Falling into Forever (Falling into You) Read online

  Chris is trying to hide the amusement on his face, but it’s unsuccessful. My mother gives a little harrumph as he nods again at her.

  “It’s a poorly made film, although you have a certain je nais se quoi, at least on the screen.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment, Mr. Jensen. The more recent tabloid stories focus on your most recently obtained role as James Ross, which I assume is the reason for your imminent Prague trip. There’s a string of flings with girls from Sampson Preparatory School, otherwise known as Sampson Prep, which you attended at different points during your high school years. You achieved middling grades, but excellent standardized test scores.”

  Chris shrugs.

  “My least favorite kind of student. Gifted, but lazy. A tragedy, really.”

  I would try to stop her, but she’s on a roll, and I know nothing that I could say could stop her now. It’s best to just let it run its course.

  “None of that tells me why you’re interested in my daughter. None of that tells me why my baby, who has always had a fiercely independent streak and once promised me that she would never change her priorities for a man, would lose her mind and decide to follow you to the ends of the earth.”

  She stares at Chris expectantly. He draws in a breath and looks at me for a second before speaking.

  “Mrs. Jensen, I wholeheartedly understand that you’re upset about the fact that Hallie will be taking a brief break from Greenview. However, coming with me to Prague won’t affect her studies at all. Study abroad programs look excellent on a resume, and before even asking her to come with me, I made sure that nothing would happen to her standing at school.”

  I stare at him in amazement. He hadn’t told me that. I had just jumped headfirst into being with him, assuming he had done the same. Instead, he had thought, planned, calculated. I should have realized it when registering for classes in Prague required nothing more than signing a few forms and transferring my scholarship, but I had just accepted it, without questioning. I want to throw my arms around him, but another surreptitious glance at my mother tells me that it would be a very bad idea, indeed.

  I see Chris take control, adjusting his vocabulary and the tone of his voice to match my mother’s. I’ve seen him do it before; when he talks to Marcus, there are more “fucks” and “shits” and his normally musical voice becomes brisker, more urgent. It amazes me every time, that adaptability. I don’t have it. Instead, I’ll always be bumbling Hallie, words coming out in spurts and gasps.

  He gives her a quick grin, the same one that charmed me, the one that will soon charm millions of preteen and teen girls and middle-aged women all over the planet. My mother, on the other hand, just continues to glower at him.

  “I apologize, Mrs. Caldwell. I’m actually just evading your question, which in its most elemental form, is why I felt the need to steal your daughter away from her life.”

  “Yes, it is. The circumlocution is a nice trick, though.”

  My mother smiles wryly. She’s trying her hardest not to like him. What she said about her least favorite students being brilliant but lazy? A total lie. Those with prodigious and undisciplined minds have always been her favorites, because they’re the ones who have the power to surprise her, for better or worse. The look on her face tells me that Chris had surprised her.

  “I love your daughter, ma’am.”

  Okay. Now, she’s really surprised. She opens her mouth to speak, but Chris is the one who keeps talking now.

  “I know it’s selfish.” He runs his fingers through his hair nervously, and I reach over to touch his hand. He takes in another breath before shooting me a grateful smile. “I know it is. But I’ve tried to arrange things so that she doesn’t have to make a once and for all choice between school and me. Your daughter is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, ma’am, but it’s more than that. I can’t live without her.”

  She’s not going to take that well. I glance at her, see the beginnings of an explosion, and brace myself for fireworks.

  Chris gives me an innocent shrug. “It’s true, flip flops. Can’t live without you.”

  “YOU ARE EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD! WHAT THE FU…”

  My elegant and always perfectly composed mother is neither elegant nor perfectly composed anymore. Uh oh.

  “I’m very happy that both of you think that you’re mature enough to accept the consequences for your actions, but you have no idea what it takes to make a relationship work, over years, over time, over sickness and health and turmoil and tragedy.”

  Those words are an echo of my father’s, the last pearls of wisdom that he imparted to me before he left us forever. She realizes it and her face colors as the realization hits her. Her argument, her intervention, has gone off the rails, but this isn’t how I wanted it to happen. I’m struck briefly by the memory of her catatonic state, the days of staring into nothing which came and went for years after my father died. I’m not looking to go back to that. I move quickly to nestle close to her on the couch, looking at the tiny lines around her eyes.

  “I don’t know what it takes to make a relationship work, Mom. But I need to find out, and I’m certainly not going to find out in a class about Marx or Confucius. Dad wouldn’t have wanted me to pass up a chance at anything, let alone this. Remember what he used to say? ‘Be an explorer, Hallie. Find the strength in yourself by taking risks with your heart.’ I haven’t been very good at taking risks, Mom. I’ve never been very good at that. But I’m taking one now. And he would be proud of me for trying it out, for being an explorer. That’s what he would have wanted.”

  She looks searchingly into my face. “Do you really that he would be proud of you right now, Hallie? Do you really think he would be proud of the fact that you’ve been sneaking around behind my back, that you’re making decisions without even so much as consulting me? Hiding things from me? Running away?”

  “He wouldn’t be proud of the way I’ve handled things. No. But people make mistakes. Even you, Mom. I’m going to make a million more mistakes. And some of the risks won’t pay off. But it’s better than being afraid, of not taking the leap, of being so scared of consequences that you never even try to make a move.”

  Chris moves into the corner of the room to give us space. She’s silent for a long time before she turns back to me. She shakes her head one last time before patting my hand.

  “Please tell me that you’ve registered for enough credits so that your graduation won’t be delayed.”

  It’s a minor victory.

  “I have.”

  “And what are these credits, if I may ask?”

  “I’m taking statistics, just like you wanted, an art history class in place of the one I was going to take this semester anyway, sociolinguistics, psychology, and French.”

  She nods. “The psychology class will be good for your psyche. It might help you to understand why risk-taking behavior is so prevalent among eighteen-year-olds.”

  It’s a little dig, but as she grabs my chin and looks into my eyes, I see fear, not censure, there.

  “I want daily phone calls. Daily. Do you understand what that means? You need to call me every day. Not once a week, or never. Every. Single. Day.”

  I grin. “You got it. Every day. Daily phone calls.”

  “I don’t approve of this little jaunt to Europe. I want you to hear me loudly and clearly—you’re making a life decision with serious ramifications, Hallie Viola Caldwell. And I think it’s a poor one. But only time will tell that. And thankfully, time is something that you have a lot of, baby.”

  She runs her fingers through her closely cropped blond hair to smooth it before turning to give Chris a malicious little smile.

  “Mr. Jensen, while doing my research, I saw that you took a course in anthropology at that fancy high school of yours. I have to admit, that field has always held a special interest for me. Mind regaling me with some of your knowledge over lunch?”

  He glances at me, and
I give him a very small nod.

  “I would be happy to, Mrs. Caldwell. We have about three hours before the car comes for us, and that should be enough time to tell you about some of the theories that I like best. And those that I don’t.”

  She smiles slightly and raises her eyebrows at me before turning back to Chris. Because I know exactly what’s coming, I groan inwardly and close my eyes.

  “You can call me Dr. Caldwell, Mr. Jensen. I think it might be a few millennia before we address each other in more familiar terms. Archaeology might have been a better field of study for you, now that I think about it. Now, Hallie, I’ve had far too much take-out since you went away to school. Go make yourself useful while Mr. Jensen and I have a little debate.”

  With a mock-sympathetic look at Chris, I exit the room, laughing a little bit to myself.

  After all, he was the one who insisted on meeting my mother. I know he was hoping for baby pictures, but my guess is that they aren’t coming out anytime soon.

  * * *

  7 Years Later

  New York

  I’ve made a lot of life decisions with serious ramifications. Willingly making the choice to fall back into the wreck of Chris and me is one that I won’t be able to take back.

  I never wanted him to see me like this. I never wanted anyone to see me like this.

  It’s no longer a matter of what I want.

  Just what I need.

  I fall into his arms, no longer able to resist seeing if the real-life version of him can compete with my memories.

  Chapter 6

  CHRIS

  Her fingers grip my neck, and she clings to me. No words seem right enough to actually put voice to, so I lift her into my arms and hope that it’s enough.

  I try to breathe in and out slowly, but she must feel the quickening of my chest. Then again, maybe not. She’s oblivious to the man who emerges from his room, the way that his eyes widen with a flicker of recognition as he looks at me. I reach into her bag, praying that she still keeps the key in its own compartment, a habit that was particularly useful when we had banged mindlessly into a hundred different hotel room doors years ago.

  I find it. In one smooth motion, I lift her limp body and carry her into the room, just as the nameless man starts to open his mouth. The door closes behind us, and I wrap her into me, allowing myself to breathe in her honey and mint and sunshine. I try to keep myself from wanting more, from doing more.

  She was running from something; that was made clear enough by the presence of the black bag slung over her shoulder. Whether she was running from me or from New York, I’m still not sure. I hadn’t surprised her when I had showed up at her door earlier, but this time, she had been shocked by my presence, and subsequently she was unable to cover the pain in her face.

  I couldn’t help myself from trying to provide some kind of comfort, regardless of the consequences. I had needed to touch her, and brushing her hair away had been the least intimate gesture I could find. It was the wrong choice. That one touch was laced with our history together, and she and I both knew it.

  Backed up against the wall, literally and metaphorically, she fell into my arms. I don’t know how or why that happened, and I really don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let her go again.

  I shift her slightly so that I can touch her hair and as I do, I feel her muscles tense against me. She pulls herself away, and even the partial separation hurts.

  Stop it, Jensen. Stop.

  Her expression is inscrutable, but I’m so dizzy from the blue of her eyes that I don’t even care to find out what secrets she’s hiding. Then, she closes her eyes once more and moves closer, touching my hair with deft fingers. Other girls, women, have done that over the years, and it’s always made me cringe. That gesture has always belonged to her.

  I lean back and lose myself in the feel of her skin.

  I don’t know what she wants or needs. I don’t know what it’s going to cost me.

  And I really don’t give a shit.

  I force my hands to lie at my sides as she gently touches my face. Leaning into me, she draws my lips dangerously close to hers.

  “I want…” She stops mid-sentence before pleading with me, in a whisper, “I want to be the old Hallie. Just for a little while. Do you think you help me with that, Chris? Or is it too much to ask?”

  I want to scream at her, “Of course it’s too much to ask.” But I don’t. Of course, I want nothing more than for it to be possible to be the old Hallie and the old Chris, to move backwards in time. I’ve thought about it often enough. But we both know it’s not possible, and I open my mouth to tell her that and she hears my words before any sound escapes my lips.

  She’s withdrawing back into herself, and I touch her check gently. As she gives me a wistful smile, I realize that she’s not asking for time travel. She needs to get outside of her own skin. I know that feeling well enough, although I tried to conquer my own demons with alcohol and not with flesh. I don’t tell her the lesson I learned—turning away from yourself won’t work, not in the long term, but it sure feels good in the moment.

  She slides herself closer to me. I want to crush my body and soul into hers, but I manage to hesitate for long enough to give her another moment to think about it.

  She must know me well enough to see the answer, because she touches her lips to mine gently.

  Fuck it.

  I crush her mouth under mine, putting five years of loss and anguish into kissing her slightly parted lips. I slide the tip of my tongue into her mouth and she kisses me back, softly at first and then with real hunger, devouring me until I feel like I’m going to fall apart right there and then.

  She arches her back and curves her body into mine and I meet her there, letting my fingers graze the outline of her face. It’s an old rhythm, a familiar one, but the fragility of her slim body feels alien to my touch. She moans slightly and runs her fingertips across my palm, and I shudder at even that slight contact. I revel in the sweetness of her smell as she lets her fingers entwine with my hair, curling it under her fingers until I moan and manage to push back from her slightly.

  Everything that I’ve ever wanted is right in front of me. And it feels all wrong. I start to open my mouth to tell her that I can’t have her like this, that this is only going to hurt her and me, that I can’t bear to be the cause of any more pain in her life, but she silences me with the brush of her fingers across my lips.

  Her eyes hold a thousand memories, so many that I need to look away.

  “I need this. I need you. Please. Just take it away. Take it all away.” She pauses and her lips twist into a sad smile. “Christopher.”

  That’s it. Reason and caution and pain be damned, I lift her in one smooth motion and clasp her close to my body. She’s impossibly light, and her long, strong legs wrap around my waist with a certainty that takes me by surprise. We stand, locked together, kissing and touching and letting the months and years between us disappear.

  When she yanks at my clothes, she tears the bottom of my shirt and looks up at me guiltily. I rip it all the way off, putting my finger over her lips and smiling gently. The irrepressible need to be joined, to be inside her skin, takes over. She lifts her shirt over her head and unclasps her bra and before I even have the chance to drink her in, she pushes her warm body next to mine. Her skin has retained something of its lushness, despite the fact that she’s far too thin, and as our limbs tangle together, none of that matters.

  I had forgotten what it meant to be with someone, body and soul and spirit. Lust is different from love. However I managed to convince myself that they were one and the same, I’ll never know. I won’t make that mistake again. Not after this.

  Her skin turns fiery under my mouth, and unable to wait any longer, I grab her and push her beneath me. I can’t give myself time to decide that this is an extremely bad idea.

  Her mouth is working overtime, devouring my skin with kisses, but she’s not looking at me. I need to see her face. I n
eed to feel her eyes looking into mine. I drag my mouth to hers again and brush against her soft lips, gripping her shoulders.

  “Look at me, Hallie.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  With that, I slide into her. As I do, I take her chin in my hand and force her to see me staring down at her. Her eyes are endless, down and down and down. There’s shock there and thick desire, and a wisdom that belies her childlike wonder and tousled hair. I haven’t seen her, not like this, in six years. She’s a thousand times more beautiful than she was at eighteen. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  I’m shaking and I try to cover that small display of weakness, but she sees it anyway. She’s always seen everything.

  I’m trying to keep myself from making any sound, but it’s impossible, because I had forgotten what it was like between us. I don’t even know if it was ever like this. The years have made me hungry for her in a way that I never knew existed. I’m desperately trying to keep myself in check, but she’s moving her hips against mine in a pulsing rhythm, begging me to move faster.

  Her hair, still tied neatly in a knot on the back of her head, taunts me. I run my fingers through the masses of brown and red and gold waves, and it tumbles down around her face, making smooth waves onto the pillow beneath her. She reaches her hand up to brush it away, but I clasp it and hold it down.

  “It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  She tosses her head and smiles, once, a real, genuine smile that holds a hidden sea of emotion.

  I love her. I will always love her. The knowledge of it, and her warm body in my arms, makes me feel alive and heartbreakingly human.

  I move again, within in, and she lets out a little moan, and I can feel her body tensing beneath mine as the first waves of the orgasm begin to hit her. My body is on fire, and I can’t resist it for much longer. When her fingers dance across my face as she begins to contort herself, I feel myself slipping under, losing myself to this particular kind of madness. I’m so far gone and outside of myself that I barely realize it when we burst into flames.