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  “Sorry,” I said. “I know you were only inviting me over here tonight as a friend.” I was not able to bring my eyes back to her, because I was too busy wondering if she and Brian were a couple now.

  She sat up beside me. “It’s okay.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I’d detected a hint of disappointment in her words. Either that or I’d pissed her off and that was the last thing that I wanted to do. I didn’t want to have to go back to my house tonight. I didn’t think I could handle it.

  “I know right now isn’t a good time to talk about this, but…” Jules started and then paused. “I never kissed Brian. I know that’s what you think you saw, but you didn’t. He kissed me.”

  I didn’t speak. Instead I continued to look at her bedroom floor. The image from a moment ago, the one of Brian sucking her face, filled my mind again. How could she not have been kissing him back? Too much time had passed for her to not have.

  “When he kissed me…I froze. I didn’t see it coming and I froze,” she whispered. “I know I should have pushed him off right away, most people would have, but I just froze. When I finally did, you were opening my door and everything else happened so fast I couldn’t even speak.”

  The way she’d looked at me in that moment seeped into my mind and I could clearly see now how shocked she’d been. I’d thought at the time that it had been from being caught, but maybe it had been from the kiss itself.

  “I just wanted you to know. I never intended to hurt you and I wasn’t seeing Brian on the side or anything for whatever it’s worth,” she added as she walked to her bedroom door. “We can leave my room now; mom’s gone.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to meet him? Why did you sneak around?” I asked without moving. This was what had bothered me the most. This was what had made me think she’d been cheating.

  Her big green eyes locked with mine and she didn’t hesitate when she said, “Because it was your birthday and I didn’t want you upset.”

  I held her stare, waiting for any sign that she was lying. Either she wasn’t or I wasn’t as good as I thought when it came to reading people. “Why did you have to go in the first place?”

  “Mom upped her order and told me she needed it by that afternoon. I wanted to get it done and out of the way.”

  Again she didn’t hesitate in her answer. She still hadn’t even broken eye contact with me, which was odd for Jules. She rarely held eye contact with anyone, which led me to believe she was telling the truth.

  “I’d never hurt you like that, Nick, never. I know how something like that feels.” Her eyes finally dropped from mine, but not before I saw tears pooling in them, magnifying their greenness.

  I stood and walked across the room to her, pulled her into my arms, and said, “I know.” Because I did. I did know Jules would never hurt me like that. I didn’t know why I’d ever thought she would. We stood there like that for a while, and I felt like I’d added a missing piece back to the puzzle of my soul, a piece that never should have been missing in the first place.

  As we pulled apart, Jules wiped her tears and looked up at me with a smile. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For forgiving me,” she whispered.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, he did.”

  “Okay then, for believing me,” she said, standing on her tippy toes just before she kissed me.

  I’d missed the taste of her lips—their warmth and their softness—more than I could have imagined. Closing my eyes, I cupped her face with my hands and moved my lips against hers, savoring her essence. My heart pounded in my chest and my body grew warm at the feeling of her delicate hands caressing my chest, running down the length of my stomach.

  Jules was all I needed to forget my world, forget my loss, for a moment. And with one deliberate tug at the button of my jeans I thought she was more than willing to let me.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  JULIE

  The day of the funeral arrived fast. It was strange how sometimes two days could seem like an eternity and others more like an hour. I borrowed the same skirt and heels from Tiffany I had for the wake. The others wouldn’t be coming today. It was strictly close family, which didn’t consist of much—Nick, his dad, and Nick’s Aunt Christine and Uncle Ron. I came because Nick asked me to and I held his hand through the entire thing.

  It was a beautiful service; Nick had bought a bunch of his mother’s favorite flowers—pink tulips—and tossed them on her casket one by one as they lowered it into the ground. I chewed my bottom lip and squeezed Nick’s hand in mine so hard to keep myself from crying that my fingers felt stiff and sore for an entire hour afterward.

  Nick didn’t speak much the rest of the day. I didn’t expect him to. His dad left to head back to the clinic right after the service and his aunt and uncle talked with Nick a while about what he planned on doing now. Where he planned to go. Now that he was eighteen he was legally an adult and could stay in the house by himself if the landlord approved and was willing to draw up another contract with his name on the lease, or he was free to drop out of school on his own and go wherever he wanted.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he’d answered simply.

  I’d felt selfish when relief crashed into my system at his words, but couldn’t deny the fact that I wanted him to stay. I’d already lost him once and once was enough for a lifetime.

  Days passed before Nick came back to school after the funeral. It was during that time he made me realize the scariest part about death, about being left behind—nothing else freezes after losing a loved one besides you.

  Life goes on, even if you don’t think it should.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  NICK

  Christmas came and went and before I knew it, it was December 31, New Year’s Eve. I woke up, my arm feeling like pins and needles, and carefully began to slip it out from beneath Jules’ sleeping head. She’d been spending more and more time over here lately. In fact, she’d practically moved in, something that didn’t bother me one bit. It was nice to make good memories with her in this house, ones that would replace all of the bad ones with my mom and dad in my head because it could only hold on to so many memories at a time.

  Jules shifted around once I’d finally managed to pull my entire arm from beneath her and I grinned at how cute she seemed while sleeping. I’d spent many sleepless nights memorizing the contours of her face, the dips and soft curves. She was beyond beautiful.

  I sat up in bed and pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants from the floor. Quietly I slipped out of the bedroom and headed straight for the kitchen. My mouth was dry and my throat scratchy. I paused, my feet faltering as I crossed the threshold of the kitchen. My eyes grazed over the spot in the center of the floor, the spot where I’d found her. My breath hitched in my throat the same way that it always did anytime I entered this room, the same way it always would as long as I lived in this house.

  Sidestepping the spot, because it still felt wrong to step there, where she’d taken her final breaths in this house, I reached the cabinet and grabbed a cup. I hated this house and wanted nothing more than a fresh start someplace else, but at the same time I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving and having someone else move in.

  I felt trapped.

  Jules and I had talked about leaving numerous times, about just packing up what little we actually owned, tossing it in the back of mom’s car, and driving until our tank was empty. We never actually did it though. Life wasn’t easy like that. There was always something we came up with to stop us—school, friends, money. Almost always money. They say money can’t buy you happiness; I say people are full of shit to think that. Money could buy me happiness as long as I still had Jules by my side.

  I poured myself a bowl full of cereal and made my way to the couch. Flipping on the TV to some Saturday morning cartoons, I sat with my feet tucked Indian style and laughed at some deranged cartoon characters as they chased each other around. It w
asn’t long before Jules woke and joined me, the sound of her laughter healing my heart bit by tiny bit.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  JULIE

  A week after New Year’s I helped Nick box up his mom’s things. We painted her room a sage green and Nick moved in, turning his small, old room into a music room. He’d began learning to play the guitar and spent a lot of his time in that room, thinking he could play the basic cords without me being bothered by the noise. That was what he’d said anyway. But I just figured he didn’t want me to see his frustrated face, like he was embarrassed because he lacked the skill to play a song just by listening to it as though he should be some guitar prodigy or something simply because he’d decided to try. Fact was I loved hearing him play; whether he messed up a cord or not, it still soothed me. I loved seeing him dedicating his time to a hobby. His life was finally unpaused and he was moving forward again.

  By the time May rolled around I couldn’t decide what to be more excited about—my birthday or graduation in just a few short weeks. Graduation won out, mostly because birthdays would now be tarnished for the rest of Nick’s life and mine.

  ~

  I woke the morning of my birthday to Nick propped up on his elbow, staring at me while I’d been sleeping. His face was blank, his eyes clouded, his brows furrowed together. The sight made my skin prickle with tension and worry. My heart began to slam in my chest as I silently wondered what had happened while I was sleeping that could have made him seem so solemn, so serious.

  “What’s the matter? I don’t like waking up to this face,” I said, trying to add a teasing tone to my voice, hoping it masked my sudden onset of panic.

  “My dad decided to come home…today. I got a text from him the other day letting me know,” Nick said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me and since when does your dad text?” I asked, but I was really thinking does this mean I can’t stay here anymore?

  I hadn’t been home in a long time, at least not to sleep in my bed. Mom had never said a word to me about the time I’d spent over the last six months at Nick’s house. Maybe this was because things went a lot more smoothly without me being there. I’d long ago lost the responsibility of refilling her weekly prescription because Heaven Scent was addicted to the same pills and supposedly she had a great dealer. This was another reason for their friendship to stick.

  “I don’t know. I’ve had other things on my mind lately and thinking about how pissed I am that he’s choosing to come back now, after I’ve already taken care of everything, was the last thing I wanted to think about.” Nick sighed.

  “So, does this mean I have to start staying at my house again?” I asked point blank. There was no reason to drag it out or to beat around the bush. It didn’t mean we were breaking up and I didn’t want him to think I was angry over it.

  I watched as Nick’s hazel eyes grew wide. “No, why would you think that?”

  I relaxed, slightly. If that wasn’t it, then what was with all the seriousness and scrunched up eyebrows? “Because, I don’t know.” I shrugged and sat up in bed.

  “I just, I’ve been thinking all night about how to do this, if I’d chosen the right way, and when I noticed you waking up, I realized I was out of time to come up with a truly clever idea,” he said, not making any sense.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Nick squeezed his eyes shut and fell back against his pillow with a loud sigh, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “Aw, shit. I’ve thoroughly fucked this up now.”

  My heart picked up pace as anxiety flushed my skin. “What are you talking about? What did you do?” The words sounded stuck in my throat as my brain suddenly shocked me by thinking this could be Nick’s way of dumping me. Was I being dumped? I riffled quickly through old memories of the last few days, searching for any hint of this coming. Nothing, that was what I found. No argument. No distance placed between us that seemed odd. Nothing.

  Nick leaned over the edge of the bed and reached into the nightstand beside him. He came back up holding a white box about the size of a deck of cards in his hand. “Happy Birthday,” he said, holding it out to me.

  What the hell? I’d not been expecting that! Why make such a big deal over a flipping birthday present? I took the box and gently shimmied off the lid. Inside was a black velvet box—the kind a ring came in—surrounded by little wads of crumpled tissue paper. My heart lurched into my throat as I stared at it, afraid to touch it, afraid of what might be inside.

  “Please, God, Jules, open it. You’re killing me here!” Nick pleaded as I just continued to stare.

  I picked it up and held it for a moment, my thumb caressing the soft velvet. Holding my breath, I popped back the lid with shaky fingers. Inside was a folded piece of paper and nothing more. My breath whooshed out of me as I plucked the paper from the box. Unfolding it, I read:

  There is only one way that I know of a man can tell a woman that he will love her forever and she’ll believe him. Please believe me, Jules.

  I didn’t understand. I reread the note once more before looking to Nick for an answer. He smiled when my questioning eyes met his and reached underneath his pillow. My eyes grew wide at the ring he pulled out—silver with a tiny diamond in the center—and my hand automatically flew to my mouth.

  “If I tell you that I love you right now, with this, can I keep you forever?” he asked, his eyes never wavering from mine.

  I dropped my shaky hand from my mouth and felt my lips twist into a smile as my eyes began to water. “Only if you mean it.”

  “Always.” Nick’s grin mirrored my own. “Jules, will you marry me?”

  I hopped up and straddled his lap. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I shouted out a choked, “Yes!”

  I must have repeated that one word a thousand times between kisses after Nick slipped the beautiful ring on my finger where it would forever stay. Birthdays had just been redeemed. Or maybe they’d just be our reminder of the good and the bad that we have to deal with in life…the stitches of happiness, always there to help us heal, and the scars of hardship, never to be forgotten.

  EPILOGUE

  NICK

  I heaved another box into the back of the U-Haul and stood back to take in the sight. Placing my hands on my hips I shifted my eyes from each box, to the couch, to the bed, and let out a loud sigh. This was it; this was the day Jules and I had been daydreaming about for months now. The day that we packed up everything we owned and drove off to restart our lives together, to put all of the shit that happened on Hilton Street behind us forever.

  Dad had come back home, but only for a few days. The house with all of its memories proved to be too much for him as well and he’d moved back to a place near his halfway house. A place where he had support, because I still wasn’t ready to give him mine. He’d handed me a check for two grand before he’d stepped back out of my life again. I’d taken it because Jules had said I would have been crazy not to. That money combined with the little bit of savings Jules and I had managed to scrape together over the last few months had been enough to free us.

  Jules came up behind me holding the picture of mom’s sunset in her hands, pushing me from my thoughts. How could I have forgotten that picture?

  “Last thing left.” Jules smiled, her green eyes glittering with happiness.

  I took it from her and carefully nestled it between a stack of blankets.

  “Are you sure we have everything?” I asked, for what I knew was probably the millionth time. I just wanted to be sure that we had no reason to come back.

  She nodded and grinned like a fool. “I think so.”

  I reached out and took her hand in mine, the two rings that she now wore were cold from the early morning chill that hung in the air as they pressed against the warm skin between my fingers, and I smiled. I glanced down, dim morning sunlight glinted off them, and I brushed my thumb against both bands once before squeezing her hand in mine.

  We stepped through the threshold of my house for the final tim
e and glanced around the living room. I wasn’t just searching for any odd items that we might have left behind in our hast to get out of this town, but also looking at the room itself and remembering the memories from within it that would always be with me. Memories of mom, all the good ones at least, the bad ones I’d chosen to forget a long time ago.

  Moving on to the kitchen I stopped just before the spot and smiled because I knew mom would be happy with the way things had turned out for me. Hell, she’d even be proud. I’d graduated and I’d married the girl I had been in love with since before I knew what love was, and now I was moving on, ready to finally start my life over.

  ~

  Jules slid into the driver seat of mom’s car and smiled; she’d be following behind me as I drove in the U-Haul.

  “Start your engine, let’s go!” she said, excitement filling her glittering eyes to the brim.

  “Did you get everything you wanted from your house?” I asked, suddenly gripped by the intense feeling of forgetting something.

  “Yes, Nick. It was all practically clothes.” She placed her hand on mine and I loosened my grip on the side of the car door. “When we leave here we haven’t forgotten anything besides bad memories and good friends that we can always call anytime.”

  I shifted my eyes from the house to her face. “You’re right. God, I love you.” I leaned in and pecked her on the lips.

  “I love you, too; now move your ass and start that U-Haul!”

  “Yes, ma’ma.” I grinned and walked slowly away backward with my hands up in mock submission.

  I climbed into the U-Haul and cranked the engine. Shifting into reverse I backed out of the driveway for the last time and headed down the road with my wife following behind. We might not have been sure as to where we were going specifically; all either of us knew was that we were heading to the coast because Jules really wanted to live by the ocean. I didn’t object, because people always said that the ocean was cleansing and rejuvenating for the soul, which I thought was something both of our souls could use a little of.