The Problem With Forever. Jennifer L. Armentrout

her.”

      I pulled myself out of the memory, but there were so many of him coming to my rescue for some reason or another until he couldn’t, until the promise of forever had been shattered, and everything...everything had fallen apart.

      His chest rose deeply, and when he spoke, his voice was low and rough. “Is that really you, Mouse?”

      Vaguely aware of the girl on his other side watching us, I saw her eyes go as wide as mine felt. My tongue was useless, which for once was strange, because he...he had been the one person I’d never had any problem talking to, but that had been a different world, a different lifetime.

      That had been forever ago.

      “Mallory?” he whispered. Turned completely toward me, I thought for a second he might climb out of his chair. And that would so be him, because he wasn’t scared of doing anything. Never had been. As close as we were, I saw the faint scar above his right eyebrow, a shade or two lighter than his skin. I remembered how he’d gotten it and my chest ached anew, because that scar symbolized a stale cookie and a shattered ashtray.

      A guy in front of us had twisted around on his stool. “Yo.” He snapped his fingers when he didn’t get a response. “Hey, man? Hello?”

      He ignored the guy, still staring at me like a ghost had appeared right in front of him.

      “Whatever,” the kid muttered, twisting toward the girl, but she, too, ignored him. She was focused on us. The tardy bell rang, and I knew the teacher had entered, because the conversation in the room was quieting.

      “Do you recognize me?” His voice was still barely above a whisper.

      His eyes continued to hold mine, and I spoke what turned out to be the easiest word I’d ever said in my life. “Yes.”

      He rocked back in his chair, straightening as his shoulders tensed. His eyes closed. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his palm against his sternum.

      I jumped in my seat as the teacher smacked his hand on the stack of texts piled on the corner desk, forcing my gaze forward. My heart was still acting as if an out-of-control jackhammer had gone off in my chest.

      “All right, all of you should know who I am since you’re in my class, but just in case some of you are lost, I’m Mr. Santos.” He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. “And this is speech class. If you’re not supposed to be here, you probably should be somewhere else.”

      Mr. Santos continued to speak, but the blood rushing through me drowned out his words, and my thoughts were too caught up in the fact that he was sitting next to me. He was here; after all these years, he was right beside me like he’d been since we were three years old, but he hadn’t seemed happy about seeing me. I didn’t even know what to think. A mixture of hope and desperation swirled inside me, mixing with bitter and sweet memories I’d both clung to and longed to forget.

      He was... I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed against the lump lodged in my throat.

      Textbooks were handed out, followed by a syllabus. Both sat on my desk untouched. Mr. Santos went over the type of speeches we’d be writing and delivering throughout the year, everything from an informative speech to one that would be based on interviewing a fellow classmate. While I’d been seconds away from full freak-out mode when I’d walked into the class, the prospect of having to give multiple speeches in front of thirty people was now the furthest thing from my thoughts.

      I stared straight ahead, realizing that Keira was also in this class, sitting in front of the guy who’d tried to get his attention at the beginning. I wasn’t sure she’d noticed me when I entered the class. Then again, maybe she did and didn’t care. Why would she have? Just because she spoke to me in one class didn’t mean she was lining up to be my BFF.

      My lunch fail seemed like it happened years ago. Each breath I took I was aware of. Unable to stop myself, I tucked my hair back as I glanced to my left.

      My gaze collided with his, and I sucked in an unsteady breath. When we were younger, I could always read his expression. But now? His face was completely impassive. Was he happy? Angry? Sad? Or as confused as me? I didn’t know, but he didn’t try to hide the fact that he was staring.

      Heat infused my cheeks as I averted my gaze, and somehow I ended up looking at the girl beside him. She was staring straight ahead, lips pressed in a thin, firm line. My gaze dropped to where her hands were balled into fists, resting on top of the desk. I looked away again.

      Maybe five minutes passed before I caved and peeked at him again. He wasn’t looking in my direction, but his jaw was working, causing a muscle to thrum in his cheek. All I could do was gawk at him like a total idiot, incapable of much more.

      When he was younger, anyone could tell he’d grow into someone with heart-stopping looks. He had the framework for it—big eyes, expressive lips, and defined bone structure. Sometimes that had been a...a really bad thing for him. He had received all kinds of attention. It seemed like Mr. Henry had wanted to break him like he was fine china. Then there were the men that roamed in and out of the house. Some of them had... They had been too interested in him.

      Mouth dry, I shut those thoughts off. I shouldn’t be so shocked by how attractive he’d turned out, but as Ainsley would say, he was stupid-hot.

      While Mr. Santos was passing out index cards for some reason I’d missed, the guy in front of us turned around again, his sea-moss-colored gaze direct. “You good for after school?”

      I couldn’t help it. My gaze flickered to him. Lips taut and arms folded across his chest, he nodded curtly.

      The guy raised dark brows before he glanced in Mr. Santos’s direction. “We need to talk to Jayden.”

      Jayden? I thought about the boy I’d almost plowed over in the hall.

      The girl looked over, head cocked to the side.

      “Got it, Hector,” he replied, voice clipped, and I was struck by how deep his voice was now. A moment passed as his chin tilted toward me.

      Flushing, I looked away, but not before I caught Hector’s curious green gaze flicker to me. The rest of the class was an exercise in stealing glances at him, as if I needed to see him to remind myself that he was seriously sitting there. I wasn’t really good at being furtive, because I was pretty sure the girl on the other side of him, the girl that had been touching him quite familiarly on the way into the class, caught me about half a dozen times.

      As the minutes ticked by, my stomach began to churn around the ever-increasing knots that were forming. Anxiety circled like a viper waiting to attack with its crippling venom.

      Pressure closed my throat, a steel vise squeezing until it eked every last breath out of me. An icy burn crawled up the back of my neck and then splashed across the base of my skull. My next breath hitched, and I felt it—the flash-flood feeling of losing all control.

      Breathe.

      I needed to breathe.

      Curling my fingers into my palms, I forced my chest to rise and fall evenly and willed my heart to slow down. When I had been in therapy, Dr. Taft had drilled into me the fact that I wasn’t losing control of my body when this happened. It was basically all in my head, sometimes triggered by a certain loud sound or a scent that would throw me back in time. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure what was triggering it.

      Today I knew.

      The trigger was sitting right beside me. This panic was real, because he was real, and the past he symbolized wasn’t a product of my brain.

      What would I say to him when the bell rang and school was over? Four years had gone by since that night. Would he even want to talk to me? Or what if he didn’t want to talk to me?

      Oh, God.

      What if my being back here wasn’t something he’d hoped for or even thought about? He had... He had taken a lot of crap for me, because of me. While there were good moments over the course of our ten years together, there