advantage of that.”

  “We’re just friends,” I insist when he looks at me with a disbelieving frown.

  “He’s too old to be your friend, and even if he wasn’t, he’s too self-centered to be anyone’s friend,” he sneers contemptuously. I don’t understand why he hates Duke so much.

  “I’m not interested in him like that. I just...”

  “You just what?” he demands, completely unmoved by my distress and unwilling to let me even think about what I’m trying to say.

  In this face of his uncharacteristic rigidity, my sense of self-preservation evaporates faster than steam cut by frigid air.

  I forget about trying to cajole him. I’ve never once thrown his perfection in his face. I’m wounded and I lash out.

  “You sound like one of those people who says things like, ‘If you’re sick of being poor, why don’t you just go out and get another job on top of the four you already have,’” I snap.

  His eyebrows shoot straight up and his lip curls in confusion. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  I take a deep breath and try to find a way to explain without sounding pathetic.

  Quickly, I realize that’s impossible.

  It is pathetic.

  No matter how you look at it. I am pathetic.

  And weary.

  And desperate for this day that could change everything.

  So, I lay it out.

  “I know you’re busy J, but it can’t have escaped your notice that besides Dina, I don’t have a single real friend here. I just want this one night to be like everyone else.”

  “But you aren’t like everyone else, Liz,” he says in an exasperated voice while he runs an agitated hand through his hair.

  “I want to be.” I implore him.

  He stops pace and turns to look at me.

  The anger in his eyes makes me take a step back. He advances on me and I continue to retreat until he grabs me by the shoulders and clamps down hard.

  “If being friends with these people is so important to you, then go ahead and change. Ignore everything that is you and maybe one of these assholes with one tenth of your vision and none of your talent, will finally ask you to come to one of their dumbass parties where all they do is get drunk and pretend they’re happy.” He’s nearly foaming at the mouth.

  I’m so taken aback by his vehemence, that I step away from him.

  James is practically the town mascot. Anyone who heard him talking like this would feel like they were seeing the sun in the middle of the night.

  “James, I thought—”

  I glance at the piano that sits in the room across the hall from this one. As understanding dawns, I pull my head out of my ass long enough to remember who James was before Phil left.

  I remember what lurks beneath the veneer of obedience and loyalty he wears like a second skin now.

  “Don’t give up the things that make you special, Clo—Liz.” He says sternly.

  Pity and guilt douse my annoyance and I put my hands on his shoulders and look him in the eye.

  “You mean, like you did?” I ask softly.

  His eyes lose their intensity, and fill with heartbreak before he lets go of my shoulders. He walks over to the piano and sits down.

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean,” he says, his voice muffled but heavy with regret when he drops his head into his hands.

  I sit next to him and curse my selfishness for not seeing it.

  He’s a talented musician. When he was a teenager, there wasn’t an instrument he couldn’t play.

  But he’d given up a chance to attend a music conservatory to go to Baylor, like our father and grandfather before him. And he started working for the family business when he graduated.

  “Why did you do it?” I ask.

  He straightens and turns to face me. His expression is full of conviction, his eyes intense as he answers me.

  “Because it’s my duty, and with Phil gone, I’m the oldest. This is a family business. And, unlike you, I wasn’t good enough to make any money off my talent. Being a starving artist held no appeal for me.”

  “You were good enough.”

  He shakes his head.

  “No, I wasn’t. But you are,” he says, and I flush as a rush of pleasure and pride wash over me. But I feel sad for him, too. He was good enough, but he chose to stay here. Until now, I thought he was happy to do it.

  “Well, thank goodness one of us is smart enough to help Daddy with the company. Lord knows I’d never be able to step into your shoes. I couldn’t even get into college,” I say in the jocular tone that I always use when I talk about my failure as a student.

  He slings an arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his side. He presses a kiss to the top of my head and holds me there.

  “College isn’t for everyone, Lizzy. And thank God it’s not for you, because if you’d gone, all of that beautiful art you’ve been creating wouldn’t be here.”

  I flush with pride at his words, but try to wave them off because I know he’s probably blinded by love.

  “Dad doesn’t think it
’s beautiful.”

  “He doesn’t think about anything like that. Value is money or power. If you can’t bring him those, you’re useless.”

  “Like me,” I say, my eyes on my toes so he can’t see the tears welling in my eyes.

  He tilts my chin up, and his eyes are wet with tears too.

  Seeing it tugs at my heartstrings and I hate my father in that instant.

  James closes his eyes and when he opens them again they are clear and dry, but no less intent on mine.

  He smooths a hand over my head.

  “I wish what he thought didn’t matter so much to you. I wish I could get you away from him. I couldn’t help Mom; I was too young to help Phil…well, no one could help him.”

  My heart squeezes at the mention of our brother who walked away from everything and hasn’t been in touch for years now. We both follow him on Instagram. He’s traveling the world and posting each new place he sees online, but he doesn’t interact with us—at all.

  James takes my hand and presses our palms together. I smile up at him, a wave of nostalgia easing the sting of this moment.

  “I’ll be okay, don’t worry. Today is going to be good, I promise,” I try to reassure the lines of worry that are bracketing his mouth away.

  He nods resolutely.

  “I know you’ll be okay. I’m damn sure going to make sure of it. I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you this, but if you can get into art school, I’m going to pay the tuition.”

  I freeze. I lean back and away from him and stare.

  “Did you hear me?” he asks.

  Yes. I scream in my head. But outwardly, all I can do is nod.

  “Then what’s wrong?” He looks at me with a quizzical frown.

  “I haven’t told anyone. How did you know?”

  “What? That you want to go to art school?”

  “Yes.”

  He ducks his head sheepishly.

  “I went into your studio,” he says.

  “No, you didn’t.” I groan, my face in my hands.

  “I wanted to see what you were working on so furiously on those Tuesdays you lock yourself away. And I saw the pamphlets.”

  “Do you think Daddy knows?” I ask, immediately anxious. He would flip out and he would never let me go.