Page 76 of Forever Yours

Turning the engine off, Dad twisted around in his seat. He’d parked the truck in the empty space next to my car in the dorm’s back parking lot reserved for students who had purchased parking permits.

“How did my car get here?”

As far as I knew, it was still at Randy’s garage.

“Fallon.”

Damn that guy. How would I ever be able to repay him?

Me: Thank you for bringing my car. And Jessi. But saying thank you isn’t enough. You, Fallon Montgomery, are my hero.

I knew he wouldn’t respond to that.

“Jessi get back okay?” Dad asked when he saw me looking at my phone.

“Yep. Arrived over two hours ago but got stuck in traffic out of JFK.”

Another reason why I would never live in a big city.

“Want me to carry stuff up for you?”

“Nah, I got it from here.” I leaned way over to hug him. His beard rasped against my cheek, and I inhaled his familiar peppermint smell, putting it to memory. “Thanks. For everything. I love you.”

He hadn’t worked this weekend like he thought he’d have to after swapping shifts in order to get last week off. His friends at the station filled in for him so he could stay home with me and drive me back to CU.

“Love you, squirt. Go be amazing.”

“Always.”

“Call me in the morning.”

“Text me when you get home,” I replied.

We smiled at each other.

I pulled the handle, hopped out, and retrieved my duffel and the potted heliotrope from the back. The quiet of the evening surrounded me as I stood in the illumination of his headlights. He slowly backed out of the space and waved goodbye. I followed his taillights until I couldn’t see them any longer, then hauled my tired self to the dorm. No stairs tonight. My ass was taking the elevator.

“Hey, Elijah. Haven’t seen you around lately,” the guy sitting behind the reception desk said when I walked through the entrance glass doors.

“Hey, Kai.”

Under the unnaturally bright lights of the lobby, his red hair looked almost bright orange.

Kai was a junior majoring in Art History. We’d chatted a few times the first couple of days.

Student employees staffed the desk from seven in the morning until ten at night. Outside of those hours, the dorm doors were locked from the outside and you could only get in if you had a key card. Not the most fool-proof deterrent since anyone could give anybody their card to use, but it did hold a modicum of perceived safety.

“Nice plant,” he commented. Kai put down the book he was reading. “Damn, did you get in a fight?”

And there we went. I’d be hearing a lot more of that same question tomorrow.

“Something like that.”

“Fight circle?”

The elevator doors whooshed open, and a guy and girl walked off. She was laughing at something he said, and he was looking at her like she was a goddess come to life. Hearts in his eyes and everything. It was similar to how I looked at Julien.

I’d done a lot of thinking over the last several days. Soul searching, I guessed you could call it. I wasn’t mad anymore about the tattoo. But I also wasn’t happy about it. There were going to have to be some hard talks between Julien and me. Stuff we needed to figure out. If he couldn’t let go of his guilt over Liz, or at least deal with it better in a less toxic way, I would have to walk away. I loved Julien, but I had to love myself, too. The path we were currently on would only lead to resentment and regrets—and I never wanted to look back at what we had and have my love for him be something I regretted.

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