Here Without You

The hands that he thought were cold moments ago flash like ice and then go numb. I can’t feel anything. And then, suddenly, I feel everything. Waves of chills run from the back of my neck to my toes, millions of tiny pinpricks like sharp, agonizing barbs. As though some outside source grips my throat, my airway narrows and expands, over and over, and with it, my vision.

‘I told you about … everything that happened to me – with Colin,’ I gasp. ‘And you never said – you never told me –’

‘Dori, I didn’t – I didn’t know. I thought Brooke had cheated on me. I swear, I didn’t think he was mine. We were both so young and stupid and stubborn – we didn’t talk like you and I talk –’

‘Like you and I talk? Like when you told me you had a child with someone?’

He drops his head in his hands. ‘I didn’t think he was mine, and I had nothing to do with her decision.’

‘So you left her to make that choice – alone? And now you get a second chance at doing the right thing because she made a different choice than I made?’ I shift away from him, but he reaches out and grabs my wrists.

‘Goddammit, Dori – no. It’s not like that –’

‘You said you’re both adopting him. So you’re … you’re getting back together?’

‘No. No. Jesus. This isn’t about me and Brooke – it’s only about River.’

His child has a name. Of course he does. ‘River?’

‘He’s four and a half. I have a picture –’ He lets go of me, stands to grab his phone from the table and clicks through it. When he offers it, I reach to take it, thinking, I don’t know him.

But I see him in his child’s face. And if anyone needs saving, it’s this little boy. His sadness is unmistakable, mirroring so many small faces from East LA to Quito – children shouldering the weight of the world. A world they didn’t create, or ask to be abandoned to.

‘Dad is telling Mom this weekend. He’s talking with contacts in LA County Family Court tomorrow, and we’re going to Austin on Tuesday to speak with Brooke’s attorney, and possibly the caseworker and judge. Last, but not least – I’m not sure when this is going to break publicly, but once it does, it’ll be a circus.’ He takes the phone from my hand and tips my chin, looks into my eyes. ‘Dori, say something.’

The brusque rap on the door startles us both.

He sighs. ‘That’s breakfast, I guess.’

While he rises to let the attendant in, I stare out of the window at the boats in the bay. From this distance, they look like models, or radio-powered toys. I imagine the holders of the remote controls are bored demi-gods occupying rooms like this on the top floors of tall buildings.

I feel his eyes sweep over me, neither of us speaking while our breakfast table is set up.

He is not the self-centred, arrogant boy who showed up at Habitat last summer, calling me a hypocrite for dismissing him and then proving to me that he was worth saving. Not the boy who urged me to be reckless with him last fall, because he was safe. Not the boy who showed up on the other side of my parents’ screen door weeks ago, telling me he was all in before carrying me up the stairs and making love to me in my childhood bed.

This is Reid Alexander – the stuff of fantasy for ordinary girls. And in a few hours, this fantasy will be over. I’ll return to my life, and he’ll return to his.

20

REID

Dori is as quiet on the drive back to the dorm as she was on the drive into the city two nights ago. I slide into a rare open parking spot and offer to walk her in, but she has that exam to study for, and if I get out of this car, there’s the possibility I’ll be recognized – and she clearly doesn’t need to deal with that right now.

We angle over the centre console to kiss goodbye until I murmur, ‘Screw this,’ slide my seat back as far as it will go and pull her into my lap. ‘Mmm. Better.’ Pushing my hand into her hair, I draw her mouth to mine and kiss her deeply, every slide of my tongue against hers, every shared caress a declaration of all she means to me.

Inhaling shakily, she rests her head against my shoulder. ‘You didn’t exactly encourage a lot of study time this weekend, you know.’ Her hand lies over my heart.

‘Well, I got plenty of study time. I’m pretty sure I could pick you out of a line-up of only belly buttons or kneecaps or pinkie toes now … let alone the parts I committed to memory ages ago. For instance – I could have identified you by those delicious lips two days after meeting you.’

She blinks up at me and tilts her head back on my arm. ‘But you didn’t kiss me until, you know, the pink closet.’

I fix her with a suggestive look. ‘I remember – but those lips were one of the first things I noticed about you. I couldn’t stop thinking about them, on or off site. I kissed you a hundred times in my imagination, and once I’d actually kissed you, all I could think about was doing it again.’ I run the pad of my thumb across her plump lower lip, recalling all the wretched time I spent trying to move on, trying to forget her. It had taken no more than two seconds of seeing her face again to realize that I hadn’t forgotten a damned thing.

I wish I could read her mind. She’s a pensive, deep-thinking girl, and it’s not unusual for her to stare into space, lost in her thoughts. Normally, I’m fascinated when she does this – the shifting emotions crossing her face, marked by faint smiles, frowns or grimaces. That’s not how I feel now, when I can’t escape the uneasy awareness that her contemplations concern me.