Read Beautiful Oblivion Online
Authors: Addison Moore
I hop up, and we hit the living room together.
Dad and Mr. Westfield are standing awkwardly in front of the TV. Neva’s already at the kitchen table primed and ready to watch the show.
“Daddy!” Reese speeds over to him. “You’re going to be late for your trip.”
“Don’t you worry about it. I’ve canceled. You’re much more important to me than some business meeting.” He takes up Reese in his arms, and for the first time I can see the resemblance in their eyes. “I talked to the police last night and they said anytime you want to stop by today you’re welcome to press charges.”
“What will happen if I do?” Reese glances over at me for a second.
“He’ll most likely turn around and press charges against Ace.” He gives an apologetic nod. “Warren’s father will bail him out—your friend may not be so lucky.” He gives a bleak smile to Dad. “But I’d do it. In fact, if you want, I’ll throw the book at Warren. I’m sick at the thought of him trying to force himself on you.”
“He was drunk!” Neva belts it out at the top of her lungs.
“That doesn’t excuse him. And neither should you.” Mr. Westfield doesn’t hesitate in reprimanding my sister. It makes me like him more. “Being a drunk gets you nowhere and most certainly doesn’t give you the right to put your hands on anyone.” He shakes his head. “Nevertheless, the McCarthy’s and I aren’t seeing eye to eye on the matter, but they say they’ll respect whatever we decide.”
“Go ahead and throw the book at him.” Reese sags into his chest. “Even if his dad does make sure he doesn’t spend an hour behind bars, at least he’ll learn not to mess with me or anyone else for that matter.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Dad interjects and Reese gives a nod. “In addition to whatever you’ve got planned, make him take an anger management course—put him in a sober living home to detox. Life will be a whole lot easier for him if he breaks down his demons right now.” He glances out the window a moment. “The more you wait, the more you lose.”
“That sounds good.” Reese offers her dad another hug and pulls back with a solemn expression. “I read my birthday card.”
“Oh, yeah?” He gives a soft smile down at her. “Any words of wisdom you’d like to share?”
“She said, be careful who you give your heart to.”
“I’ll have to approve of anyone you even
think
of giving your heart to.” He taps her on the nose with his finger.
“It’s too late.” Reese comes over and wraps her arms around my waist. “I already gave it away.”
“Ace Waterman, huh?” Mr. Westfield looks from Dad to me and breaks out in a gentle grin. “You’re lucky I approve.”
Reese bubbles with a laugh before turning to me and landing a kiss over my lips.
Mr. Westfield says his goodbyes, and Reese follows him out.
I nod over at Dad, perturbed. “What’s with the send him off to rehab routine?” Not that I’m opposed to Warren getting help, it just seems like a strange recommendation from my father of all people.
“I’d a been a better man for it.” He pulls a cigarette off the table and lights up. “I fucked up a long time ago, but you can be glad, or else neither you or Reese would be here today.”
I glance out the window at Reese, and her mother’s letter comes back to me.
“You were into her mom?”
“Into? I was the shit. She was into
me
.” He takes an arrogant puff, and the smoke billows through the room. “All right. I was whooped and she wisely didn’t choose me in the end. Damn near killed me. And, when she died, I almost died with her.”
A brick settles in my throat. I couldn’t handle losing Reese. I can’t imagine what he went through.
“Is that why you and Mom split up?”
“Nope. Loved her, too. She couldn’t stand me. Found someone who treated her better.” He says that last part in air-quotes and the ashes from his cigarette spray over my bare foot. “Look, be good to your lady, or she’ll find someone else. It’s that easy.” He points to Neva. “And you don’t settle for shit.” He grabs his patrol jacket off the hook. “I’m going to work. Keep out of trouble.” He storms out the door, and I follow him outside to where Reese is standing alone, staring at the lake.
I run a string of kisses up over her face. “You want to go camping for the day?”
“Just one day?” She turns and her laughter ripples from her chest to mine. “I’ve got at least four before I have to get back to school.” Reese tilts her head and the light shines over her hair, illuminating each strand with the fire from the morning sun.
Neva pokes her head out the screen and scowls at the two of us before pulling her lips back into something just this side of a smile. I don’t blame her for not expanding. Her face might crack from the effort.
“I just want to say I’m sorry,” she gives it just above a whisper as she looks to Reese. “And, if you want to go for coffee sometime, I’m okay with that.”
“I’d love that.” Reese takes in a hard breath as if she were fighting tears.
Neva bolts back into the house—probably to crawl back into her casket for the day.
I toss the tent in the back of the Cougar and get the cooler together before Reese and I take off for the falls.
We get up to the top and Reese throws the tent up in the air and laughs as it pops into shape, landing with a whisper over the dirt. I embed us in a clearing under the pines and scoop Reese into my arms as I take us inside our little orange love shack.
“I’m going to love you forever, Reese.”
“I’m going to love you twice that long.”
I land a kiss over her lips, hot as a firebrand.
Reese pulls me down over her, and I make love to her sweetly until long after the sun goes down.
Reese
One week later
The brick walkways at Yeats University are filled with bicycles and skateboards rushing by at this late hour in the afternoon. The eucalyptus trees create a wall of greenery that leads out to the expansive lawns where girls sit in clusters while boys throw a football back and forth. Classes start in a week, and I’ve already situated myself. I have no idea why I let Kennedy talk me into joining her when I could have spent a few more blissful days with Ace. But he mentioned he had a trip planned with Gavin so we wouldn’t be together anyway. The distance is already killing me, and it’s been less than twenty-four hours.
Thank God I have Brylee. She bops alongside me like a child at an amusement park, gawking at all the boys zipping by while they openly flirt with the two of us.
“This year is going to be masterfully insane.” She grips my arm. Her blonde hair billows in the breeze like pale feathers. “I’m going to have orgasms by the dozen just walking to class in the morning.”
“Eww, and remind me to walk in another direction.” I lead us over to the giant falls that cascade over the English building into a narrow reflecting pool that runs down the center of campus. “This sort of reminds me of the Forbidden Falls.” It was a special place to my mother and me, and now Ace and I will always have those amazing memories there.
We take a seat on the edge of the retaining wall, and I pluck out the envelope marked
Special Recipes
.
“You ready?” She pulls her knees to her chest, looking intently at me.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
I knew Brylee would be the best person to have by my side while I read this. Kennedy might have balked at my mother’s whimsical advice. And I would have done it with Ace but a part of me is afraid she’ll say something that might make me cringe in front of him.
I pull out the letter and hold it in my hand a moment. It’s soft and supple as my mother’s flannel nightgown. The letter unfolds with the breeze, and I’m startled to see so few words.
Brylee leans in and wraps her arm around me.
Dear Reese,
If you’re reading this you have already found love. I’ll pepper my birthday letters to you with advice, but here I’ll give you just the bare bones. I could say, make sure he loves you, treats you right, make sure he’s gentle, and has a livable sense of humor. Make sure he’s kind, cooks, and cleans up after himself. Make sure he shares the remote, but I won’t say any of those things. I trust you to know them. But I will say this:
Does he make you happy? Then you’ve caught your ecstasy.
You already know the true recipe for love. It’s been buried in your heart all along—trust it.
Love you forever,
Mommy
A single tear runs from my cheek, staining the page right over the word ecstasy and makes it bleed out, stretching its inky tendrils across the parchment. That would be just like my mother, demanding I let the ecstasy take over. She had a zest for life especially in those last few weeks. She called it instant perspective. She said life liked to throw us a curve ball sometimes until we got it right. My curve ball came last year when I had to spend it away from Loveless—away from Ace. But, now, a magical summer has passed and he’s mine, and yet, I still ache for him as much as I did before, if not more. For now, it looks like I’ll have to catch my ecstasy on the weekends with him.
I curl in and hug the letter as if it were my mother.
Brylee is busy texting away on her phone.
“Geez, sorry I bored you,” I whisper.
She looks up, her eyes stained with crimson lines. Tears roll down her face as she shakes her head. “You killed me.” She lunges over and gives me a hard squeeze. “I have to run, but do me a favor—don’t move. I have a surprise for you.” She wipes her tears with the back of her hand. Brylee leans in and gives me a sweet kiss on the cheek. “I hope I’m as lucky as you someday.” She hops up and skips off toward the bookstore.
I sink myself back into my mother’s letter and touch her pretty handwriting, laying my fingers where hers once were. It’s magic like this with her, my hand over hers just like in those final hours. The breeze picks up, it whistles and howls, and I hear her whisper my name clear and high like a knife over crystal.
A body sinks next to me, and a familiar cologne filters through the air. I’m afraid to glance over, afraid to break the delusion.
“Heads, we play Monopoly. Tails, we skinny dip.”
I suck in a breath and look up.
“Ace!” I fall over him with a hug until I nearly knock us backward into the water.
“Let’s preserve this.” He helps me put my mother’s letter back into the envelope.
“You drove all the way down to see me? This is why I love you.” I dot his face with kisses, his eyelids, each deep well in his cheeks—I never want to stop.
“I love you, too. But actually I drove down here to ask where Beueller Hall is?” He flattens a paper that looks an awful lot like an admittance letter.
“Beueller Hall? That’s my dorm.” I hold his gaze hoping he’ll say what I desperately want to hear.
“Good because that’s my dorm, too.” His dimples dig in as he holds that killer grin back just enough.
I pull him up and leap onto him with my legs tight around his waist. Ace spins me, and I lean my head back feeling dizzy and light—head over heels in love.
“I’m on the team.” He melts a kiss off my neck. “Practice starts tomorrow.”
“You’re on the team!” I take a soft bite out of his ear. “I’m so proud of you. I always knew you had it in you.”
“Thanks.” He closes his eyes a moment before digging something out of his pocket. “You never answered my question.” He tosses a quarter into the air and it reflects the orange sunset like a salmon swimming upstream. I catch the coin midair and hold it close to my chest like catching ecstasy.
“Now we’ll never know if we were destined to take off our clothes or barter for plastic real estate.” His dimples go off and seduce me without even trying.
“We are definitely destined to take off our clothes,” I assure him.
“Is that so?”
“It’s a promise.”
“I’m glad you think so because I’ve got a surprise for you.” His dark hair shines in the ever-dimming light. His eyes beam like blue velvet.
“Another one?” Ace was all the surprise I needed.
“I got your roommate to switch with me for the week.”
“Just one week?” Elation blooms in me at the thought of all the things I can do to him in that tiny box of a room.
“It might have been a semester.”
“You’re a master manipulator.” I tighten my legs over his hips.
“I have you, don’t I?”
“You didn’t manipulate a darn thing to get me. I was yours from the day you told me to stay the hell away from your marbles.”
He gives a little wince. “I may have done a little manipulating.”
“Like?”
“Like that day at lake. I was going to make sure it was tails no matter what. There’s no way I was going miss skinny dipping with Reese Westfield.”
I bounce in his arms.
“That’s because you, Ace, are a brilliant man.” I land a kiss over his lips. “You ready for another fake honeymoon?” I bite my lip and nod toward Beueller Hall.
“About that. I think maybe we should have a real one. You know, tear it up over in married housing—show those other newlyweds how it’s done through those paper thin walls.”