The Promise Read online

  “Sorry.” Theo didn’t sound at all apologetic. “But you’re just going to have to learn to live with it.”

  He leaned over and kissed me, longer this time, and I followed, slipping one hand around his neck as the stars burst again behind my eyes. I surfaced to a slow clap, and Kelsey’s irrepressible scowl.

  “Five points for technical proficiency,” she drawled. “But the Russian judges docked a few for public nuisance.”

  I flushed, realizing there was a line behind him now, café patrons not so impressed with our affection when it blocked their path to hot coffee and snacks. I stepped aside and let her take the first orders, but Theo lingered, toying with my hand. “When do you get off?”

  Kelsey smirked before I could reply. “Soon, if you keep that up.”

  My cheeks burned hotter. “I’m done at four.”

  “OK.” Theo smiled at me, warm enough to heat my blood from the inside out. “I’ll come pick you up. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  “Not telling.” He glanced around, then leaned in again. “Quick, while Elvira is distracted.”

  “I heard that!” Kelsey’s voice echoed through another kiss, and then he finally left me, hitching his bag and blowing on the coffee cup, ducking back out into the crowd.

  I turned back to work, still smiling giddily to myself. Kelsey was watching me, eyes narrowed. “What?” I asked, already defensive. I quickly moved behind the coffee machine and reached for the first slip of paper order stuck along the rim. “And don’t give me another lecture about college boys, and town girls, and how it’ll all end in tears.”

  “I wasn’t going to,” she replied.

  “So?” I prompted, impatient.

  “You’re hands are shaking,” she said, softly. “Do you want a minute, to get your pills?”

  I froze. Blood rushed, pounding in my ears, and I set the rattling mug down, suddenly naked and exposed under the old-fashioned iron sconces. My mind tripped over itself to process the words. What did she know? How much had she seen? I thought I’d been so careful, that nobody had noticed my momentary lapses, but now, the sick realization dawned: my secret was slipping out, one glimpse at a time.

  Kelsey was still waiting for me, silent by the register. “Too much coffee,” I covered at last, with a nervous laugh. “I guess that fourth espresso was a mistake.”

  “This place should post a warning,” she agreed, but somehow, her even tone only made it worse. I wished I could ignore her, pretend like she’d never said a word, but even when I squeezed two tight fists and willed my hands to steady, the tremor still remained. My bag was under the counter, the pill bottle in the back zipped pouch. I swallowed them down with a gulp of water from the tap, but it felt like a failure.

  “I guess this means you and Teddy made things official.” Kelsey didn’t skip a beat, her voice bright now as she swiftly dispensed coffee cups and rang up the correct change. “What did you do, show up at his doorstep and seduce him?”

  “Something like that.” My voice caught, still reeling.

  “Well, I never. Didn’t think you had it in you.” Kelsey shot me a smile and a playful wink. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  JJ bustled through. “Always the quiet ones who what?”

  “Have the most delicious secrets.” Kelsey nudged him. “Case in point.”

  “Me?” he laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know . . .”

  “Mika’s the real dark horse though,” Kelsey continued. “I bet he’s hiding all kinds of deep, dark confessions. Five cats at home with matching knit sweaters. A secret love of Abba.”

  They continued to tease as I worked silently at the espresso machine. To any outsider, Kelsey’s banter was effortless, but I knew she was covering for me. A dazzle of jazz hands here, a snort of scathing laughter there; nobody gave a second glance at the girl hiding behind chrome and steel, her trembling hands clattering the countertop until at last, God, at last, the chemicals did their dirty work and my limbs followed orders again.

  It was the first time that had happened in public, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  Later, in the back staff room, I pulled my snow boots on and readied myself for the cold outside, but Kelsey lingered in the doorway, watching me again with that all-seeing stare.

  “I’m fine,” I said shortly, before she could even open her mouth.

  There was a long pause. I braced myself for more questions I couldn’t answer, but instead, Kelsey just nodded. “Call me if you need someone to cover a shift sometime. I could use the extra cash.”

  I nodded, fumbling with my knit cap. “OK.”

  That was it, all she’d ever say on the matter. Even later, when I couldn’t hide it anymore, she never asked, never said a word. She found me curled over in the café bathroom once, flailing desperately as pain split my skull in two, but even then, all she did was grip my hand tightly and wait with me there on the cracked tile floor for it to pass. No judgment, no demands to know the score. She was a true friend, in her way, beneath all that balled up sharpness, and I only wish I could have known her better in what brief time I had then to make it count.

  But on that snowy December day, I couldn’t get away from her fast enough. I took my chances on the bustling sidewalk outside, waiting on the frozen concrete, sheltering from the flurries still lazily drifting from the somber skies. People rushed past, trying to escape the cold, but I was still enchanted by the snow. There was something so fresh and clean about a snowfall, pristine before the world had a chance to drag its muddy tracks through the powder and turn it to a grimy slush. I’d spent my whole life in the desert, where winter came brittle and blazing from the same clear skies that spread above us year-round. Snowfall was an adventure, magical on my TV screen for Christmastime. I would snip diamonds into white craft paper every year, string them around our windows to filter the bright sunshine outside. Once, when I was fifteen, we travelled to see a specialist in Chicago when the sidewalks were still thick and powdered, the river a frozen block snaking through the city. I remember watching the snow fall for hours, hypnotized as we waited in offices and testing labs. I ignored the hushed voices and grave discussion of my new scans, and imagined myself far away from those sad little rooms instead, sledding through a great forest, perhaps, or tumbling snowmen with a group of friends.

  “Think fast!”

  I turned just as a tiny snowball burst against my chest, spraying icy droplets into the air. Theo laughed, bundled behind a thick plaid scarf, and just like that, the clouds seemed to part to let a little sunlight filter through.

  He pulled me into a slow embrace, kissing me like we had all the time in the world. “Hey.” He cradled my cheeks with icy hands, his expression a mirror of what I felt inside. That gleeful smile, as if our bodies couldn’t contain this kind of happiness alone.

  “Hey.” I grinned back, all sadness forgotten. I know it was fickle, to let the guilt and fear melt away so easily, but it would have been a crime to waste one single moment with him on such a heavy heart. “How is the youth of America today?”

  “Staring at their cellphones.” Theo tucked one arm around me, steering us into the flow of afternoon pedestrians. “The only time I can get a rise out of them is when I assign rap lyrics to study.”

  “You do that?” I laughed.

  “Anything to get their attention. Jay-Z and Keats have more in common than you’d think.”

  We crossed the square, then Theo turned right, down a narrow, winding street. I looked around at the old townhouses, crammed narrow with their gingerbread trim. “So what’s this surprise?” I asked, my curiosity growing.

  “You’ll see.” He was grinning, excited about whatever lay in store.

  “You got me a pony?”

  He laughed. “Almost.”

  “Give me a hint,” I pleaded, playful. “Is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “Hmmm.” Theo pretended to think. “None of the above.”


  I didn’t mind about the surprise, all I wanted was another night with him. All day long, I’d slipped back into memories of our nights together, hidden in the fort of sheets with my door closed against the world; the restless shiver of his fingertips on my skin. What I’d discovered with him was nothing new, there were millions of people on this planet craving somebody the way I hungered for Theo, but still, I marveled at the secret of this desire. How did anyone function, carrying such a wild fever in their hearts? How did the world spin on, through morning commutes and midday snack breaks, laundry sessions and grocery runs, when there were better ways to spend the time, tangled up in each other, paying tribute to the curve of flesh and bone?

  “Nearly there . . .” After leading me down another maze of winding streets behind the college, Theo came to a stop outside a non-descript building. The ground-floor tenant was a boarded-up restaurant, and the labels by the buzzer listing were peeling and illegible. I gave him a dubious look.

  “Is this like your professor’s rooftop, where we’re hoping nobody calls the police?”

  Theo laughed. “It’s all above-board, I promise. See, I even have a key.” He produced it with a virtuous look, unlocking the peeling blue-painted door and heaving it open so I could duck under his arm inside. The lobby didn’t inspire any more confidence, if you could even call it that: stained carpet in a narrow hallway, with flyers and discarded mail littering the floor, and a dimly lit staircase circling up into the dark.

  Still, Theo’s smile didn’t fade. “Third floor,” he said, buoyant. “Apartment B.”

  So up we climbed, my hand trailing the bannister for steadiness despite the unseen grime. My thighs ached and my head spun by the time we reached the landing, but Theo’s excitement was infectious, and I couldn’t wait to see what he had in store. “Admit it, you got me a pony,” I said, breathing hard but hiding it. He laughed, and ceremoniously threw open the dusty blue door.

  “Even better.”

  I stepped inside. It was dark, heavy drapes pulled across the windows, but then Theo flipped a switch, and the ancient light bulbs flickered to life.

  “It belongs to a friend of mine, but he’s out of town, studying in London for a couple of months. He’s happy to let you use it while he’s gone, just as long as we keep the pipes from freezing, and call the super in if something leaks.”

  Theo kept talking, almost nervous, as I took it all in. We were standing in an artist’s studio, a tiny space barely thirty feet square, but with double-height ceilings marked with steel beams and industrial girders. Canvases leaned against every wall, the concrete floors stained with a dozen layers of paint and graffiti splatters, an easel abandoned in one corner, and old stubby brushes lined up, congealing in empty mason jars along one ledge.

  “It used to be a factory, before they split it into apartments,” Theo continued. He crossed to the windows, and started yanking the blackout drapes aside. Light spilled in, falling softly through the dust to graze the stacked bookcases and haphazard rows of old, cracked paints.

  Theo looked to me, his expression hopeful. “Is this OK? I know you didn’t say anything, but I saw those big canvases all crammed together at your place. I thought . . . well, I figured it would be good to have the space.”

  I was lost for words. A knot bubbled in my throat, and I had to blink back a sudden rush of tears. I nodded, turning away a moment to collect myself. Everywhere I looked, there were half-scratched canvases and peeling layers of forgotten paint, but I’d never seen anything more beautiful. It was a palace, a place of dreams, and for now, at least, it was mine.

  “You got me a studio,” I said, my voice still soft with wonder. “I can’t believe you got me this.” When I looked back at him, Theo’s smile spread with relief.

  “You like it?”

  I laughed. “I love it!” I flung my arms around him, holding tight as emotion sliced me clean apart.

  “Good.” Theo pulled back, looking so proud. “Like I said, he’s gone for a few months, but even when he’s back, maybe you guys could figure something out. Store your stuff here, at least.”

  A few months from now . . . I kept my smile bright and caught his hand. “How are you so sweet?” I kissed his knuckles, the perfect curve between thumb and index finger.

  Theo looked bashful. “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  I tugged him closer, traded that perfect hand for the belt loops that could bring him flush against me. Theo’s hands came to me then, a soft skim over my arms, sliding my jacket away. “It’s only what you deserve,” he whispered, finding the shivering hollow of my neck, and I sank against him, wanting so much for it to be true. If I deserved this, then it couldn’t be so wrong. Not wrong to take his mouth, and his body, and his pure, pure heart, right there amongst a decade of spilled paint and crumbling canvas, bare flesh on a cool concrete floor. Not wrong to lose myself in him until I forgot the reasons I was there at all, as if the fact of our existence had made it providence, part of that plan they had told me to believe in all along.

  Well, I was a believer, for those few endless hours at least, watching the pale winter light fade into the starburst dark, feeling oceans rise and empires fall, until I ceased to exist. Like before, at the concert, a crowd strung twisting on heavy bass and shivering snare drums; those hours with Theo made me more than myself, somehow. More than my body, flesh and poisoned bones. More than the time bomb tick, tick, ticking down towards zero in the back of my brain. We both took flight, until there was nothing left of the both of us except the breath that passed between us in whispers and echoes and deep, wild gasps.

  For just a little while, I was free.

  Have you ever been in love like that before? Maybe not for a lifetime, or even a year of endless pleasure, but a single moment: those pure, perfect hours. Feeling that devotion, your heart peeled wide open, made something more than flesh and wet, surging blood. If you haven’t, then I can only hope for you an afternoon like that, one day. A chance to live forever in the pure, sweet rush.

  And maybe I do.

  I read once that for every moment, each split-second event, there exists a different world, an infinite number of universes spinning on in parallel, separated by that single heartbeat of change. Hope and I would talk about it all the time. A world where we’re still sharing popsicles together in those chemo chairs, holding on fast, fighting the good fight. Or maybe I woke up one morning to a scribbled note and a postcard from California, her smile shining bright in the dazzling waves. A world where cell clusters knit themselves a different pattern in the grey matter of my brain, and I slipped effortlessly through high school, flipping that tassel on a graduation stage, unloading boxes with my dad in a lemon-fresh dorm room on some campus far away.

  A world where Theo and I had more than those few, precious weeks together, where our paths slipped and skirted past the dark, looming storm—delivered safely somehow beyond the end to a new horizon, crammed together in a tiny faculty apartment as the letters accumulated after his name. A white dress. A long walk on my father’s arm. A whisper-soft baby’s blanket. A row of penciled notches rising on the wall beside the staircase. A half-century of his fingers threaded through mine, learning every constellation in his soft, endless gaze.

  Somewhere out there, it’s a truth. I loved him for months, years to come, more than this too-short lifetime, at least.

  Somewhere, Hope is still raging brightly, cherry-stained lips full of song.

  But not this world, not today. The concrete floor became too cold, and we bundled up again, hands still slipping to find hands, backs, any touch we could. Theo presented me with the key like a medal, and I held the curves tight in my palm as he walked me all the way home.

  “You think Tessa’s still away?” he asked with a teasing grin as we approached my front steps, the cold biting against the heat that blazed from my body.

  “Let’s hope.”

  I pulled him after me up the stairs, praying for an empty apartment and another e
ndless night. “Even if she’s home . . .” Theo started, suggestion in his voice.

  “You’re staying,” I decided, and he laughed at the fierce note in my voice.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door was unlocked, but I didn’t think anything of it until we were inside, propelled into the warm lights and muggy attic air, and Tessa was giving me an anxious look, caught in her sweatpants and college tank top with a table of study notes.

  “I tried calling,” she said, reluctant, standing aside.

  “Claire, thank God.”

  My mom jolted up from a chair. My dad stood, silently waiting.

  They had found me, and there was no hiding anymore.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Panic froze me, the rush of guilt and heart-stop discovery, but as usual, Theo didn’t miss a beat.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Fortune.” He strode forward to greet them like a true gentleman, with a strong handshake and welcoming smile, while I gripped tight to the nearest chair-back, watching my life unravel in a heartbeat. My naïveté hit hard. God, how stupid could I have been? Did I really think I could just disappear? All my careful planning and those past months of freedom turned bitter in my mouth, imagining that they wouldn’t find me, that I wouldn’t wind up standing in a room just like this, against the onslaught of demands and frantic concern. The inevitability sank through me, but I could do was stand and watch my worlds collide as I braced for impact.

  “I’m Theo. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Claire didn’t say you were in town.”

  “Theo,” my mother repeated faintly. Her dark eyes were on me, and I felt the wing-beats of her anxiety pounding, clear from across the room. My dad was watching too, but his was a more assessing look, moving measured from me to Theo and back again, as if he could see every shirt button done up wrong.