First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (125 page)

Corabelle wanted me back. Or she had. I’d told her about the vasectomy now. We were done with secrets. I shook off Jenny’s hands and we turned back to Corabelle. She was gone.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Oh my God,” Jenny said and pointed at the water.

Corabelle was heading out to sea.

Chapter 42: Corabelle

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tina said in the car yesterday, about that moment after she slashed her wrists and realized she might die.

Yes, this is the right thing. I can be with my baby and no one can take him away again.

When I stood up, I felt no hesitation whatsoever. I walked straight into the waves, shivering against the chill as the water covered my feet, soaking through my suede boots, and rising up beyond my shins, then my knees.

I stepped off a shelf, and now the water was at my waist. My coat soaked through and became heavier, pulling me down. I held my breath in my most familiar way, still walking, picturing Finn in his little isolette, the disks on his chest and the ventilator going into his mouth. An oscillator, I remembered suddenly. They’d put him on the oscillator at the end, when he had too many apnea episodes. That’s when he stopped moving around, medically paralyzed. Lost. When they decided not to operate. Because he couldn’t breathe.

I wouldn’t breathe either.

The water crossed my neck and I saw the familiar spots fill my vision. I thought I heard Gavin’s voice, but maybe it was Finn’s. Maybe where he was now, he could talk, no tube in his throat. He’d never cried. I’d never heard his voice. But he’d sound like his dad.

Gavin had taken away all our choices. No more babies. No more babies with me. Life without Gavin hadn’t worked. Life without Finn wasn’t worth it.

My lungs began to heave, but I was already under by then. I tried to relax into the darkness, like I had in the bathtub, but the water wasn’t warm, freezing cold instead, and the chill kept forcing me to gasp. I bobbed to the surface, and my body took a breath. Damn it. It wouldn’t work. I couldn’t do it.

I turned in the water, fighting against the coat. Jenny was on the shore, her mouth open, screaming. Gavin was nowhere, gone now, gone for good. I held my breath and exhaled, sinking below the surface of the water. Maybe it would work this time.

My boots touched bottom and I stood at the foot of the world, descending into hell, except everything was so cold. My lungs began to burn, throbbing with the need for air. I found another small bit to exhale, and relaxed into it. I began to curve in upon myself, drawing up my knees like a fetus, like Finn. I would get to see Finn.

The earth shifted around me, cradling my body in its watery embrace. I moved through the waves, one with the ocean, and now I felt no pain whatsoever.

Until a bright light seared through my eyelids. Air shocked my senses and I was brutally cold. “Help me get her out!” a voice said, and I realized it was Gavin. I tried to open my eyes, but they didn’t obey. My lungs hurt, pain beyond any measure I had known. My head clunked against something hard, and now my body heaved upward. Strong arms turned me on my side and I felt an eruption within me, the ocean spewing from my chest and out my mouth and nose.

“Call 911 just in case,” Gavin said.

“I already did.”

I began to recognize my various body parts, hair on my face, layered with sand. My cheek, gritty and half buried. My bare feet, painfully cold. My entire midsection quaked, heavy with the coat.

“She’s breathing now,” Gavin said.

I opened my eyes, but the light blasted through my head and I had to close them again.

“Corabelle?” Gavin’s voice made me think of some other time, some other memory. He was ten years old and his face was pressed against my window screen.

I crawled out of bed and walked over, my sleepiness dissolving at the distress I could hear.

“Corabelle?” he asked again.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Can I come in here?”

I glanced back at my open door and hurried across the room to close it. When I came back, he’d pried the screen off.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, but when his face turned, the moonlight revealed a red welt across his cheek. I laid my palm against it. “What did he do?”

“I deserved it. I forgot to close the garage. The dog got out and dug up Mom’s flowers.” He pressed his hand over mine. “I got away from him.”

“We should tell somebody,” I said. “He shouldn’t do that.”

“Just let me stay here,” he said. “He won’t come for me over here.”

I led him over to my bed and we sat down. “Did he hit your sister?”

Gavin shook his head. “He says it’s wrong to hit a girl.”

I gathered him in my arms and put my head on his shoulder. “I want you to live with me.”

“Me too,” he said.

“Promise me we’ll do that. Live together.”

He squeezed me. “We will. I promise.”

The sand had gotten in my teeth, making my mouth taste like dirt. I tried to spit it out.

“I think she’s okay,” Gavin said.

“EMS is coming,” Jenny said.

Something moved under my head, soft and warm. I tried opening my eyes again and this time they accepted the sun. I saw nothing but green. Jenny’s coat.

“Corabelle? Can you say something?” Jenny’s face was inches from mine, black mascara streaking down her cheeks.

“You look terrible,” I said.

She managed to laugh and cry at the same time. “You look worse.” She glanced behind me.

“Was it Gavin?” I asked.

She nodded.

I shifted onto my back. Gavin leaned over me, water dripping off his face. “You scared me there for a minute.”

“Just for a minute?”

He smiled, but his eyes were still full of fear. “If a minute lasts sixty-seven years.”

“I think I’m going to need some help,” I said. “Real help.”

He closed his hands over mine. “We’ll get it for you. We’ll figure this out.”

We
. He still said
we
.

Footsteps approached at a run. “Is this her?” a loud voice asked.

“She’s conscious now,” Gavin said.

“How long was she in?”

“A few minutes.”

Two men lifted me onto a stretcher, forcing me to let go of Gavin’s hand.

“Do you know her?” one of the medics asked.

Gavin looked down at me. “She’s the mother of my son.”

“Then you can come with us.”

One of the medics flashed a light in my eyes. “Can you tell us your name, miss?”

“Corabelle,” I said.

The medic nodded at the other, and suddenly I was moving. Jenny held her coat, rooted to the sand, growing smaller as we rushed down the beach. Gavin kept up.

We got to the ambulance, and the medics paused while one opened the door. Something fluttered next to my head, and I turned to it. A monarch butterfly fought against the wind, sailing forward, then getting pushed back again. The next gale sent it straight into Gavin’s chest.

Gavin stared down at the butterfly, flapping against his wet jacket.

“It’s Finn, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Has to be.”

The butterfly paused for another moment, showing off its black and orange wings, then flew back into the wind. The medics lifted me into the ambulance and started peeling off my coat. “Blankets behind you,” one said to Gavin. “You might want to get your coat off too.”

He took my temperature. “You’re very lucky. Not everybody who gets sucked into the Pacific wearing something like this comes back out breathing. People don’t realize how a coat can weigh you down. How did you end up in there?”

I glanced up at Gavin and decided not to answer. I could tell a social worker, or not. Take the doctor’s mental health clinic referral, or not. Those were decisions for another time. Gavin had said we’d figure it out. We’d saved each other time and time again. I had faith that whenever one of us needed rescue, the other would always be there.

THE END

~*´♥`*~

I wrote
Forever Innocent
as a standalone book, but readers asked if I would let Gavin and Corabelle’s story continue. So I have now released a conclusion to their story called
Forever Loved
. While more difficulties face them, I think the ending will feel more complete to those who want to see this pair work through their past.
 

The Forever Series then moves on to Tina’s story in
Forever Sheltered
.

Click to see all Deanna’s books
.

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EXCLUSIVE Bonus Content by Deanna

Early this year, I was asked to write for
One Page Love Story
. My submission was limited to very few words. I chose a scene that is only briefly mentioned in
Forever Innocent
— that life-changing few minutes when Corabelle and Gavin realize they will have a baby as teenagers.

In this bundle, I have expanded the scene so that it gets the love and attention such a moment deserves.

It is exclusive to this collection, and cannot be found anywhere else.

~*´`*~

Gavin

I’d never seen Corabelle quite like this, knees wide on the toilet seat, parts of her as exposed as she’d ever let them be. Shyness was long gone. Unnecessary. Secondary to the emotion at hand.

I knew a teen boy would be expected to think about the visual, the girl. But my eyes were fixed on the plastic stick and its clear window, a plus or minus that would change our future.

The spongy end bounced when her pee hit it. Corabelle frowned in concentration. The instructions said to hold it there for fifteen seconds. I counted steadily out loud, realizing for the first time that fifteen seconds might actually qualify for eternity.

When I fell silent, she handed the stick to me and I capped the yellow end. She got shy then, closing her legs, bracing her head on her hands. “How long do we have to wait?” she asked.

“Three minutes,” I said. “Then it has a result.”

“Turn around.”

I did as she asked without saying a thing about how it was kinda late now, until she flushed the toilet.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. Basic instructions seemed easiest. We had been grateful for the simple numbered steps in the pamphlet that came with the test. It kept our mind off the complicated part of figuring out how to handle what we were going through.

“Do you want me to look at it first, or you look first?” I asked her.

“We’ll look together.”

I moved to the sink and set the test far enough away that neither of us could steal a glance. Corabelle stared out the frosted blocks of glass in the window as though she could see through them and out into our future.

“Got my SAT results,” she said.

“Really? You didn’t say anything.”

She shrugged. “This test is probably more important.”

Nothing had ever been more important than her SAT before. But I understood what she meant. It was true.

“You’re on that birth control shot. I’m sure it’s nothing.” I’d said this a thousand times since she started feeling funny. We’d done research and knew she wouldn’t bleed like normal on the shot. You were supposed to just have faith that it was working.

We’d lost faith.

“It’s probably time.” She turned back to me, her dark hair falling around her shoulders. “I think I want you to look first.”

The three steps back to the test felt like a mile. I could see the plus sign before I got there, my stomach suddenly a lead balloon. I picked it up.

“Well?” she asked.

My throat had closed up. I just held it out to her. She stared at it another eternal fifteen seconds.

“We’re going to be fine,” I choked out. “We can do this.”

She took the stick and clutched it in her hand.

And just like this were any other hurdle — getting into college, passing a difficult exam, avoiding my father’s anger — she stood up straight and began her plan of action.

“Yes, we’ll stay close. Let our parents help. It’s easier to get scholarships at New Mexico State anyway. And cost of living is less than California.”

“I’ll work and just to go school part time,” I said. “I can finish behind you.”

“Mom will watch the baby,” she said. “She’ll probably love that.”

I pulled her in close. “We’re already figuring it out. It’s what we planned for someday. Someday is just happening now instead.”

She nodded against my shoulder.

I loved her. I would carry her. If a moment ago, I understood eternity, then right now I was seeing my very first glimpse of
forever
.

The
Forever
series continues with
Forever Loved
and
Forever Sheltered
.

Deanna is a passionate advocate for women who have miscarried. She founded the web site
www.pregnancyloss.info
in 1998 after the loss of her first baby and continues to run both online and in-person support groups for women who have endured this impossible loss. Find her on
Facebook
,
Twitter
, or
Goodreads
.

Learn more about the author at

www.deannaroy.com

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