The Problem With Forever

Most important, was he safe now?

Not all group homes were bad. Not all foster parents were horrible. Look at Carl and Rosa. They put the awe in awesome. They’d adopted me, but before them, this boy standing before me and I had not been lucky. We’d been fostered by the worst kind of people who somehow managed to pass inspection. Caseworkers were underfunded and understaffed, and most did the best they could, but there were a lot of cracks to slip through, and we’d fallen right through one in the worst way.

Most foster kids didn’t stay in the system or one house longer than two years. Most kids were reunited with parents or adopted. No one besides Mr. Henry and Miss Becky had wanted us, and I still couldn’t figure out why they wanted us and yet treated us so badly. Our caseworkers came and went with the frequency of the seasons. Teachers in school had to have seen what we’d been going through at home but none risked their jobs to step in. The bitterness of being overlooked and stepped on for so long in an overburdened and broken-down system still clung to me like a second skin that I wondered if I’d ever shed.

But there was good and bad in everything. Had he finally found some good?

“Really?” he said, his fingers tightening around the old notebook he held. “After everything, after four years of not knowing what the hell happened to you, you just show up in fucking speech class and then run away? From me?”

I inhaled sharply as I lowered my arms. My bag slipped off my shoulder, hitting the hot asphalt. Shock flowed through me, but in the back of my mind, I wasn’t surprised that he’d caught up to me. He never ran. He never hid from anything. That had always been me. We had been yin and yang. My cowardice to his bravery. His strength to my weakness.

But that wasn’t me anymore.

I wasn’t Mouse.

I wasn’t a coward.

I wasn’t weak.

He took a step forward and then stopped, shaking his head as his chest rose and fell unsteadily. “Say something.”

I struggled to get the word out. “What?”

“My name.”

I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to say that, and I didn’t know how it would feel to say it again after all this time, but I drew in a deep breath. “Rider.” Another breath shuddered through me. “Rider Stark.”

His throat worked and, for a heartbeat, neither of us moved as a steamy breeze tossed strands of hair across my face. Then he dropped his notebook to the pavement. I was surprised it didn’t burst into dust. His long-legged pace ate up the distance. One second there was several feet between us, and in the next breath he was right there in front of me. He was so much taller now. I barely reached his shoulders.

And then his arms were around me.

My heart exploded as those strong arms pulled me against his chest. There was a moment where I froze, and then my arms swept around his neck. I held on, squeezing my eyes shut as I inhaled the clean scent and the lingering trace of aftershave. This was him. His hugs were different now, stronger and tighter. He lifted me clear off my feet, one arm around my waist, the other hand buried deep in my hair, and my breasts were mushed against his surprisingly hard chest.

Whoa.

His hugs were most definitely different than they were when we were twelve.

“Jesus, Mouse, you don’t even know...” His voice was gruff and thick as he set me back on my feet, but he didn’t let go. One arm stayed around my waist. His other hand fisted the ends of my hair. His chin grazed the top of my head as I slid my hands down his chest. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

I rested my forehead between my hands, feeling his heart beat fast. I could hear people around us, and I imagined some were probably staring, but I didn’t care. Rider was warm and solid. Real. Alive.

“Hell, I wasn’t even planning to come to school today. If I hadn’t...” His hand unclenched from my hair, and I felt him draw a strand out. “Look at your hair. You’re no longer a carrot top.”

A choked laugh escaped me. When I was younger, my hair had been an orangey-red mess full of ratty knots and unruly waves, and thank God, the tone had calmed down somewhat. A visit to a hair salon had helped. The knots and waves were still up for debate whenever it was humid.

Rider drew back just enough that when I blinked my eyes open, I found him studying me. “Look at you,” he murmured. “You’re all grown-up.” His hand left my hair, and a fine shiver danced along my spine as his thumb swept across my lower lip. The touch startled me. “And you’re still as quiet as a mouse.”

My spine stiffened. Mouse. “I’m not...” Anything I was about to say died a fiery death, because his thumb had tracked its way across my cheekbone, the pad of his finger callused and rough, but the caress tender.

My gaze tracked up to eyes I’d never thought I’d see again, but he was really here. Oh my God, Rider was here, and so many thoughts bounced around. I could only grab hold of a few of them, but memories surfaced like the sun cresting a mountain.

One night I’d woken up, frightened by the booming voices coming from the dark downstairs. I’d snuck into the room next to mine, which had been Rider’s, and he’d let me crawl in bed with him. He’d read to me then, from a book that I’d loved, a book that Rider called “the stupid rabbit story.” It always made me cry, but he read to me to distract me from the shouts filling up the small, broken-down row home. I’d been five, and from that moment on, he’d become my entire world.

Rider suddenly stepped back and grabbed my right arm. As he lifted it, he turned it over and pushed the sleeve of the thin cardigan up. His brows knitted as he frowned. “I don’t understand.”

My gaze followed his, to where his hand circled my wrist. The skin near the inside of my elbow was a deeper pink, as was the skin on the inside of my arms and both my palms, but it was barely noticeable.

“They said you were burned badly.” Lifting his gaze, he searched my face. “I saw them taking you out on the stretcher, Mouse. I remember that as if it happened yesterday.”

“I... Carl...” I shook my head as his frown deepened, realizing he had no idea who Carl was. I focused, took a few moments and then tried again. “The doctors at Johns Hopkins. They...did skin grafts.”

“Skin grafts?”

I nodded. “I had...the best doctors. There’re...barely any scars.” Well, my backside, where they had grafted the skin, was also a different pink, but I doubted anyone would be seeing that anytime soon.

His thumb smoothed over the inside of my wrist in a slow swipe, sending a bolt of sensation up my arm. He didn’t say anything for a long moment as his gaze held mine. The golden flecks in his eyes were brighter now, making them more hazel than brown. “They said I couldn’t see you. I asked. I even went to the county hospital.”

My heart dropped. “You did?”

Rider nodded as the tension eased around his mouth. “You weren’t there. Or at least they didn’t tell me. One of the nurses called the police. I ended up...” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You ended up...what?” I asked, because it did matter. Everything that had happened to Rider mattered, even when it had felt like the world couldn’t have cared less.

His thick lashes swept down for a moment. “The police and CPS thought I’d run away, which was dumb as shit. Why would I have run away to a hospital?”

Probably because Child Protective Services had a file on us the width of the Honda. And also probably because Rider and I had run away before. More than once. I’d been eight and he’d just turned nine when we’d decided that we would do better on our own.

We’d made it to the McDonald’s two blocks down the street before Mr. Henry found us.

Then there were the other times, too many to count.

Rider laughed then, and there was a tug in my chest, because when I looked up at him, there wasn’t a smile on his striking face. “That night...” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Mouse.”

Flinching, I stepped back, but he kept ahold of my arm.

“I would’ve stopped him, but I didn’t.” His eyes were darker. “I shouldn’t have tried—”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I whispered, sickened by what he was saying. I stared up at him. He seriously believed what had happened was because of him?

His head tilted to the side. “Yeah, I made you a promise. I didn’t keep that promise, not when it counted.”

“No,” I stated, and when he started to reply, I pulled my arm free. Surprise scuttled across his face. “That...wasn’t a promise you should’ve ever had to make. Not to anyone.” He’d promised to be there for me forever, and he’d done everything possible not to break his word. There were things that couldn’t be controlled, especially by a kid.

His brows flew up and then his lips did a slow curl. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me no before.”

I opened my mouth to point out that I’d never had a reason to, but the thump of music intruded. It was a weird wake-up call, reminding us that we weren’t in our own little bubble. There was a world around us. As the music drew closer, the low bass rattling the windows of the truck beside us, Rider’s gaze flicked behind me. Then he stepped closer, so close that his worn sneakers brushed my sandals.

He dipped his chin as he reached around, pulling a cell phone out of his back pocket. “What’s your number, Mouse?”

It was obvious that he was leaving, and I didn’t want him to. I had so many questions, a million of them, but I gave him my number as I smoothed my damp palms down my jeans.

“Yo, Rider, you ready?” came the voice from the thumping car. I recognized it from speech class. Hector. “We’ve got to roll.”

Rider looked past me again and he sighed. Stepping back, he picked up his notebook and then grabbed my bag off the pavement. Moving forward, he draped it over my shoulder, his fingers agile as he scooped the strands of my hair out from under the strap.

A half grin appeared as his gaze moved over my face. “Mouse.”

“Someone is gonna kick your ass,” Hector called, and my heart jumped in my chest. But I relaxed when I realized his tone was light. He was teasing him.

Rider dropped his hand and stepped around me. As though he had some kind of gravitational pull, I turned. The car was idling behind mine, an older Ford Escort with blue racing stripes. Hector was in the driver’s seat, grinning widely with one arm out the window, dark hand tapping along the side of the door.

“Hey, mami,” Hector called out, his grin spreading as he bit down on his lower lip. “Que cuerpo tan brutal.”

I had no idea what he’d just said, but it seemed to be directed at me.

“Shut up,” Rider replied, planting his large hand in Hector’s face and shoving him back into the driver’s side of the car. “No la mires.”

I still had no idea what any of that meant, but there was something about the words he and Hector spoke that didn’t sound like the typical Spanish I heard from Rosa and Carl at home. Then again, it could’ve been Spanish and I wouldn’t know, since they had given up trying to teach me the language a long time ago.

A rumble of deep male laughter rose from inside the car, with Hector kicking his head back against the seat. A second later I saw a younger face I recognized.

Jayden.

He was leaning from the passenger seat, across Hector. “Hey,” he yelled. “I think I know you.”

“You don’t know her,” Rider replied as he yanked open the back door. Twisting into the seat, he looked at me one last time. Our gazes locked for a brief moment and then the door closed, tinted windows shielding him.

The Escort peeled off.

I stood there, vaguely aware of someone climbing into the truck parked beside my car. In a daze, I climbed in behind the wheel and placed my bag in the passenger seat.

“Holy crap,” I whispered as I stared out the windshield. “Holy crap.”

Chapter 4

I couldn’t recall exactly how I made it home, which was probably not a good thing. The drive had been spent in a daze. By the time I walked into the house, seeing Rider no longer felt real. As if I’d dreamed him up.

I drew in a deep, calming breath.

Four years. Four years of peeling back the frayed and damaged layers. Four years of undoing ten years of crap, of doing what I could to forget everything. Everything except for Rider, because he’d deserved not to be forgotten. But he was the past—the good part of my past, but still a past I didn’t want to remember.

I barreled through the house, skidding into the kitchen. Rosa was there, wearing pale blue scrubs decorated with kitten paws and her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She had made it a point to be home early today. She raised her brows as she turned to me.

“Whoa, speed racer, where are you heading to?” she asked, setting her bowl on the counter. From where I stood, I could smell the Italian dressing.

So many words bubbled up in me, and the urge to tell her about Rider hit me hard, because I needed to make it feel real again, but my throat sealed off. If I told her about Rider, there was a ninety-nine-percent chance she would flip out.

Because Rosa had been there when every frayed and damaged layer had been peeled off me. Even though Dr. Taft had been Team Accept Your Past and they typically agreed with everything Dr. Taft said, she and Carl were Team The Past Is Your Past. They firmly believed that all facets of said past should stay where they belonged. And Rider was definitely the past.

So all I did was shrug as I veered over to the fridge, grabbing a Coke.

“How was your first day?” she asked, even as she frowned at my choice of beverage.

Turning to her, I smiled, even though it felt like there were tiny snakes wiggling around in my stomach. They’d been there since I’d gotten in the car.

Rosa tilted her head to the side and waited.

I sighed as I rolled the can between my hands. “It was okay.”

Her lips curved into a smile, and tiny lines formed around her eyes. “That’s good. Terrific, actually. So, no problems?”

I shook my head.

“Meet anyone?”

Seconds away from shaking my head again, I caught myself. “I... There is a girl in my English class.”

Astonishment flickered over her face. “Did you talk to her?”

That got a shrug from me. “Kind of.”

She looked like I’d sprouted a third arm and was currently waving it at her. “What does kind of mean, Mallory?”

I opened my Coke. “She’s in my class and she introduced herself to me. I said like maybe...seven words to her.”

The look of surprise gave way to a broad smile, and I stood a little straighter, momentarily forgetting about Rider’s unexpected appearance. The smile on her face was full of pride and I basked in the warmth of it.

Show us. That was what Carl had said this morning, and that smile told me I was showing them. Rosa knew, firsthand, how far I’d come and how big a deal it was for me to be comfortable enough to talk to a stranger, even if it was only seven words.

“That is so good.” Walking to me, she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight. I inhaled deeply, welcoming the weird scent of antibacterial soap and the faint trace of apples from the lotion she used. She brushed her lips over my forehead and then pulled back, clasping my arms. “What did I tell you?”

“That...that it wouldn’t be hard,” I said.

“And why?”

I fiddled with the tab on my soda. “Because I’ve already...done the hard work.”

She winked. “That’s my girl.” She gave me another squeeze. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there this morning. I really wanted to be.”

“I...understand.” My smile grew, stretching my face so much it nearly ached. Rosa might not have been my mother by blood, but she was everything a mother should be, and I was so damn lucky.

Her mouth opened, but her cell went off. Holding up her hand, she grabbed it off the counter, answering it quickly. Her posture grew rigid as she turned sideways. “Dammit,” she said. “Can you hold for one sec?” She hit the mute button. “I’ve got to head into the hospital. There are some complications from the surgery this morning.”

“Oh no,” I whispered, hoping she didn’t lose the patient. If you Googled the word strong, I swear Rosa Rivas appeared beside it, but she felt every patient’s loss like it was a family member. It was the only time I saw her drink. She’d take a bottle of wine and disappear into the study, doors closed until Carl coaxed her out.

I always wondered if it was because of Marquette or if every doctor was that way. Marquette had passed away five years before the night I entered their lives, so they were coming up on a decade since her death, but I knew that couldn’t have made their loss any easier to bear.

“These things happen,” Rosa said with a sigh. “Carl is going to be late. There’re leftovers in the fridge.”

I nodded. Both of them worked at Johns Hopkins, where cardiac surgery was actually created—something I’d learned from them. Hopkins was one of the best hospitals in the world, and when they weren’t in surgery, they were heavily involved in the teaching programs.

She hesitated, glancing down at the still-muted call. “We’ll talk in the morning, okay?” Her dark eyes held mine for a moment and then she sent me a quick, fleeting smile and started to turn.

“Wait,” I said, surprising the crap out of myself as she faced me, eyes wide. My cheeks heated. “What...does no la mires mean?” I’d totally butchered the words like a typical white girl who couldn’t speak any form of Spanish would.

Her brows shot up again. “Why are you asking that?”

I raised my shoulders.

“Did someone say that to you?” When I didn’t answer, because I was no longer sure I wanted to know what it meant, she sighed. “It basically translates to don’t look at her.”

Oh.

Double oh.

She narrowed her eyes at me, and I had a feeling that was what we’d be talking about tomorrow morning. Giving her a wave, I hurried out of the kitchen and hit the stairs two at a time.

My bedroom was at the end of the hall, overlooking the street, and next door to the hall bathroom I used. Rosa had once called it a decent-sized space. I considered it a palace. It fit a full-size bed, a wide dresser and desk. The window seat in the bay window was my favorite. Great for people-watching.

The best thing about this room—and I always felt terrible for feeling this way—was that it hadn’t belonged to Marquette. It was hard enough driving her car and contemplating the college major that had once been her dream. Sleeping in her old bed would’ve been too much.

Dropping my bag on the bed, I grabbed my laptop off the desk and wiggled into the corner of the window seat, placing the soda on the ledge. As soon as the computer popped out of hibernation mode, my instant messenger dinged.

Ainsley.

Her profile icon was from the summer—her blond hair streaked by the sun and oversize sunglasses covering half her face. She was giving the camera some pretty hardcore duck face. Her message read:

You make it out alive?

I grinned as I shot her a short yes.

How was it?

Biting down on my lip, I closed my eyes briefly and then I typed out what I’d been dying to scream from the top of my lungs.

Rider is at my school.

My laptop immediately blew up with a long strand and different variations of OMG that flowed into an endless stream of geeeeeeee. Ainsley knew about Rider. She knew about how I grew up. Not everything, because some things weren’t any easier to type out than they were to speak about, and she also understood that I sometimes wasn’t the most talkative person. But she got what a big deal this was.

You haven’t seen him in 4 years. I’m about to pee my pants, Mal!!! This is so epic. Tell me everything!

Still nibbling on my lip, I typed out a recap and was periodically interrupted by her OMGs and squees. When I was finished, Ainsley shot back:

Tell me you got his #?

Uh. I didn’t get his number, I typed back. He took mine.

That appeared to be acceptable to her and we chatted until she had to go. Ainsley’s online activity in the evenings had been limited after her mom discovered the pictures she’d been sending her boyfriend, Todd, back in July. They weren’t even that bad, just her in her bikini, but her mom had freaked out with a capital F and had, much to my amusement and horror, made Ainsley watch videos on childbirth as a form of sex ed.

Needless to say, Ainsley was positive she would never have children but that hadn’t stopped her and she was still super interested in sex.

She signed off after making me promise we would see each other this weekend. I spent the rest of the night puttering around the house aimlessly, too riled up to eat much of Rosa’s leftover chicken even though it had been baked in slices of orange and lime. I tried not to think about school or Rider or stare at my cell phone because it had been silent all afternoon and evening, but it was nearly impossible to keep my mind off those things because, holy crap, today had not gone the way I’d expected.

I mean, I didn’t end the day in tears, rocking in the corner somewhere, and even though I’d failed at lunch, I’d managed to speak to Keira. Seven words were better than none. I’d passed my first day without any major breakdowns. That was something to feel good about, and I did, but...

I didn’t know what to think when it came to Rider.

Pacing in front of my bed, I idly ran my hand over the slightly raised skin of my inner arm. That overwhelming mix of desperation and anticipation swirled inside me. I was excited to see him, to talk to him again, but I... God, it was hard to even really think about, because when I thought about Rider, another emotion festered inside me.

Guilt.

Stopping in front of the window seat, I squeezed my eyes shut. Rider had taken... He had taken beatings because of me. Time after time, he’d gotten in between meaty fists and me, and the one time he couldn’t stop it, I ended up escaping that life. I got a second chance, had been given a home with doctors for crying out loud, and practically had anything I want within my grasp. And Rider? I had no idea.

In my bones, I knew he didn’t have this kind of life, though, and how was that fair? The acidic burn in the pit of my belly increased. How could he even look at me like he had today and not think of all he’d sacrificed for me?

Ugh.

I shook my hands out as I started pacing again. Okay. I needed to chill out and look at the positive side of all of this. Rider was alive. He was in school, might even be in a relationship with the pretty girl in speech class, and even though I knew worse injuries could be hidden, there weren’t any fresh bruises that I could see. He didn’t appear to hate me. I would count all of that as a win—and ultimately, the most important thing to focus on was the fact that I’d successfully completed my first day of school.

That was what was most important.

Speaking of which, I had to read the chapter assigned in history. I ended up reading ahead, until I heard the garage door open below. Closing the textbook, I rolled over and turned off my light, knowing that Carl or Rosa wouldn’t come in if they thought I was asleep. Too many months of me not sleeping had made them wary of ever risking the chance of waking me up.

Just as I started to doze off, my cell dinged from where it rested on the nightstand. My arm shot out like a bullet and I snatched it up, my heart leaping into my throat.

There were two words texted from an unknown, local number.

Night, Mouse.

Chapter 5

The following morning I could practically see the wheels of doom churning behind Rosa’s eyes as she quizzed me on why I’d asked her what I had the day before.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

Rosa was brilliant and she was as observant as a high-strung cat, and the fact I was asking her to translate what she informed me that morning sounded like Puerto Rican had her little ears twitching.