We Are Us

Chapter 26 Worthington University

Fall Semester, Junior Year

Gavin and I spend the rest of the afternoon under the elm tree, talking and reminiscing. It’s like being inside that old John Mellencamp song, “Hurts So Good.” I can feel my bones shattering inside my body. Tiny splintered cracks that run the length of my limbs, aching with every laugh, every sigh.

They say that when broken bones heal properly, they are even stronger than before. And by the time Gavin stands up, extending his hand to me, I actually do feel stronger. Healed by seeing him, finally knowing the truth of why he left and what had kept us apart.

I don’t tell him about that night. I don’t even hint at it. While I was kissing and flirting with Tucker, he’d been protecting his mom. Tequila shots had put me in the hospital. Gavin had been shot.

The sun hovers low on the horizon by the time Gavin walks me to my dorm. I tip my head back, marveling at the cumulous clouds set ablaze in shades of pink and lavender like swirls of cotton candy. “Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

He’s not looking at the sky when he answers. “Stu

My breath stills in my lungs. “Gavin, I—”

I lose track of whatever I was about to say when his hand lands on the exposed triangle of skin at the base of my throat. “I don’t blame you for not wearing it anymore,” he says softly.

“That’s not…” Losing the moonstone pendant Gavin gave me for my seventeenth birthday was agonizing. But explaining the circumstances would be worse. A teardrop bursting with shame drops onto the tip of my shoe. “I’m so sorry.”

“You must have hated me for leaving you.”

“No. I never hated you.” The admission is a pained rasp. Every syllable stings.

What Gavin says next just twists the knife deeper. “I never stopped loving you.”

My heart clenches, regret and remorse flooding through me. “How do we—” I stop myself. “How can we move forward?”

“That’s what we’ll have to figure out.” Gavin smooths a wayward lock of hair behind my ear. “Look, I know we can’t go back to the way things were. For now, you’re here and I’m in Michigan. But I can’t lose you again, Poppy.”

Possibilities flutter in the air between us like gossamer-winged butterflies. “When do you go back?”

“Not until tomorrow.”

“What are you doing later tonight, or tomorrow before you leave?” I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.

Gavin has a di

Nothing will keep me from seeing Gavin again. I don’t know what the future holds for us. Maybe just a long-distance friendship, with the possibility of something more down the line.

Or maybe nothing.

My chest squeezes at the thought. No. After all this time, surely we deserve something. Gavin was my best friend. My only friend. And so much more.

I can’t lose him again. I won’t.

Before heading upstairs to my dorm room, I throw myself into Gavin’s arms one last time. And it’s even better than it was before. It’s electrifying.

Everywhere Gavin is touching me, or I am pressed up against him, feels awakened somehow. Like the forest coming alive after a long winter, embracing the warmth of the sun and the kiss of the rain.

As we start to pull apart, there is a moment when Gavin and I are still so close that our mouths are barely an inch apart. His breath ghosts across my lips, that same minty warmth I remember so well, and the urge to kiss him, to be kissed by him, is nearly overwhelming.

At the last second, I fight his gravitational pull and avert my face, stepping back. Not because of Tucker—we’ve never discussed being exclusive. For all I know, he’s hanging out with other girls when he’s not with me.

I step away from Gavin because our first kiss after too-fucking-long should be special. It should mean something. And because if anyone would want that too, it would be Gavin.

He smiles crookedly, as if he understands. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow,” I agree. Happiness trickles through me like rain as I jog up the stairs, becoming a full-blown storm by the time I get to my door. A storm just as powerful as the nor’easter that ripped through Sackett the night Gavin left. Elation expands in my chest like mist, excitement pulsing though my nerve endings like white-hot bolts of lightning. My heart is racing, my breath coming in fast, shallow gasps.

Gavin came back to me. Finally.

It’s only when my phone buzzes inside my hand as I’m unlocking my door that I remember the missed calls from Sadie.

I answer, fighting off the tug of irritation at her insistence. Of course, Sadie would demand my attention now, when all I want to do is celebrate Gavin’s return and think about our future. Together.

How had I ever thought that what we had—what we have—could be washed away in a flood, forgotten by time?

We are us.

Then and now.

Always.

“Hey, S—” I dispense with the greeting when I hear her crying. Not the kind of sappy, mournful, I-just-finished-a-Nicholas-Sparks-novel weeping that I’ve heard from her a million times. This is full on choking, guttural, something is very, very, wrong sobbing.

My fingers tighten around my phone in a death grip. “Sadie, please,” I beg. “I can’t understand you right now. Take a breath and tell me what’s wrong.”

Several seconds pass as she gasps for air. Seconds where I imagine her lying in a hospital bed, all alone, naked beneath a thin sheet. Sadie, tell me what’s happened. I’ll make it better, I promise. I’ll take care of you, just like always.

Finally, she is able to enunciate actual words, and they slam into me like bullets. “It’s mom. She was arrested. And now the lawyer says, because she was arrested once before, like—forever ago, she’s going to jail. Jail! For a long time. Years.”

I slump onto my bed. “What… I don’t understand. Start at the begi

“Yeah. She didn’t come home last week, and—”

“No. Go back further. The arrest from forever ago.”

“It was from ten years ago, I think. While we were in DCF custody. She got busted in some stash house. I don’t know the details.”

“Jesus,” I groan. “Okay, tell me about this one.”

“Well, I had no idea what happened until she didn’t come home—”

“What do you mean she didn’t come home? Where was she?”

“Mom’s entitled to have a life, Poppy. And she does that sometimes, stays away for a night or two. But she always comes back. I thought she’d finally met someone, you know.”

“Yeah, like a dealer. For God’s sake, Sadie—how could you let this happen?”

“You’re gone and I can’t watch her every second!”

I know I’m being unreasonable. And blaming Sadie isn’t going to get us anywhere. “You’re right. Sorry. She disappeared, then what?”

“Then she calls—from jail. Saying she’s been arrested.” Sadie takes a breath and I steel myself against what’s coming next. “For possession, with intent to distribute.”

My heartbeat stutters, jumping around erratically inside my chest. “That’s… that’s…”

“A big fucking deal,” she finishes.

I was going to say a felony, but her description is just as accurate. “So, what do we do? How can we fight this?”