For Ever (31 page)

“Wait, hold on. What’s a
long stretch
for you?”

He leans down and kisses me lightly on the
forehead. Feeling my skin glow with warmth, I am obscenely and
absurdly disappointed that one little peck on the forehead is all I
get. A few weeks ago, just being this close to him would have been
out of bounds of reality. Now … I feel like an addict.

Scrambling to my knees, I lean forward and
brush his golden hair away from his eyes. Carefully I place a hand
on the side of his face and look into his eyes. On a whim, I open
my mind, but as soon as the impulse registers in my thoughts,
Ever’s hand grabs mine, not roughly, but quickly and firmly enough
that I squeak in surprise. His eyes have turned to emerald
glass.

“Don’t,” he says.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“I could hurt you,” he says quietly.

His expression is beseeching, and I nod.

“I understand.”

It’s difficult to feel rejected by this, even
for me. First, because I shouldn’t be able to fish around in
people’s heads at all. And second, because Ever hasn’t let go of my
hand. The heat of his skin is spreading quickly through my
bloodstream. For me, having gone through my entire life feeling a
little cold, the heat is mesmerizing, just like being around Ever.
Not to mention that no one has made me feel as
heard
—all
right, maybe a little too much—as Ever has. There are plenty of
other feelings, too, new and a little out of control, that I’m
still having trouble keeping a lid on.

“It is a very good thing you cannot hear what
I’m thinking,” he says with a small smile.

I would fire back with a clever response, but
my nerves are worn out. Ever smiles again. Then, just like that, my
desk lamp is off, and he’s gone. A second later I hear the sound of
footsteps coming down the hall. The bathroom door closes, and I
fall back into bed and pull up the covers. When my door creaks open
a minute later, I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. The door
closes softly after her, and I listen as my mom walks back to her
room.

Drifting off, I remember that I won’t see
Ever tomorrow, and suddenly one day seems very long.

***

The drive to the coast with my friends takes
about an hour and a half—the same distance took Ever half the time.
Now that we’re at the beach, I’m thankful for two things, one of
them a bare necessity and the other a selfish comfort. With no
shelter from the wind, the necessity is my jacket. The selfish bit
of comfort is that Zach couldn’t come to the coast with us. This
means that he and Lindsay aren’t attached at the hip, and I’m not
the only single person. For the moment, though, the couples-and-me
dilemma doesn’t seem to matter much, since Ashley, Lindsay, Taylor,
and I are lined up on an enormous piece of driftwood talking and
watching Josh and Marcus obsessing over a pair of remote control
dune buggies.

Cannon Beach is impressive, thanks in large
part to the distant monolith sticking straight out of the water.
Haystack Rock, the famous giant rising out of the Pacific, really
does resemble a pile of hay. We’re sitting on the broad strip of
sand that lies between the dunes and the ocean, and from here the
water appears deceptively calm without any cliffs to slam
against.

Marcus and Josh’s joint preoccupation has
given Ashley plenty of opportunity to give us a blow-by-blow of her
date last night. Apart from an uncomfortable encounter with her dad
before they left, she seems pretty happy about the way things went.
I’m happy for her. When the guys rejoin us, looking sandy and
exhausted, I get up and stretch, trying to get my blood moving. I
ask if Lindsay wants to take a walk, and she nods. We walk to the
water, which rolls toward us leisurely. At low tide, it’s not even
ankle-deep, but I don’t want to test how cold it might be. And
farther out, the swirling waves are tumultuous enough to earn my
respect.

“You’ve seen it before, right?” Lindsay asks
me, nodding toward Haystack.

I laugh. “Yeah, on the Internet before we
came out here.”

“It’s in every picture of Oregon. Movies,
too.”

“Like Oregon’s version of the Hollywood
Sign.”

She laughs. “I guess. You really never went
to Hollywood in all the time you lived in L.A.?”

“I went on the Universal Studios tour when I
was a kid, if that counts. But I didn’t hang out at Hollywood and
Vine or anything. Actually, I never felt like a real L.A. person.”
I pause and strike a pose. “Do I look like one?”

Lindsay laughs again and shakes her head. “Do
I look like a Portland person?”

“Oh, definitely.”

We both crack up and start walking again.

“So, you and Ever, huh?”

“Pretty weird?”

“The smokin’ hot guy who didn’t talk for
three months? Um, yeah. Weird. How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know. Random luck?”

Lindsay gives me a look of disbelief. My
answer sounded stupid, even to me. But it’s the best I could come
up with. It’s like I won the lottery without buying a ticket, and
then kept the money rather than giving it to charity. I wonder if
this is the common thread that binds lottery winners and those who
don’t get on a plane that crashes. Luck, good or bad, sets you
apart for something that really has nothing to do with who you
are.

The others are ready for lunch by the time we
get back. Piling into two cars, we drive a short way before turning
off at a sign for Ecola State Park. While Josh and Marcus check out
the barbecuing situation, we set up a picnic table. Lindsay’s phone
chirps, and she whoops.

“Yes! Zach got off work early. He’s gonna be
here in a few minutes!”

And very soon I will be the only single
person. Again. But when Zach arrives, he isn’t alone. Matt, the guy
from Art who says
dude
a lot, is standing there awkwardly as
Lindsay takes a running leap into Zach, who nearly loses his
balance. It doesn’t occur to me until Matt and I end up sitting
across from each other at the table that his presence is not a
mistake. I look over at Josh.

At least he’s not a head case like Space
Boy.

I blink. I didn’t mean to listen in on Josh’s
thoughts, but is that what everyone’s thinking—that Matt is a
better option for me? I look over at Ashley. She shrugs, and I feel
renewed irritation. They could have warned me.

“So, uh, Wren … how do you like Oregon so
far?” Matt asks.

I turn back to him and smile. After all, it’s
not his fault. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s just Josh who’s hoping
that I would move on to someone he deems
normal
, which just
makes me angrier, because
I
’ve never felt normal.

“I really like it here. I can’t wait to find
a car and get to know the city better.”

“You don’t miss L.A.?”

“Not really.”

He frowns.

“Wasn’t there more to do? If I get in, I’m
totally going to go to college down there.”

I shrug. I lived there all my life, but I
never felt like I truly belonged in Southern California. Maybe in
some people’s eyes it makes me strange that I don’t miss it, like I
don’t have the common sense to miss something awesome.

“Did you grow up here?” I ask Matt.

He looks down for a second and then smiles
sheepishly.

“Oregon, not Portland, though. It’s a really
small town. You sort of passed by it on your way out here. It’s off
of twenty-six. We moved closer to Portland freshman year.”

I’m never going back. That place was
hell.

Judging by the scenery during our drive to
Cannon Beach, I figure wherever Matt comes from is pretty small.
And, wow. He sure hated it. I study him. Matt has a slight build
and is only a few inches taller than I am. The skinny jeans he’s
wearing make him look even thinner. His shaggy dark hair is parted
and combed down on each side. When he smiles, his front teeth
remind me a little of a chipmunk’s. He’s staring intently at me.
He’s curious about me, which makes me curious about him. I sift
through his thoughts. Right now he’s trying to decide what made
Ever show an interest in me. When I catch a blurry image of Ever in
Matt’s mind, I suddenly understand. Matt isn’t jealous of Ever; he
had a crush on him. Were people in his hometown that closed-minded?
Studying Matt again, I wonder: when it comes to people like us, who
feel they have to hide who they are, do our differences bind us
together? Would Matt accept me if he knew I could read his
thoughts? Would my friends accept Matt if they knew who he really
was? What about me? Ever?

I’ll probably never know for sure, but I hope
so.

Looking out my window into the darkness, I
blow out a breath. I hate Sundays. I always have. To me, they mark
the end of a good thing. The end of freedom. Sure, tomorrow morning
I’ll see my friends—and Ever—but I’ll also lose the quiet, too. The
truth is that sometimes the silence makes me crazy; other times I
crave it like air. And after spending an uninterrupted day with my
friends and their thoughts, I suddenly see Ever’s capacity to block
his thoughts from me in a new light. The silence is more than a
relief. It’s essential. I hadn’t thought it through before, but how
impossible would it have been to be with someone romantically only
to spend all my energy filtering out every thought and judgment
that he had about me? Eventually, something I wouldn’t be able to
deal with would slip through. I promise myself that I will enjoy
Ever’s silence from now on.

When my alarm goes off in the morning, I try
not to get overly excited, but I can’t help rushing to the window.
The sight of Ever’s car at the curb sends my pulse into overdrive,
and it takes all my willpower not to skip breakfast before bolting
out the front door. In the dim light, I trip over the free
newspaper that lands on our front steps twice a week. Before I can
crack my knee on the pavement, a hand grips my elbow.

“In a hurry?” Ever smiles.

I look up at him.

“Does it make me weird that I missed you so
much after only one day?” I ask.

“I’m not one to offer an unbiased opinion. I
enjoy your company far too much.” He’s still smiling as we walk to
his car. “I suppose love does lead to irrational behavior,” he adds
thoughtfully.

I sit down and fasten my seatbelt, turning in
my seat when he appears.

“Is that why you said it was easier to feel
nothing?” I shake my head. “I still don’t understand how that’s
even possible.”

His brow furrows.

“It does become increasingly difficult the
more interaction we have not to become susceptible to human
tendencies.”

“Does that mean it was just a matter of time
before you … found someone?”

I bite my lip and look down. I know my
jealousy is silly, because maybe that’s all anything is—timing and
random luck. But there’s also the part of me that I keep buried,
the part that still believes in the fairy tale. Destiny, the
happily ever after that literary scholars seem to hate so much. The
car stops on a side street not far from school.

“Wren?” I look over at Ever. “When you have
as much time as I’ve had, certain things become worthless. Others
become invaluable. I could have gone on forever, unaware that I had
been missing something from my existence. Instead, I found you.
Don’t underestimate what that means to me.”

I swallow.

“You know I love you, right?” I whisper.

Ever reaches out and touches my cheek.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“Good.”

He pulls away from the curb, and I can’t help
laughing.

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that
we keep having these conversations in your car?”

He gives me a sidelong glance.

“Would you accompany me on a date, then?” he
asks, adding quickly, “I have only one condition.”

I’m about to laugh again; then I frown at
him.

“You have a
condition
for asking me on
a date?”

“Just one.”

Ever smiles as he pulls into a parking space
at the far end of the student parking lot. I look out the window.
For the first time I notice people gawking at Ever’s car. But how
often is there a Maserati sitting in a high school parking lot? A
girl at Pali came to school once in her father’s Bentley, but even
in the Pacific Palisades, that was a rarity.

“Okay, the suspense is killing me,” I snap.
“What is your
condition
?”

“I would like you to come to the house.”

This is the last thing I expected him to say.
When he opens my door, I’m still gulping for air. As we walk toward
the school entrance, I slowly recover my voice—and my sense of
self-preservation.

“We don’t really need to go on a date.”

“You’re losing your nerve now?” Ever
teases.

“Um, you did notice that Chasen despises me,
right?”

Not to mention that I don’t think Audra liked
me much, either. I don’t relish the thought of spending time with
people who hate me.

“Chasen may not care for my choices,” Ever
says carefully, “but I don’t believe he hates you. It would be
foolish of him to hate someone I love. We have a long time to spend
together.”

I feel my mental wall go up without me even
having to think about it. Then I realize it was my pain, fierce and
sudden, that drew it up. For weeks now, an awareness of my own
limited lifespan has been circling in my head; it just hadn’t
become fully formed until this moment. Ever looks down at me, his
expression curious. I smile as inevitability crashes down on
me.

My body will eventually grow old, and some
day my conscious mind will cease to exist.
I
will cease
being. Mortality has always been a topic I’ve tried very hard to
avoid thinking about. The thought of not existing—not thinking, not
feeling anything—frightens me maybe more than most people, in part
because I’ve never had an ironclad belief in something beyond this
world. Deep down I can’t see that I’ll ever make my peace with
death. And I think it’s even less likely now that I have
immortality staring me in the face every day: Ever.