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Who the hell is this woman?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cora
Thirteen years ago
“What do you mean you’re moving?” I ask, tears welling in my eyes and threatening to spill at any second.
He runs his fingers through his hair, grabbing hold at the roots and yanking as he bows his head. “My mom. She got transferred; promoted. Whatever. But her new position is in California. So, we have to move.” He tugs his hair harder before releasing it from his grip and looking at me with bloodshot eyes.
I have no clue what to say. Or what to do. How to react. In this situation, is there really anything I can do? There is no way I can stop his mom from accepting the promotion she rightfully deserves. Nor can I stop her from taking the only person I care about to the other side of the country, almost three thousand miles away. If we were older, maybe we would have a say.
Covering my face with my hands, I mumble, “When?” Although, I am terrified to know the answer.
“She said we’re leaving next week,” he says, his voice cracking at the end.
“Next week?” I whisper. “But what about school? And us?” My voice shrinking the more I speak.
A vignette darkens the edges of my vision. My world slowly closing in on itself. Nausea roils in my belly and crawls up my throat.
He wraps his arms around me, enveloping me in a tight embrace. His warmth is pure comfort, and I close my eyes and allow myself a moment to get lost in the feel of him. Breathe in his scent, the earthy beach smell that only Gavin has. Hear the sound of his erratic heartbeat beneath my ear on his chest. My head shifting with the rise and fall of his lungs.
He can’t leave. He just can’t. Gavin is home. Where I belong. And I am where he belongs.
One of his hands caresses the back of my head as his lips pepper small kisses on the crown while he shushes me. Our bodies rock back and forth, the movement subtle. And I squeeze him as tight as humanly possible, m
y body trembling as I am wracked with sobs. Maybe if I hold him tight enough, he won’t leave.
“We’ll figure something out, baby. This is just as painful for me as it is you. I don’t want to leave,” he confesses. “Not you. Not here. You are my home, Cora.” He echoes my internal sentiment.
“You’re my home, too,” I reply as tears flood my cheeks. “If you’re not here, I’ll be so lost.”
He wraps me more securely in his arms as if he is trying to prevent the eventual departure we both know we have no control over. I wish it were that simple. I wish we had a say in the matter. A voice. But we don’t and that hurts even more.
He withdraws from me, bringing his fingers to my chin and tipping my head back. Our tear-stained, puffy red eyes hold each other’s. The pain in my chest swells more with each passing second. My lungs burn as I refuse to breathe in this form of reality. This cannot be happening. This cannot be real. If I don’t believe it, maybe it won’t happen. Maybe he won’t leave.
“I will find a way back to you, baby. It may not be right away. But never doubt that I will return. The only place I want to be is beside you. Forever.”
A heavy sigh escapes my lips. Why could this have not waited another two years? When he could stay behind.
“I love you, Gavin,” I tell him, and it reaches deeper than the hundreds of times I have told him before.
He brushes a cluster of stray hairs from my face, tucking them behind my ear. “And I love you, Cora. More than anything else in existence.”
I sniffle back my tears and congested nasal phlegm, the sound and motion very unladylike. We both laugh at me. But when we stop, both our faces locked in serious expressions, I whisper-rasp, “Happy Birthday, Gavin.”
And seconds later he has me wrapped in his arms again.
I help Gavin put the last of his things in a cardboard box, closing the flaps and sealing it with tape. Grabbing the Sharpie on the floor, I write Gavin’s room on the box and proceed to doodle a quick image of a beach beside it. If having a small drawing by my hand on cardboard is the only piece of me he can take with him, I will draw on every box possible.
“Thanks,” he mutters, his mood growing infinitely more sour as we packed up his life here. I don’t blame him. If our roles were reversed, I would behave the same.
“You’re welcome.”
Looking around his room, I take in the bare blue walls. Before he was required to pack everything he owned, the walls had been littered with rock band posters and concert flyers. Images of surfers and the beach and us as well as our friends. Now, all those pieces rest in boxes or tubes, waiting to be added to new walls. In a new house. Thousands of miles from here.
The built-in bookshelf is now coated in a layer of dust after his collection of magazines and books got tucked away and packed inside the large moving truck outside. All the furniture had been taken out of his room a few hours ago. The carpet depressed from the feet of the bed and dresser, and outlined with the faded color where the sunlight couldn’t reach.
