Crash

“Oh, I see,” mom said, shoving her glasses on top of her head. “That’s all right, just call next time you’re going to be home so late, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, grabbing a couple cookies from the jar because I was, for the first time in a week, hungry. “Night, mom,” I said, charging up the stairs.

“Lucy, wait,” she said, grabbing something from her desk and crossing the room. “This came earlier today.” She was grinning, grinning. My mom had smiled before, but I couldn’t recall a time she’d grinned.

Glancing down at the stuffed manila folder she was holding, I understood why. My knees buckled right before I collapsed on the stairs.

“Juilliard,” she said, holding it out to me with both hands like it was an offering.

I’d been waiting for this for the past year. Well, I’d been waiting for this since the day I learned what Juilliard was all about. Here it was, waiting on the platter of my mom’s hands, deciding for me what future I would live.

Knowing one piece of mail had the final say in letting me live the dream I’d always wanted was crippling.

“This thing is pretty thick,” mom said, extending it closer, “and my psychic abilities are telling me this is a welcome packet. So tear this sucker open and let’s celebrate.”

Juilliard. Dance. Dreams. Future. It was all there, or not there, one envelope rip away. But I wasn’t ready for it.

“Thanks, mom,” I said, grabbing the packet and running up the stairs.

“You’re not going to open it?” she asked, looking at me like I’d caught a nasty case of crazy.

“Not now,” I said, yawning. “I’m exhausted and would probably fall asleep before I read the first paragraph. I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

“Lucy?” Her voice was tight, worried.

“I’m good, mom,” I said, looking down at her from the top stair. “I swear. I’m just beat. I promise you’ll be the first to know once I open this baby up.” I waved the packet at her.

“All right,” she said, followed up with a have it your way look. “Sometime I just can’t figure you out.”

“That makes two of us,” I mumbled, running all the way to my room.

The packet haunted me from my desk all weekend long. Mom didn’t push the issue and I just couldn’t find the balls to open some damn letter. I didn’t even mention it to Jude when he called first thing Saturday morning. I’d wanted to get together that night again, maybe dinner and a movie, or maybe picking up right where we’d left off in the ballet studio, but apparently, other than school-related functions, weekends at a boys’ home were synonymous with work. So in between fighting an internal battle in my bedroom, I took a few walks and gritted my teeth and danced through the pain I’d inflicted Friday night. Monday morning couldn’t get here fast enough.

I parked the Mazda and was all clear through the metal detectors ten minutes before class began. The halls were empty save for a few zero hour students and tired eyed teachers. I knew better than to look for Jude this early before class, but it didn’t stop me from stopping by his locker to make sure. My frown was just forming in front of his empty locker when a strong hand grabbed mine and began leading me down the hallway. I didn’t need to identify the grey thermal or the worn beanie to know whose hand held mine.

Jude didn’t say anything, he didn’t even glance back at me; he just powered through the hallway, shoving into a dark room at the end of the hall.

“Good morning to you too—” But my words were cut short as he shoved me up against a wall, his hands and mouth landing on me like they’d been starved all weekend.

I kissed him back, winding my arms around his neck. And then, because close wasn’t close enough, I put my dancer’s strength and flexibility to good use and leapt up, winding both legs around his hips. He groaned, pressing me harder against the wall, his mouth moving in and over mine with such fury I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care. In fact, passing out because Jude Ryder had been kissing the breath out of me sounded like something to add to the life goal list.

Right when I was certain this was it, this was the time and place we were going to go all the way, his mouth slowed at the same time he lowered me to the ground. Now was not the time for slowing down, not when everything was quickening in me, about to explode if we didn’t keep going.

I groaned when he pressed one final kiss into my mouth.

“Good morning,” he said, grinning like an idiot.

I groaned again when he took a step back.

“I missed you too.”

I tried to glare at him, but apparently it was a physical impossibility when the person who’d just kissed the living breath out of you was grinning in front of you. “You’re mean.”

“I know,” he said, brushing my hair back, “but the image of that got me through a long weekend. I needed that.”

“You’d been dreaming this up in your mind all weekend?” My stomach managed yet another flip-flop.

“That was all I thought about.”

Double flip and flop. “Did it meet your expectations?”

“Exceeded them,” he said, leaning in. “But in my dreams you were wearing this short school girl skirt and nothing underneath.” I felt his smile curve into place as he kissed my neck.

“Tomorrow’s another day,” I breathed, squeezing my legs together in agony. “Keep dreaming big.”