Forever & Always Read online

  My stomach twisted, and something inside me ached, for no reason at all.

  And then I heard a thump from the study, and I knew.

  Eighteen steps from kitchen to study door. Half a twist of the wrist, vision blurring, the door sliding open slowly on silent hinges.

  Well, it's one foot on the platform/And the other on the train...

  He lay on the floor on his side, curled up into a fetal position. His right hand clawed at the left side of his chest, and his eyes were wide and calm, tinged only a little by fear. He wasn't breathing, but struggling for it, or struggling perhaps against the instinct to fight for breath.

  I collapsed to my hands and knees beside him, fumbling my phone out of my pocket. "Dad...no. Please, no." I unlocked the phone, tapped the icon to make a call, and had the nine and the one dialed when I felt his hand, heavy and urgent, on mine.

  "No...Cade. Too--too late."

  "No, it's not, Dad. They can get here and you'll be fine. Just fight, okay? Please? Just hold on. Don't--oh, god, oh, god--" I heard myself sobbing. "Don't die on me, Dad. Not you, too."

  He gazed at me with soft, calm eyes. "I died with--with Jan. I'm just--just catching up to her." He paused to wheeze, wince, and the light in his eyes faded.

  "No, Dad. No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said about leaving. I love you."

  "No sorry. Don't. Live. Love." He squeezed my hand with his, sudden frantic strength crushing my bones, but I didn't pull away. I squeezed back and cried like a baby. "Love you, Cade. Always."

  And then the light faded, faded, and was gone. The bruising strength in his huge hand vanished, sluiced away. I couldn't breathe.

  "Dad?" I shook him. "No!" I screamed. "No!"

  There was nothing after that. Only a hand going cold, and my voice going hoarse, giving out.

  I woke up in my childhood bed, the smell of cigarette smoke touching my nose.

  Gramps.

  I sat up. Gramps was at my desk, flipping through one of my old sketchbooks. Anyone else and I would've lost my temper a little, but it was Gramps, and I couldn't do that with him. My window was open, and as he flipped pages, he sucked a drag on the cigarette, blew it out the window, ashing into an empty beer can every once in a while. Gramps would flip, flip, flip, then pause to examine a sketch, flip again, drag in and blow out, ash, flip, flip, flip.

  "Can't remember what movie it is, but there's a line in a movie," he said, his voice thick and scratchy. "'No parent should have to bury their child,' the line is."

  "That's from The Lord of the Rings. The Two Towers. Theoden, King of Rohan says it." I'd gone through a phase, the year before art camp at Interlochen, where I'd watched those movies one after another for months on end. I could quote all three movies backward and forward.

  "Ah. Yeah. So it is. You brought them with you to the ranch a few years back."

  "How'd you get here? When, I mean?"

  "Your Grams had a feeling. I caught the flight after yours. Found you in there, with him. I think you'd been there a while. Not sure how long, but he was...he'd been gone a while." Gramps shut the book and came to sit on the bed near my feet, the bed creaking under his weight. "You got shit luck, Cade."

  I started to sob. "I know. God, I know. I watched...I watched him die. Just like Mom. He...he said he'd died with Mom, that he was just catching up to her."

  "Sh-shit." Gramps rubbed at his face, thumbed the corner of his eye. "Your dad and I had our differences, but...he was still my son. And I loved him. I was proud of him, you know. I don't think...I don't think I ever told him, but I was. He'd made good for himself, goin' his own way, doin' his own thing. Made good, for damn sure."

  "What now?" I whispered.

  Gramps wiped at his face again, huffing in a deep breath, letting it out, broad, hard shoulders spreading and curling back in. "I don't know, Cade. I don't know. Carry on, one day at a time. S'all you can do, I think." Carry on, one day at a time. I wasn't sure how to do even that. Gramps clapped me on the shoulder as he stood up. "Take your time, Cade. I'll handle things."

  Take my time? To do what? I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I was empty inside, and wished I could go to sleep and stay that way. But my eyes were open, and I knew I wouldn't sleep anytime soon.

  I ended up at my desk, drawing. I don't even know what I drew. Only that sunlight shifted through the window, rising and falling as daylight streamed past me. I remember lines, arcs, and whorls, abstractions of the sorrow inside me. Heavy shading, shadows cast by nothing. I remember a raven, stark black on the white page. Wings furled, shown in profile, beady eye glinting and reflecting something hidden. A pocket watch hung by a chain from the raven's mouth, the hands stopped at 6:35.

  Then a lined sheet of paper, slightly angled to the left on the desk.

  Ever,

  That summer we met, Interlochen. The lake. Drawing all day. Sitting on the dock together. It was the last of my childhood, I think. The last happy days of my life.

  Dad died yesterday. Heart attack. Or a broken heart, if you want to get truthful about it. I don't think he could handle life without Mom. He just gave up, and his heart gave out. He wasn't even fifty.

  I'm not sure why you and I are even doing these letters anymore. You've got your own life to live, and I'm just. I don't know. Cursed, maybe? Just living. Breathing, one day at a time. I miss back when things were simple, you know?

  I hope things go well with Billy Harper. Hope he treats you well.

  I'm rambling. I know I am. I'm lost. But...I drew until my hand ached, and I still have all this inside me. Where does it go? What do I do? Who am I? Too many questions. No answers. And you're with Billy Harper.

  I understand your sister's jealousy. I feel the same way, a little. Jealous. Of you. Of Billy Harper. I haven't been on a date, or had a first kiss. First anything.

  But that's whatever. Fine. I'm moving to Wyoming. Permanently, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure at some point in my life a girl will take pity on a cowboy orphan. Not angling for pity, FYI. Just...venting. Rambling. Sorry.

  Cade

  I signed it and sealed it and sent it without thinking about the repercussions. I didn't care. If she wanted to date Billy fucking Harper, that was fine with me. Why should I care?

  I attended another funeral. Dressed in black, my eyes damp with tears that wouldn't shed. It rained this time. Appropriately enough, to my thinking. Warm rain, hissing on the awning as the dark wood casket was lowered into the ground. Gramps's hand on my shoulder.

  Wyoming became home, permanently. I had an inheritance from Dad, savings plus life insurance. Enough that I would be fine for a while. Enough for college, if I went. I didn't want the money, though. I went to school in Casper, rode the range, and didn't even try to meet anyone, or make friends.

  And that, of course, is how I met Luisa Alvarez.

  first love, dreams like memory

  Ever

  The letter had a place in my purse, folded in half and tucked into an inside pocket, nestled between maxi pads and a pack of Trident gum. I didn't want to open it. I had a bad feeling about it.

  Instead, I left it there and refused to open it and waited for "the right time" to read Cade's latest missive. It was a selfish thing. The letter was...I didn't even know why, but I felt like just touching the envelope made me sad. As if I knew somehow, maybe psychologically or emotionally, maybe psychically, that it contained more tragedy. And I didn't want to have to feel that.

  Dates with Will were amazing things. He was amazing. He took me to interesting places. Concerts at the Joe Louis Arena, plays at the Meadowbrook. Long drives late at night, listening to jazz. Talking until dawn.

  Kissing in the darkness. It started easily, just a kiss goodnight that lasted for an hour. Sneaking away during lunch hour to make out in his car at the far corner of the school parking lot.

  His hands didn't begin to wander until we'd been dating and making out for two weeks. I'd started to wonder, honestly. The idea of horny teenage boys was imprin
ted firmly in my head, strengthened by the stories I'd heard from girls at school. A phrase I heard all too frequently was "I wanted to, just not as soon as he did." I knew what that meant. Of course I did. But with Will, it was different.

  So I was more than ready for it when his palm touched my knee. We were in his car, as usual. Jazz played in the background, something quick and jaunty and almost aggressive in its frenetic energy. My body was buzzing, high on Will's lips, drunk with his proximity. He made me aware of myself. Aware of my body. Of my hands and my thighs and my breasts and my clothes and my own desires. I wanted him to touch me, just a little. That was it, just...a little exploration.

  So when his palm touched my knee, hesitated, and slid up my leg to my thigh, I didn't demur. My hands were on his shoulders, touching but not holding, embracing but not pulling. When his hand went up to my thigh, I let my fingers graze down his shirt to caress his chest, touching the muscles there. His lips parted and his tongue slid into my mouth, and I tasted it, felt it, was shocked pleasantly by it, by the heat of his hand on my thigh. I touched his tongue with mine, gasping at the tang of tongue touching tongue and the way my entire being buzzed and hummed.

  Now his hand was on my waist, and I waited, breathless, kissing him, to see what he'd do next. A fingertip under the hem of my Lumineers T-shirt, touching bare skin. Oh, my god. I couldn't breathe if I wanted to. My palms skated around his arms to his back and down the soft cotton, and now I was touching the heat of his skin as well, and together we explored flesh, upward, upward. I didn't dare even think of what was happening, of the fact that Will's hand was under my shirt and skirting across my ribcage, not even an inch beneath the underwire of my lacy red bra. Lacy red bra, that I'd put on for this date. Not because I thought he'd see it, but because some part of me I didn't dare examine too closely wanted him to.

  We paused for breath, foreheads touching, exploration halted.

  "Ever..." Will breathed, "is this okay?"

  I nodded. "Yes."

  "Are you sure?"

  I kissed him to cover the fact that I wasn't quite sure, not entirely. A thought skittered in the back of my head that maybe this was all happening too fast, but I knew, from the girls at school, that for most of them two weeks was an eternity to wait, that for many of them, I was being strangely careful. That being a virgin at sixteen put me in the minority of the girls I knew. That I was just now getting to this point, to second base, as I supposed the boys thought of it, was unusual.

  But I didn't want to think of that. I just wanted to kiss Will and let him touch me and feel his skin under my hands. It felt nice. I felt wanted. I felt liked. I felt like someone other than Ever Eliot. I wasn't drawing or painting or taking photos or going to class. I was with a boy.

  An image of strong, sure hands and dark serious eyes flashed through my mind: Cade's hands, Cade's eyes.

  I blinked, and met Will's eyes, blue eyes blazing with heat. Saw his hands on my waist, strong hands, yes, but clean, soft hands. Cade's had been roughened by work, callused.

  Why did that matter? It was Will's hands on me, not Cade's. And that was fine, right? Cade was my pen pal, Will was my boyfriend. End of discussion.

  I pushed the niggling wondering doubt from my mind and closed my eyes and touched my lips to Will's. Sparks flew, heat billowed. My skin tightened and my mind whirled and my stomach flipped. The kiss deepened, and Will's hands slid up my sides and skated across my ribs beneath my bra, tempting and tantalizing. My own fingers were dancing up his back and across his chest and over his shoulders, touching bare skin beneath his shirt. I couldn't breathe and didn't care. This was exciting, a daring adventure I flung myself into willingly. I arched my spine and sucked in a breath, swelling my breasts, and now Will's palms were brushing the round of my bra. I felt my nipple harden, felt his touch stutter and stop so the bottom edge of his palm rested on the hard nub, dragged back across. Lightning sizzled inside me, threatening to arc and bolt if only he touched more, touched skin.

  I almost made a noise of disappointment when he slid his palm away and up my chest to my shoulder, but oh, yes, okay, he was brushing the strap down, freeing the weight of my left breast, and now his fingers were tugging the edge of the cup away and our kiss was a fiery maelstrom of lips and tongues and I felt so adult, so alive, so energized by the knowledge of what we were doing that I couldn't contain it all.

  Now the other strap was sagging around my bicep and he was pushing the cups down and my boobs were free and his palms were slipping over skin and I was on fire, gasping into his mouth as his fingers touched a nipple and brought it to diamond hardness.

  My T-shirt was still loose and draping over his hands, shielding me from view, mine and his. What if I took my shirt off? I thought about it, and the notion made me dizzy. It would be a huge step. Letting him touch me was one thing, somehow, but intentionally taking my shirt off to show him my body was another.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I broke the kiss and stripped the shirt off. Will sucked in a deep, sharp breath as my pale flesh was bared to the moonlight streaming in through the sunroof of his car. He grinned at me and peeled his own shirt off, and now it was my turn to gasp at the sight of his rippling, sculpted abs, and the elastic band of his Calvin Klein underwear peeking out above his Hugo Boss jeans. I ran my hands over his chest, let my fingers trace the lines of his abs, and he just watched me touch him. And then his thumb dragged slowly across my nipple, sending a bolt of pure arousal through me.

  I arched my spine and tipped my head back, and his palm closed over my boob and lifted the weight, cupping it, gentle and knowledgeable. I knew he'd done this before, that much was clear in the way he touched me, especially when he reached behind me and unclasped my bra with one hand in a single, deft motion.

  He met my eyes as he brought the lace and silk away, and I held his gaze steadily, telling him silently that it was fine, even though my pulse was a wild tribal drumbeat in my chest and I wanted desperately to cover myself, but I didn't, because Will's gaze was frankly appreciative, taking in my skin and my breasts with greedy hunger.

  And then he rolled toward me, leaning over the console between us and kissing me, hovering over me so his chest brushed the tips of my boobs. With one hand he fumbled for the seat controls and leaned my seat backward so I was lying down and he was above me, and his fingers were tracing lines on my belly, stopping at the button of my jeans, and I knew what he was asking.

  "Not yet," I whispered. "Not that far, not yet."

  He kissed my neck. "Sure thing, Ever. Maybe I could just...touch you a little, though? I know ways to make you feel really good."

  I knew what he was referring to. I might have been a virgin, but I wasn't ignorant. I'd touched myself, of course. Discovered the various ways to make myself come, and I could imagine how good that would feel when someone else was doing it to me. But...that would be as good as admitting I was willing to have sex with Will. I knew that's where it was going, of course I did. I knew that's what he wanted. And a part of me wanted it, too. But there was also another part of me that wasn't sure. Both about whether I was ready at all, and whether Will was the right person to have my first time with.

  Will. I intentionally thought of him as Will, but in the back of my head, he was always Billy. In my private thoughts, he was Billy. And I'd written to Cade and referred to him as Billy. What was the significance? I didn't know, but there was a significance. I just wished I could figure out what it meant.

  All these thoughts raced through me, and all the while Will was kissing my shoulder and my throat and my clavicle and my breastbone and between my boobs, and I was frozen by the heat of his lips on my skin, and by the fact that now he was kissing the slope of my breast and closer, closer, and now I did gasp aloud, almost a moan, as his lips closed over my nipple and drew a bolt of lightning from me.

  My body betrayed me. My body refused to do anything except respond to Will's touch. My hand wouldn't stop him as he unbuttoned my jeans and drew down the z
ipper and slid his fingers under the elastic and found me waiting for him, hot and wet, and my voice wouldn't rise from my throat to tell him to stop because my body liked it, even though the doubts still raced through my brain and my heart was unsure where it was or what it wanted, but my body didn't care because my body was in control; or rather, my body was under the spell of Will's touch, and I was letting it happen.

  His fingers found the perfect place, and now my hips were bucking and I was moaning and he was doing something else to me between my legs with his hands, something I'd never done, and now everything inside me blew up, just detonated, and I couldn't help the noises coming from me.

  Will chuckled. "God, Ever, you're noisy, aren't you?"

  "S-sorry," I breathed.

  "No, it's cute. It's...hot."

  Now that adrenaline and arousal and post-orgasm chemicals were blasting through me and leaving me, something like shame hit me. I pushed his hand away and sat up, shaky fingers hunting for the control to bring the seat upright. Had I really just let Will finger me? Oh, god. Did that make me easy? Did he think I was going to be an easy conquest? What if he just wanted my cherry, and then he'd not want me anymore? Ellie Myers had had that happen to her. A hot, popular guy had acted all interested in her and dated her and lured her step by step into sex, kiss by kiss and touch by touch, and then after he finally got her to sleep with him, he'd dumped her, and she'd been devastated. She'd just wanted Brian to like her, because Brian was a basketball star and a senior with college prospects and hot as hell, and we all knew how it was going to end, because that was just how Brian Washington was and everyone knew it but Ellie.

  Was Billy that way? There weren't any rumors about him, not like with Brian. I'd never heard anybody at school talk about getting with him. He didn't have the reputation Brian did. Billy was mysterious, seeming uninterested in the popularity game, but he was all the more popular for all that, especially because he clearly came from big money and was hot and talented. But was he a player?