Between Never and Forever

by Shain Rose

“It’s better out here than somewhere someone might catch us.” He sighed, and I saw how his muscles relaxed a bit under his dark T-shirt. “I don’t really give a fuck if someone sees me with my girlfriend.” The way he emphasized the label made the butterflies in my stomach flutter and then immediately scatter from the whoosh of fear I felt. “Don’t call me that when you know we can’t be together.”

“It’s been a whole damn year, Kee. A year of me loving you, and a year of you wanting me to keep it a secret. For what?”

“You can have me here,” I whispered. “Just not out there.” “I want you every-fucking-where.” “You have me. Here. In private. It’s just for now. We’ll have each other forever soon enough.”

But I needed one. I was too stirred up in my emotions and too immature to think of the repercussions. I poured alcohol down everyone’s throats, was the life of the party, and tried to enjoy myself so much so that I wouldn’t have to consider the realities of my situation. When Dex had finally had enough, Kyle offered to drive us all home. Laid-back Kyle who’d drank just about as much as me. Kyle who was so sweet and genuine. He’d wanted to help. Dex said no. Even Dimitri looked wary, but Gabriella and I were too far gone to listen to reason. We ran through the freezing rain and folded into his car without looking back at Dimitri and Dex, laughing like we were getting away with not obeying a parent. We just wanted to have fun, but it wasn’t as fun when Dex followed me into that car, unwilling to let me go on my own and gave me a look about as stormy as the weather. “It’ll be fine,” I whispered to him because Gabriella was between us, giggling still. Yet, the night was dark, the roads slippery, the rain heavy on the windshield. How safe did you feel on a bridge in a vehicle going seventy on a highway in icy rain? Safe enough to text? To tell your friends in the back seat you’re fine, you’ve got it under control? “Kyle. You’ve got to slow down,” Dex yelled right as Dimitri swore from the front seat. But it was too late. Kyle’s confidence that night cost him his life. When he looked up from his text, he was veering into oncoming traffic.

It was probably only a second of us floating there, suspended on top of water before it began to sink, but it felt like forever before I heard Dex’s voice, pointed, direct, and determined—“Do not panic, Kee. You hear me? Don’t fucking panic.”—but it held fear. We were too young. None of us knew what to do in a life-and-death situation. “I can’t… I can’t swim well.” I wiggled as the blood rushed to my head. We were all hanging upside down by our seat belts as water crept toward our heads fast. I reached for the button but found it harder to press with the pressure of my body against it. “I can’t get—” He reached around me and undid my buckle as he yelled to his brother, “Unbuckle and get the hell out.” I hit the roof of the car that was now sinking and the water’s freezing temperature immediately made me gasp. Dex was there to catch my gaze. “I got you, Kee. I got you, okay?”

“Kee.” Dex’s hands went to my face. “Focus. You’re going to follow me, okay? I. Got. You.” “No. What?” I whispered before I screamed, “Don’t get me. Get her! Get Gabriella! Where is she?” I tried to yank my face away in a panic, but he was pulling me forward. “Where is she?” I think shock was taking over as I started to shake, my clothes soaking in the inky black liquid that was rising faster and faster. The car was sinking, which meant we were about to be under water, under a sheet of ice in the dark. No one heard about people surviving car crashes in freezing water. They heard about the tragic results, and we were about to be one. “Fuck,” he swore over and over as he pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. “Get ready to swim. We’re going through the windshield—”

“I’ve got to find them.” Dex’s eyes were wild. “I’ve got to.” He dove back through that hole in the ice as I heard blood curdling screams all around us. They were mine. Me, screaming for him to come back, screaming and crying and fighting Dimitri as he pulled me to safety and lifted me up to carry me away from the lake. Lightning struck and thunder rumbled over the sound of sirens approaching. When the cops and ambulance got there, they had to sedate me. I remember the icy rain on my face, the lightning in the sky, and the rumble of that thunder before I blacked out.

“You’re a public figure. You’re contractually obligated to be with…” It wasn’t in writing, it was only a verbal instruction, but we all knew the truth. Trinity Enterprises wouldn’t allow me to be with anyone other than Ethan. Gabriella was supposed to be the one Dex saved. Not me. And because he did that, he’d outed us to the world. They painted him as a hero at first, as the boy who dragged the girl he loved out of that water to save her. They said he loved me, that he risked his life for mine. “Trinity is working on changing the narrative,” my dad concluded. “Dad, what does that mean?” “It doesn’t matter, Kee!” He smacked the steering wheel in frustration and then put his forehead against it. “They get to do whatever damage control they want. And you need to agree because otherwise you’re in breach of a very big contract that we can’t pay back.” I stayed silent. The contract and record label were things I didn’t want to work out, but I knew what the money meant for the family.

Had I fucked up that much that he sounded so disheartened, so disappointed? I hated that. “Dad, I just want this all to work out.” “I know, Kee. I know. It will. Your mom will get better.” He said it with conviction, and I heard the love he had in his voice. “We just have to do this for her. You understand?” I nodded because he was my dad, and I’d have done just about anything to take away the pain I was causing. “And, Kee, if you’re sneaking around with that Dex who saved you, end it. End it now.”

Then she said the words that would gnaw at my soul for years to come. “I’m leaving.” “What?” I frowned, not sure I’d heard her correctly. “Wait. Now? Leaving for where? You don’t have a tour for—” “No.” She shook her head and folded another shirt. “I’m leaving for good. Moving to Nashville.” “Nashville?” I glanced around her room like there might be some clue I’d missed. “But you have college here starting in the summer—” “I’m finishing last semester of senior year online, Dex, and then I’m not going to college. Trinity wants me in Nashville right now before the tour and—” “You’re screwing with me,” I cut her off, shaking my head. My mind couldn’t comprehend what she was saying. She was the damn love of my life. Nashville was too far. “I’m not.” Her tone was clipped and stiff but that was her only indication of pain. I stared at the girl I loved, willed her to look at me. “You’re not leaving.”

And me. You’ve got me here, I wanted to say. “They’re writing about us,” she whispered, like I should care. “So what?” I threw out the words harshly. It was the last thing on my mind. We were coping with trauma, trying to mend our bodies and minds. None of us should have had to worry about the public right now. She spun around to grab her phone and then held it out to me, pointing her finger at the screen. “They’re writing about us together.” Her and her fucking secrets. “Let me get this right. You’re leaving because the secret’s out about us. Who the fuck cares?” She shut her eyes like she was in pain, and it crushed my damn soul. Her pain was because we were out there in the world, not because she was leaving, not because we were imploding in slow motion. And even still, I wanted to hug her, to tell her it would be all right. I didn’t step forward though. Not when she was breaking my heart. She was trying to leave when all she had to do was stay. “I can’t be with you, Dex.” “Fine. Don’t be with me.” I shrugged, acting as though the words didn’t feel like a knife to my gut. Then, trying to temper my reaction, I rubbed a hand over my face before I continued. “But you can’t leave. You’re Dimitri’s best friend. Your family needs you, and I…” I needed her too. Didn’t she know that by now?

“You’re you here,” I corrected her. “You go be fucking Goldilocks for a damn record label, then you’re selling yourself short. They’re watering you down. You should be singing the songs you sing in your bed to me. We go down to the lilacs in the woods, and you sing your heart out, Kee. That song you sing with your mom in the kitchen, the world wants that. That’s what you deserve, and what your family—” “My family,” she emphasized and suddenly straightened, “wants me to go just like I want to go.” “What the fuck did that record label tell you?” Something was wrong. “They told me I can make it. My dreams can come true. And that Ethan really does love me, Dex. And I…” She hesitated and looked out the window, her chin trembling as she said the next words. “I think I love him too.” That was the wrecking ball of destruction. Those words obliterated the confidence I had in our relationship, the confidence I needed to keep her here. “You don’t mean that,” I said and walked right up to her to take her chin in my hands, to rub over it back and forth. “Don’t lie to me, Kee. Not about that.” She lifted her chin and backed away out of my reach. Her eyes shut, and I immediately missed the dark chocolate color of them. “Why are you making this hard? This wasn’t supposed to last, Dex. You know that.” “Of course it was,” I whispered to her. “We were always going to last. You sang to me that you’d love me forever.” “I do!” she screamed and threw up her hands, but then she fisted them and br...

I’m surprised my manager even let you through.” “Let me through?” I muttered through gritted teeth, rage pumping in my stomach, in my bones, through my blood. “No one is going to let me do shit when it comes to you. You’re my girlfriend.” “Ex-girlfriend,” she murmured. “What?” I stepped back like she’d pummeled me. “We can’t keep doing this. It’s not good for either of us. It’s never going to work with me moving and…” Her voice broke, but she managed to get out, “You can’t just be with me in secret for years. They have me under contract for three, and what if I re-sign with them? They’ll want me with someone…” “Someone who will propel your career? Someone like Ethan Phillipe?” I wrestled the words out now, knowing where this was going. “It’s not only about him, Dex. Do you honestly think it’s healthy for you to see me flirting with him out there and then coming back to apologize to you in private?” “Then tell the label about us.” I said the words slowly because I’d never said them before. She hissed, “What?” “Tell them about us,” I repeated.

I shouldn’t have said it, but hurt people hurt people and all that shit.

My jaw flexed involuntarily. It was her

dream. My dream for her too. Everyone deserved to hear this girl sing, even if I wanted to bottle up her voice and keep it all to myself. “You should be doing it on your terms.” They’d already had her for a year and hadn’t let her sing a damn thing she wanted. “These are my terms. This is what I want, Dex. They gave me options.” She took a deep breath and looked away. “This was the best one.” “Leaving all of us is your best option?” I blurted out because I wanted her to repeat it. “Say it out loud, nice and slow, and tell me if it sounds right.” “I’m leaving,” she whispered. “I’m leaving you all to follow my dream, and I hope you’ll support that.”

I shook my head back and forth. “You leave this town, I’ll never forgive you. You get that?” “Dex, this isn’t how I want it to end. We could be friends and—” “I’ll never be your friend.” The words came out fast with fury. “I’ve told you I love you; I’ve promised myself to you. I want to marry you…not be your friend.” She gasped at my confession, yet I continued on. “You’ve always been my girl, my girlfriend, my future wife. Nothing less. Don’t you get that? I promised you forever, Kee.” “But forever can never be, Dex.” She choked back a sob, but this time I didn’t pull her to my chest like I had so many times before. She tried to cover her mouth with the back of her hand to hide her turmoil. “Yeah. You pack that bag and leave, you can bet it’ll never be.” She narrowed her eyes then, glared thr...

His eyes widened at my statement, and I saw the hurt flash in them before it morphed to anger. “You really think I believe that?” No. How could I when I thought of him weekly, daily, hourly? But I wouldn’t admit that. He took two deep breaths as he looked down at my lips and his hands shook on me like he was trying to hold himself back. Then he whispered, “Fuck it,” before he slammed his mouth hard into mine, his full lips moving with the purpose of dominating mine.

to tower over me as he tasted what he didn’t even want. I whimpered at that thought. He didn’t even want me anymore. I felt it in how he kissed me with no appreciation or love. Yet, I clutched at his shirt, trying to hold on to the moment as long as possible. He was still a comfort I couldn’t deny myself, a home to me after all this time. He was the person I felt safest with even though I knew I shouldn’t. When he stepped back, he did it abruptly, and I stumbled forward before catching myself. He didn’t even try to help me. “Feels like you think of me a lot, Kee.” “Dex.” I needed to control the shake in my voice, manage how he was making me feel. I hadn’t felt like this with anyone else. The only feeling that came close was when I walked on stage. Nerves and excitement and adrenaline all at once. Love was a scary thing.

He twisted the dagger in me by saying it out loud. That meant he’d consistently ignored me, that he didn’t care enough to respond. “So, can we talk?” I needed this, and he did too. How was I supposed to get over the love I left behind when I’d never wanted to leave him behind in the first place? I needed to tell him that at least. But he stared at me with a look of anger, and then he blinked and it was gone. All the pain, all the emotion, all the passion we had between us was gone. He’d turned it all off. “Fine. Let’s go to the garden then.” “The garden?” I squeaked out. I hadn’t been back there in years, not since the last time I’d gone with him. He lifted a brow. “You have a problem with the garden, Kee?” “It’s just, we used to—” “You scared of a few memories?” He looked me up and down like my love for him had been some childish thing. I wanted to scream at him for that and remind him that once upon a time, he’d loved me too.

We’d spent hours there.

“They must have forgotten …” I choked on the word, and Dex’s eyes narrowed. I hadn’t told him about my mom. It wasn’t his place anymore to know. “They must have forgotten about this place,” I whispered out.

“Your parents have better things to do than keep up a little garden that means nothing, Keelani.”

“Dex, this garden meant something to me,” I admitted. “It meant something to us.” His green eyes scanned the area. “A high school crush is barely something to fret over.” Flippantly, he dismissed all we’d had. “Is that all it was to you?” “What more could it be? You left and moved on. So did I.” Why did I want him to not mean it? Why did I need him to hurt like I did? Because I still loved him. I still dreamed of this spot. I still held on to the taste of his lips, the feel of his hands, the way his heart beat with mine. “I didn’t move on,” I uttered, my voice cracking under the weight of my emotion. “I called you and—” He stepped close to me and put his hand on my cheek as one tear fell from my eye. His thumb immediately brushed it away, like he was taking care of me even while the words he said were cold. “I didn’t answer, Kee, because I didn’t care.” “So you don’t care at all, then?” He sighed like he was dealing with a child, then he tilted my head up so his lips were aligned with mine. “Do you feel something when I kiss you, Kee? Tell me. Do you get butterflies?” This time he kissed me softly, so softly. My eyes fluttered closed to take in how featherlight his touch could be, how he could treat me like I was precious. “I feel everything,” I confessed because I at least could honor our relationship even if he wouldn’t. I opened my eyes to search his. “I want you still, Dex.”

that jaw flex wasn’t fake. He wanted me too.

Maybe I was lonely, maybe I was still torn apart from what had happened before, or maybe I simply still loved him.

He was fighting this, and we’d both been stubborn for years. I didn’t want to be anymore.

Talking to him wasn’t working. We weren’t solving anything, yet I’d missed him so much I couldn’t stop trying to convince him. I needed him any way I could get him. But I’d lost him. And I didn’t know if I’d ever get him back. Maybe the Dex I knew was gone forever and this man was left in his wake.

And then she asked for a last time. Didn’t she know we’d never even really gotten started?

“Because you don’t deserve that part of me when you can’t give me all of you.” “I want to, Dex. I’ve always wanted to,” she whimpered. “Look at me when you say that. I want to know you mean it.” Her eyes shot open, and her deep-brown irises were filled with pain. “I’ve only ever meant it for you, Dex.” “Is that so? Is this all for me too?”

She was here with me, and it was all I really wanted. I loved the girl even if she didn’t love me enough to stay.

Another memory. Not a present or a future, just a past. Did she realize it felt like a dagger every time she talked about us this way?

“I don’t want to fuck you in the middle of a garden, Kee.” “Dex—” “I don’t really want to fuck with you at all anymore.” I said the words aloud so we could both believe them. “I want to talk. I can explain—” “There’s nothing to explain. Neither of us lives here anymore. You’re not a part of my life. And I never want you to be.” “Dex.” Her body shuddered at my words, and then she wrapped her arms around her chest. Fuck, I wanted to hold her.

“Stop calling me. Go live that glitzy life you always wanted.” I needed this closure, and so did she. “But that’s not why I’m doing this—” “I don’t care why you’re doing it, pretty girl. I just don’t want any part of it. It’s why I don’t pick up when you call, why I don’t text back. I barely even read the texts, Kee. I’m living my life.” Yeah, I’d ignored all sixty-five texts. I hadn’t read them each twenty-five times over. I hadn’t figured out a way to ping where they were coming from. I certainly wasn’t obsessed with her twenty-four-seven. That would have been unhealthy. “How can you say that?” One tear fell from each eye, but she swiped them both away. How could I keep the cycle of our hell going? We were broken, and we kept breaking each other. One of us had to stop. “I’m letting go of a childhood love, heartbreaker.” “Don’t call me that.” She said it with venom but the nickname fit. “Whatever, Kee. We went through trauma together, but it doesn’t mean we can’t move on.”

A love so profound that I’d never get over it, but I couldn’t share that. My pride had already been lost to her once. Now, I was graduating college, getting opportunities of a lifetime to work on patented software. And she was soaring in her career.

“I want whatever I can have with you.” “You can’t have anything now,” I said and stood back up. “You look pretty in a garden, Keelani. You should tell your record label you want a garden on your next album cover.” “Is that all you think I care about?” The question was uttered in pain. I lifted a brow. “Isn’t it?” The way she looked at me with dejection, I swear it made the air shift around us. That garden would haunt me for years to come. “Do you really think I don’t love you?” What she didn’t understand was that this whole town had turned on me. Even my parents questioned how much I’d given her to drink that night. And her parents, well, I couldn’t face them after the PR stunt that was pulled. I distanced myself completely, compartmentalizing it all in order to survive. I came home, I engaged with my family, and then I left.

“I don’t know, Kee. All I know is that you said you didn’t love me once.” “I didn’t mean it.” I stepped back and away from her. “Yes, well, I mean it when I say I don’t love you now.” I didn’t mean it either.

“You look like a sad little seal who got stranded out of water even while you’re trying to disappear into another book.”

Interesting. The woman seemed quiet, but her tone had bite. Her tan skin seemed to shimmer, and her pixie-like features made me glance more than once at her ears to confirm she wasn’t an elf. “Pink.” Dimitri didn’t even look up from his phone as he sighed. “I’m not saying we learned anything from college at all. I learned from practice and from getting my feet wet.”

No one had made that happen other than Dimitri.

Dimitri patted her head and smiled at me. “Don’t worry. Pink doesn’t talk to anyone outside the casino.” She stopped doing my makeup and squinted her smoky-eyelined blue irises at me before she turned her ice-cold gaze on Dimitri. “Pat me like that again and I’ll talk to everyone, including Bane, about how you’re petting me like a fucking dog.” Dimitri held up his hands like he was being held at gunpoint. “Duly noted.”

“I know you don’t.” He smiled big and winked. “That’s why I’m telling you to. Call me if you need me.” “Not if, always when,” I recited the line, and Olive mouthed it because she knew it was our saying by now.

“It’s only one night. And maybe he won’t even be listening. I bet he doesn’t even know half the songs are about him.” What a pep talk.

She was abrasive but in a sort of loving way, like she might hate the world, but she’d fight the whole world for you too.

“That good-girl act, the all-American sweetheart thing, has got to be a load of shit.” She turned to my friend. “Am I right? No one can possibly doll up like a cute Hawaiian Barbie all the time and say yes, please, and no, thank you twenty-four-seven.” Olive didn’t even hesitate. “She’s got the sweetheart down pat for about as long as the cameras are rolling and not a second longer.” “Olive, what the hell?”

“Well, that is my brand, and I—” “You’ve got the casino backing you now. Do you know what that means?” “Well, no, because—” “It means you can do whatever the fuck you want. Bane and Dex aren’t going to let anything happen to you.”

“Yeah, I know him.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about him. Or the Hardys. You know they take care of what’s theirs. So, show them what you’re made of. We should have some fun.”

“I’m just thinking”—she wrinkled her nose like she hated what she was about to say—“maybe it’s time to start putting a little more of yourself out there, sing some of the songs you want, be a little more yourself, and—” “Definitely screw Dex once or twice. See if the dick still fits,” Pink finished for her. My jaw dropped. “Wow.” “I know.” She stared at me with those eyes, no shame in them at all. “I’m a lot. It’s fine. Love it or hate it.” I glanced at Olive who whispered, “I kind of love it.” I turned to look back in the mirror and sighed. “I have a good brand.” “That you hate.” Olive nudged Pink, like they were a team. “Right. You need to show him and everyone that you’re more than a brand. Plus, sounds like you loved little Dex at one point or—” “I… Honestly, Ethan is—” “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not an idiot.” Her eyes lit up with fire then. “Don’t waste time treating me like one. I get that enough. You’re here for a while, so don’t lie to the crazy makeup artist who will be doing your face every night.” Silence descended on the room, heavy with questions from me and judgment from her. Yet, I immediately envied how direct she was with nothing to hide, and part of me wanted it. “Fine,” I whispered and glanced at Olive. “Redo my hair. Add more eyeshadow too.”

“Please make me look amazing. I want him to salivate even if he hates me.” I admitted it quietly, worrying my hands over the fact that I had to sing the love songs I’d written about him in front of him tonight. Some songs were ones I’d literally sung to him years ago in the lilacs, where I’d begged him to do more with me when we were just kids. And he'd always said then, “You want to keep me a secret, you can wait to do more with me until I’m not one, Kee.” The problem was that I never wanted him to be a secret. I just needed him to be. My songs were apologies to him, love notes to him, heartbreak about him. He’d hear the words and know. He’d have to know, and all I would have tonight would be my looks for armor.

I sang about forever. I sang about a love that would never be lost. I sang about him. About forever with Dex, even if I couldn’t have it.