Page 2 of Forever & Always You

“Here ya go,” I say as I pull up in the usual discreet spot before we get too deep into the parking lot or anywhere near the school’s entrance. My eyes wildly scan the handful of our peers walking by, praying as always that none of them are my closest friends.

Austin knows the drill—I pretend to drop him off here as a favor to him so as not to put him through my impatience when it comes to finding a parking spot, and not because I can’t bear the thought of anyone spotting him get out of my car—yet he doesn’t immediately grab his bag and jump out like he usually does.

He lingers, which scares the absolute crap out of me.

“What is it?” I prompt, my nerves spiking as the risk of being seen with him heightens.

“Um,” he mumbles, toying with his hands in his lap and chewing his lower lip. “I know this is crazy, and I know you’ll say no, but we’ll be graduating soon and I’ll kick myself forever if I don’t at least ask. But with prom coming up .?.?.”

“Austin .?.?.” I say warily, nearly threatening.

Please don’t do it, Austin. Don’t you dare ask me to prom.

“I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go?” he asks nervously, the words so very nearly caught in his throat, and he forces his blue eyes to latch on to mine. “With me, obviously. Would you like to go to prom with me, Gabby?”

I blink at him in shock, because what the hell is he thinking?

I can’t even talk to him in the school hallways.

What makes him think for even a second that I could ever be his date to senior freakin’ prom?

Besides, Mark Lowitz already asked me at the weekend, and I should just tell Austin that.

It’s a genuine reason, and Austin could go on blissfully unaware that I’d have said no to him regardless, but those hopeful blue eyes . .?.

God, he always looks at me so sweetly, with such kindness. He has been such an amazing friend to me when I’ve never done a single thing to earn it, and for the first time in my life, I just can’t hurt him. Not this time.

“Okay,” I say in a quiet voice, and Austin is almost knocked for six.

“Seriously? The world wouldn’t end if we went together?” he splutters as his face lights up in delight, and I feel my car shrink around us, sucking all of the oxygen out of the air.

“C’mon, get out, Austin,” I encourage with a weak, feeble laugh as I gesture to the door.

“Okay, okay!” He hastily grabs his bag and swings it over his shoulder as he steps out of the car. As always, he pokes his head back in and says, “Goodbye, loser.”

“Bye, loser.”

My heart is in my throat as I watch him cross the parking lot and head into school for what will most likely be another long day of hell for him, yet he has a smile on his face because he now thinks we’re going to prom together .

.?. And I feel like the worst human being in the world, because there is no way in hell I’ll ever be caught dead attending senior prom with Austin Pierce.

*

Suddenly, I snap back to reality and find myself already parked up outside my apartment building with the terrifying realization that I completely zoned out for most of the drive.

I give my eyes a quick rub and then tilt my head with a sigh when I notice one of the exterior lights has blown its fuse.

When I first signed the lease agreement for this place two years ago, my mother called and very seriously, and very straightforwardly, asked me if I was a drug addict.

“Is it cocaine, Gabrielle?” she whispered across the line, and then seemed rather disappointed when I laughed and told her: Absolutely no way! Deep down, I think she was praying it was drugs. That would at least go some way to explaining my extreme fall from grace.

I head up the dim stairs to my apartment and step inside, throwing my keys down on the kitchen counter before immediately pausing. I sniff the air.

Huh.

Something smells .?.?. like sewage.

And I know damn well fine I do not maintain an apartment that smells like sewage. The number of candles I go through in one week can attest to that. Why doesn’t my apartment smell like its usual orange vanilla?

My nose wrinkles as I sniff my way around like a scent hound on a drug bust. I follow the stench toward my storage closet. With the source located, I take a deep breath and reach for the door. Please, please don’t be a dead rodent or something.

I gasp and recoil from the closet.

God, why couldn’t it have been a dead rodent?

Water flows from a hole in the closet ceiling. It floods down over all of my belongings, soaking through cardboard boxes. I poke the tip of my shoe into the carpet and it squelches loudly .

I scramble to the kitchen, throw open the cabinet beneath the sink and tighten the shut-off valve until I hear the dripping water slow to a stop in the closet. I sit on the tiled floor, mouth agape.

“No. Nope. No way, ” I say out loud, shaking my head in disbelief. I did not just get fired and have a flood all the same night. What could I possibly have done recently to deserve such bad karma? Was it because I told Carly her roots were long overdue a touch-up?

I call the property manager, and he’s so grumpy from being woken from his sleep that he is utterly useless. He can’t guarantee that he’ll get a plumber out in the morning. He can’t even guarantee that he’ll get one out by the weekend.

“But how can I stay here with no plumbing?”

“Don’t shower, don’t flush the toilet, don’t turn on any faucets,” he says.

“Yes, I know what plumbing involves,” I snark back. “I mean how can I stay here without doing any of that?”

“Get a hotel for a few days, or stay with someone you know.”

I want to ask if he’ll be footing the bill for this mandatory hotel stay, but I’m beyond the point of arguing. I demand he gets me a plumber as soon as he can, then hang up and stare hopelessly at my waterlogged storage closet.

I don’t have the money for a hotel and I don’t do motels, because I do have some degree of standards.

The last thing I need at this time of night is a two-hour drive to my hometown of Wilmington, but this is a dire situation and, unfortunately, I don’t have much of a choice but to crawl home to my mother.

I’ll slip in the back door without waking her, then deal with her shock when she finds me camped out in my childhood bedroom in the morning.

Pushing myself up from the kitchen floor, I head into my bedroom and start to gather my stuff.

The only saving grace is that the pipes didn’t burst above my bedroom closet, so my clothes are dry and intact.

I’m in a daze as I fill up a small suitcase, then switch off the electrics at the main breaker.

These burst pipes are now a fire hazard, and I could really do with not burning my entire building down.

That would make getting fired truly the tip of the iceberg tonight.

I head back outside to my car, start up the engine, and then let laughter rip through me when a warning message flashes across the dash. I now have dangerously low tire pressure. Of course. Of course! Why wouldn’t there be something else to add to my nightmare of a night?

I kick open my door and walk around my car, using my phone’s flashlight to examine each wheel. Somewhere between Buck’s Tavern and here, I’ve picked up a nail. I know this, because it’s now wedged into my deflated rear tire.