Stolen Wishes (9 page)

Before long, his hands are tangled in my
hair and his moans of pleasure fill my ears, and I’m saying a
silent prayer of thanks to all those
Cosmo
articles.

***

William

She’s crying. I’m not sure what I did wrong,
but it must have been terrible because one second she was snuggling
with me on the couch after giving me the most precious gift in the
world, and the next her body was shaking and her tears were wetting
my bare chest.

“Sweetie.” I tuck her hair behind her ear
and dry her wet cheeks with my thumb. “What’s wrong?” Jesus. Is
this about what she just did? Does she think that makes her like
her mom? Should I have stopped her? “Talk to me.”

She draws in a shaky breath, rolls off me,
and walks across the room to look out the window. I follow her, my
stomach churning and sour. I’ve never seen her this upset.

“I knew this couldn’t last, but everything
was going so well. Now she’s ruining it all.”

Her words terrify me.
I knew this
couldn’t last
. “You’re not making sense. What couldn’t last?” I
already know she’s talking about us, but I don’t want to admit it
to myself. I can’t let myself belief she’s ending this. Not
now.

She presses her palm against the glass.
“We’re moving.”

Those were the last words I expected to
hear, and at first they don’t even make sense to me. “What?”

“To Las Vegas. We’re moving to Las
Vegas.”

I feel like the earth has just been yanked
out from under my feet, but I make myself take a deep breath.
Turning her around, I look into her eyes. “Start from the
beginning.”

“Mom and Dad are getting a divorce, and
Mom’s taking us to Vegas to live with this guy she met online.” Her
voice shakes and her eyes brim with tears.

I slide her hand into mine, interlocking our
fingers and squeezing. “Can you stay with your dad?”

She shakes her head, and a tear spills onto
her cheek. “He’s going on some spiritual journey in Asia. He’s
already left.”

“You can stay with me,” I blurt. God, my
grandmother would pitch a fit, but I ask for so little, and we
could make it work. Somehow.

Cally shakes her head. Another tear escapes.
“My sisters. You know my sisters need me. Mom’s cleaning up, but
what if that doesn’t last? What if…” She squeezes her eyes shut and
her chest shakes with her tears.

I gather her against my chest and smooth her
hair. “Shh,” I whisper. “Shh.”

I guide her back to the couch, where I pull
her into my lap and hold her.

I keep my thoughts to myself and let her
cry. She needs this as much as I need to hold her, to feel her in
my arms while I still can.

My brain is scrambling to come up with
reassurances, plans for how we’re going to make this work—because
there’s no alternative. We
are
going to make this work.
Anything else would be like rejecting a piece of me. She’s my
heart, my breath.

We’re connected. Tied together by something
bigger than ourselves. Like the moon brings the tide back to the
shore, the stars will always bring me back to Cally.

William

Her room is empty. Her walls are bare, the
posters and knick-knacks taken down and packed into the boxes now
filling the moving truck parked in her driveway. Her dresser and
bed are gone, and her chair and reading lamp with them.

All that remains is a makeshift sleeping
spot on the floor, a small pile with tomorrow’s clothes, and a tiny
toiletry bag.

The sight tears me right in two, but I don’t
let on how much I’m hurting. I can’t. I’ve done everything to make
the most of our last weeks together, and tonight will be no
different.

“You should get home,” she says. “Get some
sleep.”

We’ve been sitting here most of the night,
cuddled into the corner of her room listening to NIN on my iPod. I
don’t intend on going anywhere without her tonight, and I certainly
don’t intend on sleeping.

Her mom announced they’ll be leaving at
sunrise, and I won’t miss a second with her.

I stand. “Come with me.”

She takes my hand and follows me out the
front door. I can’t take another moment sitting in that house,
watching her eyes scan the bare walls, the empty closet, the spot
where the bed used to be. Besides, I have a surprise waiting for
her.

Hand in hand, we walk to town and behind the
old factory and onto the dock. I have everything set up for us
here. We’ve made a habit of this since our anniversary. Blankets,
candles, strawberry wine. From the moment she told me she was
moving, I knew this is how I wanted us to spend our last night
together.

She gasps when she sees it, her steps
slowing. “You didn’t have to do anything like this.”

Thunder rolls overhead. The whole weekend
has been gray and gloomy, only threatening rain. I say a silent
prayer that the downpour that’s sure to come will hold off until
morning. I planned for stars. That’s all I wanted for her. For
us.

I light the candles and open the wine. The
crystal goblets I snagged from my grandmother’s hutch glint in the
candlelight.

Cally shivers and lowers herself onto the
blanket across from me. She avoids my gaze as she sips the wine,
and I know she’s trying not to cry.

“I have something for you,” I say softly. I
grab my backpack from where I’d stowed it by the edge of the
building and pull out a small red box wrapped in white ribbons.

She takes it carefully. “You shouldn’t
have.”

“Just open it.”

She pulls at the ribbons with shaking hands
and takes off the lid. I hear the catch in her breath when she sees
what’s inside. “But I won’t be here,” she whispers.

“Yes, you will,” I promise. “One way or
another, I’m going to get you here. I don’t want to go to prom with
anyone else, Cally. I want to go with you. Tell me you’re on board
with that. Tell me I can look forward to dancing with you in my
arms.”

Her face softens and her shoulders sag as
she drops her gaze back to the prom tickets in the box. “Of course.
We’ll make it work,” she whispers. And relief rushes through me
like fresh air because I know she’s talking about more than
prom.

***

Cally

The night sky is dark with thick rain
clouds, blocking the clouds and clogging up my throat as I try to
prepare myself to say goodbye. “I can’t see the stars.”

He turns my face to his. The candlelight
flickers in the wind and casts shadows across his gorgeous face.
I’ve been living a dream with William. Over a year of a life I
never thought I’d get to live, receiving love I didn’t realize
existed.

He presses his lips just below my ear and
trails kisses down my face. I melt a little, my defenses falling
when I need them most. “We don’t need them tonight.”

I wish he were right, but I feel like a wish
and a dream is all we have. How many high school sweethearts stay
together? A few, maybe. But how many high school sweethearts
weather the storm of a long-distance relationship and stay
together? Maybe in movies. But this is real, and William deserves
more than some long-distance girlfriend.

“She’s being so selfish, taking us away from
our life here. Taking me away from you.” I sound petulant even to
my own ears, but it’s as if I believe giving voice to my
frustrations will fix them. Not true.

William’s eyes narrow. “Don’t give up on
us.” He smoothes my cheek with his thumb. “She can make you move,
but she can’t take you away from me. You’re mine. In New Hope, in
Nevada, in Timbuktu, you’ll always be mine.”

He rolls over so he’s hovering over me, his
body on mine, his hips pressed to my hips, and he traces the lines
of my face with his fingertips. My jaw, my cheeks, my lips. Despite
all his bravado, he knows this is goodbye.

I pull him down to me, press my lips to the
side of his neck, his jaw. “Can we really survive a long-distance
relationship?” I hate how much I need his reassurances, but I want
to hear them. Because even if he’s wrong, his belief in us is the
only thing that’s getting me though this.

“It’ll only be long-distance when we’re
apart. You’ll be back for prom. We’ll see each other this
summer.”

“Prom.” The prom his grandmother wanted him
to attend with some rich friend’s daughter. Instead, he’s holding
out for me. How selfish have I been? He should be with someone
better, someone
here
.

He slides his hand into my shirt and brushes
my breast with his thumb. The single touch sends shivers of
pleasure through me that gather in a needy knot of impatience
between my legs.

“Prom,” he repeats. “Just like we planned.
Then when school starts, you can visit me at the dorms.”

And always be scraping for money to buy my
next plane ticket or, worse, letting him pay my way time after
time. “You deserve better.” But as I say it, I part my legs,
wanting to feel him there where I ache. He brings up his knee until
his thigh is firmly pressed between mine, and I moan against that
delicious pressure.

“There’s nothing better than you.”

I blink back tears. “I don’t want to wait
for prom night,” I murmur. Because I know now what I need to do.
What I need to give him. “I’m ready now.”

His nostrils flare and his eyes darken. “Are
you sure?”

I wiggle under him and wrap my legs around
his waist. I feel him pressing into me. I have to do this. I should
have done it a long time ago.

A tear slips from my eye and rolls down my
cheek, and he freezes. “Not tonight. Not while you’re so sad.”

I feel like I’ve already lost him. “So this
is what goodbye feels like.”

“No,” he growls, and his fingers tighten
their hold at my sides.

“We have to say goodbye. I leave in a few
hours.”

With his thumb against my cheek, he wipes
away my tears. “We aren’t going to say goodbye because this isn’t
the end of us. It’s only the beginning.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I just lie there
while he kisses away my tears. “If we don’t say goodbye,” I
whisper, “then what do we say?”

“Look at me.” His voice is firm and strong,
but his eyes are soft when I look into them. “This isn’t
goodbye.”

“We can’t pretend that everything is going
to be the same.”

“Hello, Cally.”

“William—” The intensity of his love breaks
my heart. Because even if he can’t see it, I know what’s coming.
I’ll be in Las Vegas and he’ll be here. It will be fine at first,
but then his grandmother and his friends will pressure him to spend
more time out. Eventually he’ll meet someone, because that’s what
happens to amazing people. They fall in love with other amazing
people.

“It doesn’t need to be the same,” he says.
“I love you, and I’m telling you hello. Hello, Cally.”

The candlelight catches on a tear on his
cheek, making it glisten for a fraction of a second before it falls
away. Maybe I’m not the only one who understands what we’re up
against.

Wrapping my arms around him, I pull him to
me and he buries his face in my neck, his breath hot and a little
shaky. And because I can’t bear his sadness, I whisper,
“Hello.”

THE END

This is the end of Cally and William’s prequel, but it’s not the
end of them. Follow them when they’re reunited seven years later
in
Wish I May.
You’ll find the opening chapter on the
following pages.

CHAPTER ONE

Cally

“In one hundred feet, turn left onto Dreyer
Avenue,” my GPS instructs.

I inch forward, peering out my windshield
and scanning the manicured lawn to the left for any sign of a road
where there is nothing but grass.

“Recalculating,” the computerized voice
tells me. Her tone suggests frustration with my inability to follow
simple instructions. “In one hundred feet, take a U-turn, then turn
right on Dreyer Avenue.”

“There is no Dreyer effing Avenue.” I pound
on my steering wheel. This is the fifth time since I returned to
Middle-of-Lots-of-Cornfields Indiana that the fucker has tried to
turn me into someone’s yard. Thirty minutes ago, she repeatedly
directed me to drive right into the damn river. Good thing I
decided to drop the girls off at the hotel when we got to town,
lest they see their big sister go homicidal on an electronic
gadget.

Yanking at the wheel with unnecessary force,
I pull the car over and throw it into park. My chest is tight and
my eyes burn with tears I swore I wouldn’t shed today. I made it
through the last month without crying. I won’t cry now.

It’s bad enough that I’ve been reduced to
this. Bad enough that I have to rely on my estranged father at all.
Bad enough that I have to track his hippie ass down since he’s too
goddamned paranoid to carry a cell phone. But here I am.

“
You shouldn’t hate him so much,”
my
mom told me six months ago.
“He hasn’t had an easy
life.”

“
I don’t hate him. I’m
ambivalent.”

But that was before Mom’s “heart attack”
(code for
drug overdose
that may or may not fool my
sisters). That was before the funeral and the grief and the bills.
That was before my life disintegrated around me, as if it were
built of nothing but dust.

I’m exhausted, one sister hates me and the
other isn’t speaking, and my ass is sore from being stuck in this
car.

Fresh air. That’s all I need. Then I’ll
follow the road back toward the highway and ask a gas station
attendant for help.

I unbuckle and step out onto the paved
street. God, it feels good to stretch.

I can’t get over how
green
everything
is. It’s as if I’ve forgotten the color can exist in nature. The
scent of cut grass is almost as rejuvenating as a solid night’s
sleep for my state of mind. The air is warm and sticky, and
children are playing in the sprinkler on a front lawn down the
street.