The Girl of Diamonds and Rust (The Half Shell Series Book 3) Read online

  I focus on my fork as I cut into the slice of cake we’re sharing. “I don’t know what we’re doing, Neil. I’m not there yet. And I can’t think about Seattle yet.”

  Neil leans back in his chair, his eyes intense. “I leave tomorrow. You had better figure out what you want soon, Chrissie.”

  Oh God. How did we get from having coffee together to talking about us again? I’m not even close to having a reasonable response to that, but the thought of Neil leaving in the morning makes my insides collapse.

  Tilting back his head, Neil finishes his coffee in one long swallow, then collects the trash from our table and throws it away.

  He stands beside the table, and I don’t rise.

  Finally, he says, “We’re good together, Chrissie. That should tell you everything you need to know about us. What more do you need from a guy?”

  There’s an edge of hurt to Neil’s voice that cuts at my heart, and I stare down at my coffee.

  “I don’t know.”

  He crouches down until he’s at eye level with me. “I love you. What more do you need to know?”

  I look away, fixing my vision on a vacant space across the food court. I grow more rattled each time he says I love you to me and more panicked each time I think about him leaving. What a stupid contradiction of reactions. They make no sense. No wonder I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do about Neil and me.

  He cups my face with his palms. “We’re doing good, Chrissie. Don’t fuck us up a second time over Alan Manzone. We’re perfect together. You know it. Just let me love you.”

  His voice is breathy. Ragged. Intense.

  The last thing I was prepared for was a plea from Neil not to end us delivered in front of our stupid, hippie vegan restaurant. Is that why he brought me here? To push me for a decision away from the condo, away from Rene?

  I suddenly feel frazzled and disoriented. “Please, can we not do this now?”

  He holds me against him, his body molding into me, his arms holding me close. It feels so good against his body. It would be easy to go with the flow and just be with Neil.

  He whispers, “He will never need you the way I need you. He will never want you as I want you. He will never love you the way I love you. I don’t care if you are in love with Alan. I’m in love with you. Don’t go to Santa Barbara. Come to Seattle with me.”

  I feel his lips move along the side of my neck in light kisses and touches, and my body begins to ease into the contact, wanting it, even though I order myself not to.

  It is too soon to think about trying again with Neil. Too soon to think about my life. Too soon to think about anything. April wasn’t that long ago. I’m not over it yet, and there are too many parts of me trapped in the past, mourning and hurting.

  “It’s all happening too fast, Neil. I can’t think. I need time.”

  “Fast? We’ve been together four years. Come to Seattle with me. Who says we’ve got to figure out everything today? Say fuck it to everything. Leave Berkeley and all the shit behind. I think it would be good for you to go out on the road with me for a while. You don’t have to stay on tour with me. You can leave if it’s not good. Just come with me. You don’t have to decide anything. I just want you with me.”

  His impatience presses in on my already overly raw nerves. “I can’t give you an answer. Not today.”

  Neil runs a hand through his hair, angry. “Fuck, Chrissie, I can’t stay any longer and I don’t want to leave without you. What are you going to do? Go back to Santa Barbara and wait around for some asshole who won’t ever call you? Is that your plan?”

  The earth falls away beneath me. That was mean, Neil. So mean.

  “I don’t have a plan,” I say into Neil’s acutely waiting silence.

  After what seems like a monumental amount of time, he says, “You’re coming to Seattle with me, Chrissie. You won’t let me walk out that door without you. You just don’t know it yet.”

  I frown, trying to process his words. He sounds so certain. But even I don’t know yet what I’m going to do at that moment when life forces me to choose right or left; the moment we either part again or stay together.

  “Don’t force me to make decisions about us. I’m not there yet.”

  He brushes my tense cheek with his thumb. “Then don’t make a decision. Don’t make a plan. Don’t think. Just come to Seattle with me, Chrissie.”

  He says it as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Don’t think. Just come. Is life really that simple for Neil?

  He straightens up and holds out his hand to me. “Come on. We should get home. You’ve still got packing to do.”

  I’m silent as we walk back to the condo. If Neil is irritated with me, it doesn’t show. In fact he looks sort of happy. He’s smiling, though there is nothing about our discussion that should make Neil smile. But then he rarely gets angry and his temper always cools fast. He can’t stay angry. He’s uncomfortable being hurtful. And even though he sometimes gives me a nudge here and there, he doesn’t push hard, not like Alan. Neil is the exact opposite of Alan.

  It’s a short walk to the complex. In only a few minutes we’re in the elevator, Neil leaning against one mirrored wall and me against another.

  I slant a look at him and some of my anxiousness wanes. He doesn’t seem the slightest bit distressed and doesn’t have the look of someone who intends any more weighty discussions today. He’s just sort of there, letting me be.

  The doors open and he has my hand again. Outside our door, he fishes in his pocket, and removes his key chain. I can feel my eyes widen as I watch him unlock the door. I hadn’t noticed before now that Neil still had a key to my place, that I had forgotten to ask for it back when we broke up in December. Strange, but I didn’t even think of taking back my key.

  Inside the condo I freeze. The condo looks like it’s been hit by a hurricane. We were only gone for four hours and it doesn’t even look like home anymore. Tall moving boxes sealed with black—or pink?—tape make it nearly impossible to get across the living room. In giant letters names have been written on the cardboard. Rene. Rene. Rene. Chrissie…shit, she started packing my things, too.

  I rapidly notice the rest of the room. The pictures are gone from the walls. The books from the shelves. The CDs and albums. All the stupid clutter Rene and I accumulated in four years here, gone.

  The music is blasting, and my anxious gaze floats through the room, but I don’t see Rene. How the heck did she do this in four hours? Jeez, I knew we had to finish packing today, but I didn’t expect it look like this and I definitely didn’t expect it to plunge my emotions into free-fall again.

  My brain can’t keep up with what’s happening here. Neil makes a low whistle, pulling me from my stupor. “Someone is eager to get out of Berkeley,” he says, amused and jeering. He looks at some boxes, pausing at one with his name written on it. “She might have let us pack up our own shit, don’t you think?”

  “Rene? Are you here?” I call out.

  The music switches off and Rene comes bouncing from the kitchen. She’s dressed in short-short cutoff overalls and a tube top, her black hair pushed back from her face in a pink bandana. Perspiration speckles her rich olive skin.

  She smiles, brushing at a wayward curl with a forearm. “I’ve packed all the kitchen things and marked them to go to LA for my new apartment, like you said I could.” She stares down at something in her hand. “Do you want this or can I keep it?”

  I maneuver through the boxes to see what she’s looking at. It’s a picture of the three of us our first Christmas after Neil moved in.

  I hold out my hand, a lump rising in my throat. “No. I want to keep this.”

  Rene shakes her head and sighs. “I sort of like it. I was hoping you’d let me keep it.” She stares at me expectantly, I stare back, and then she sets it next to an unsealed box. “Fine, you can have it.” She taps two boxes. “These ones are yours, Chrissie. I haven’t sealed and labeled them yet. You can finish putting your stuff in
here. I haven’t even started on your bedroom.”

  “Let’s not have you packing our stuff from the bedroom,” Neil says, sitting down on the couch.

  Rene sticks out her tongue at him. “What’s the matter? Afraid I might get all hot and bothered looking at your boxers?”

  Neil laughs. “Nope. More afraid you might steal Josh Moss’s phone number from my address book.”

  Rene flushes, her eyes sparkly. “Asshole!” She crosses her arms. “So how is Josh?”

  “Josh will be here tomorrow. He’s driving back to Seattle with me.” A teasing glint brightens Neil’s eyes. “Might be your last chance with him, Rene.”

  She scrunches up her nose and shrugs. “Too bad my plane leaves at 6 a.m. Well, it’s his loss.”

  Neil laughs and clicks on the TV. It’s one of the only things in the room not disconnected or shoved into a box.

  I finally find my voice. “I can’t believe you packed my things without me. I don’t even know what’s in the boxes. I thought we were going to do this together. You didn’t even wait for me.”

  Both Rene and Neil stare at me. Shit! Why did that have to come out so loud and sound so irrational?

  Rene arches a brow. “My plane leaves early in the morning. We can’t put it off any longer, Chrissie.”

  In the morning. I tense. For the first time it sinks in and holds the feel of realness that we are all leaving tomorrow, heading in different directions.

  “Besides, it wouldn’t be right to leave you having to do everything,” she says.

  She takes from her pocket a folded sheet of paper, shoves it at me, and sinks down on the arm of the sofa.

  Her finger moves along the list as I read.

  She says, “That’s my address in LA. That’s my new phone number. That’s my new mobile number…thank you, Patty, for no longer being a cheap-ass mom and getting me a mobile phone. The boxes with the pink tape go to LA. And the boxes with the black tape go to Santa Barbara.”

  I nod. “That’s easy enough to follow.”

  My head is swimming. After twelve years I will no longer be living with Rene. I’ve spent my entire life with her, neighbors in Hope Ranch, sharing a dorm room at boarding school, and now the condo in Berkeley. And poof, tomorrow we will be in different cities with different lives.

  I move toward my bedroom. “I’ll change and be right back to help you finish,” I announce over my shoulder.

  I close my bedroom door and sink down on the bed, trying to will the anxious churning of my stomach to stop. I’m frantic again and I don’t want to be.

  My eyes roam the confines of my bedroom and all the things I still have to do before the movers come tomorrow. Neil’s junk is mingled everywhere with my own. It’s strange how a guy’s things can rest in your bedroom and you don’t even notice them.

  How could I not notice?

  Neil’s belongings are everywhere. A completely normal and comfortable thing. He may have moved out in December, but we have never totally pulled apart our lives, and staring at his possessions I’m shocked to realize it was because I didn’t want to.

  I held on to Neil even after I told him to go.

  I’m not completely clear why I did that. I pick up his picture from my bedside table. I didn’t even put this away. I kept it. Neil has never left me. Not for a moment. He’s been with me every minute of these awful months since December. How could I not see it before today?

  “It’s going to be all right, Chrissie.”

  Neil’s quiet voice makes me turn. He is standing in my bedroom doorway watching me. How long has he been watching? And why is he staring at me that way? The expression in his eyes is compassionate; sad and hopeful at once.

  “You’re going to be OK,” he adds quietly. “I’m going to be OK. If we stay together we will both be OK.”

  I nod, even though I don’t know what I’m nodding about or what Neil means by we will both be OK. There is nothing for Neil to have be OK over. He’s wonderful. Perfect. Emotionally together and not needy.

  He settles on his knees on the floor beside the bed, his body between my legs. I stare at him and he has that look in his eyes, the one that is glorious but makes my heart contract.

  He runs his hands up my thighs. “I’ll help you with this when I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  The edge in my voice surprises us both.

  Neil’s eyes widen, his thumb lightly brushing my cheek. “To get Chinese with Rene. I won’t be long. That vegan carrot cake just didn’t do it for me.”

  I laugh, a little sputter, rough. I lean forward and kiss his hair. “Didn’t do it for me either.”

  Neil smiles. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t care. Surprise me.”

  I watch him leave the room and in a few minutes I hear the front door slam. I change into a pair of sweats and go back into the living room. I stare at the boxes and all the things still unpacked, not sure where to begin.

  I sink onto my knees beside a bookshelf. All our silly photo albums are still there. Rene and I are crazy about making these albums. She probably left that, not knowing which ones she could take and which ones I wanted to keep. God, even Rene moving on is like a breakup, splitting our possession down to single photo albums representing both our lives.

  I pull one out and look at it. Senior year at boarding school. I flip through the pages and then grab another. Freshman year at Cal. Each year of my life neatly pasted into a photo album. I grab another. Every picture is us together. Together or us with Neil. Stupid adventures we had together. Happy moments. Sad moments. Me and Neil. Rene and Neil. The three of us. Or just us.

  I exhale heavily and stare at the room. I don’t know what to take back to Santa Barbara, what to leave, and what to give to Rene. It is so much harder to figure this out than I thought it would be, and I can’t find the will to pull things apart and tuck them away into boxes.

  I’ve slowly carved out a life here. I never would have thought that possible when I started Cal, but now that it’s time to take it apart that’s exactly what it feels like. Like I’m disassembling my life. Maybe this is all that life is: an endless series of assembling a life only to take it apart later. I hope not. The endings are too hard for me.

  I grab another scrapbook and slowly flip through the pages. The door opens and I look up. Jeez, Rene and Neil are already back from the food run.

  Rene’s eyes do a fast examination of the room as she marches briskly toward the kitchen, Chinese cartons in hand. “It doesn’t look like you’ve packed even one thing. Crap, Chrissie. We were gone an hour. You’re not leaving everything for me to get done, are you?”

  I flush. “Nope. Just trying to figure out how to split the photo albums. You’ve left me the hard decisions.”

  Rene pauses in the kitchen doorway and rolls her eyes at me. “Keep them. I don’t care anymore. I just want this done so I can go to bed.”

  She sounds agitated and impatient, and her words hit me like a punch. She’s so excited about the future, her new life, medical school, her new apartment, her new everything…without me.

  I scoop up the scrapbooks and drop them into the box Rene said was mine.

  “There. I’ve packed something. Happy now, Rene?”

  She rolls her eyes and continues into the kitchen. I turn and find Neil watching me strangely.

  “Come eat, Chrissie,” he says quietly. “We’ll finish this together after we eat.”

  That has the unpardonable power to make me feel like crying. Stupid. My emotions are so lame today. Without a word, I follow Neil into the kitchen. Rene is busily setting paper plates on the table since she’s packed up absolutely everything in here she could take for her new apartment, and Neil is opening the cartons.

  I drop heavily into my chair. Neil starts scooping chicken chow mein onto my plate and then settles at the table in his chair between mine and Rene.

  There is a heavy tension in the room and I know that the tension is me and I hate that.<
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  I move my chopsticks in my food and don’t really eat. “What would I do if I go to Seattle and on the road with you?” I ask softly.

  Neil looks up and sits back in his chair. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. Maybe just be with me. We’d be together, Chrissie. I haven’t thought beyond that.”

  Rene’s face snaps up from her plate. “What? What have I missed?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  She frowns. “Are you moving to Seattle? Not Santa Barbara? Does Jack know? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I shrug and say, “I haven’t decided,” and then drop my gaze to fix back on my plate.

  “Would someone tell me what’s going on here?” Rene demands, alarmed.

  I feel the pressure of Neil’s gaze and lift my chin, meeting the lush green of his eyes. “Nothing is going on, Rene. Stay out of it for once, for Christ’s sake.”

  Rene’s eyes widen and I don’t like the way her expression changes. In a minute, Neil picks up his empty plate, dumps it in the trash and leaves the room.

  My eyes follow him from the kitchen, then shift to Rene. Damn, she’s staring at me in that way she has—overly analytical and not pleased with Chrissie.

  Rene frowns. “Did he ask you to move to Seattle with him? Does he want to get back together with you?”

  I ignore the question.

  “God, you’re an idiot,” she hisses under her breath.

  My temper flares. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Rene springs up from the table and starts to angrily scrape the food from the plate into the garbage disposal.

  “You’ve been fucked up since you broke up with him. Neil is a great guy and you’ve done nothing but mess with him for four years,” Rene hisses, shaking her head angrily. “I’m sick of watching it. I’m glad I’m out of here.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She whirls from the sink to face me. “No? Well, here’s what I do know. Even a guy as crazy over you as Neil is will get fed up eventually with your shit and walk away. Grow up, Chrissie. Learn to think about someone else for a change.”