Forever in Love

  DEDICATION

  To Katherine Tegen

  for all of the possibilities

  you bring to life

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Sadie

  Chapter 2: Darcy

  Chapter 3: Rosanna

  Chapter 4: Sadie

  Chapter 5: Darcy

  Chapter 6: Rosanna

  Chapter 7: Sadie

  Chapter 8: Darcy

  Chapter 9: Rosanna

  Chapter 10: Sadie

  Chapter 11: Darcy

  Chapter 12: Rosanna

  Chapter 13: Sadie

  Chapter 14: Darcy

  Chapter 15: Rosanna

  Chapter 16: Sadie

  Chapter 17: Darcy

  Chapter 18: Rosanna

  Chapter 19: Sadie

  Chapter 20: Darcy

  Chapter 21: Rosanna

  Chapter 22: Sadie

  Chapter 23: Darcy

  Chapter 24: Rosanna

  Chapter 25: Sadie

  Chapter 26: Darcy

  Chapter 27: Rosanna

  Chapter 28: Sadie

  Chapter 29: Darcy

  Chapter 30: Rosanna

  Chapter 31: Sadie

  Chapter 32: Darcy

  Chapter 33: Rosanna

  Chapter 34: Sadie

  Chapter 35: Darcy

  Chapter 36: Rosanna

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Books by Susane Colasanti

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  SADIE

  I NEVER KNEW SILENCE COULD be so loud.

  This is the loudest silence of all. Buzzing with things left unspoken. Humming with the discomfort of a forced reunion. But here we are. My parents; my brother, Marnix; and me. Having dinner at our small dining room table like we are any other average family. Kind of how we pretended it was before Marnix and I left for college. The throwback tableau appears perfect as long as you don’t squint at it too hard.

  I can’t believe I’m back here in the West Village apartment I grew up in. The one I fled right after I graduated from high school. Even though I moved to another apartment in the same neighborhood, it still counted as a victorious escape. Living with Darcy and Rosanna this summer in our University of New York student housing apartment has been a sweet taste of freedom. Visiting my parents for a few minutes here and there is one thing. But sitting here with them and Marnix at Sunday dinner like the good little family we never were is a joke.

  “Can you pass the corn?” Marnix asks Mom.

  Mom scrambles to slam down her glass, swallow the water in her mouth without choking, and grab the platter of roasted corn on the cob. Her bustling to give Marnix exactly what he wants, exactly when he wants it, would lead one to suspect that the corn’s true identity is a nuclear bomb. If Marnix can’t defuse the ticking corn within the next thirty seconds, the entire population of New York City could die.

  “This corn is delicious!” Mom gushes. “Best corn of the summer. Nothing beats that farm stand in New Jersey for freshness. Isn’t that right, Ron?”

  “Best farm stand in Jersey,” Dad confirms.

  “And the tomatoes! Oh my gosh, Marnix, you should have been here in July. The Jersey tomatoes were bursting with flavor. You could eat them with nothing on them at all. One night we had tomato salads for dinner—just chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, croutons, salt, pepper, and olive oil—and it was unbelievable. The produce has been excellent this summer. Something about the amount of rain we got . . .”

  Mom’s manic bubble pops when she looks at Marnix and actually sees him. Slumped down in his chair. Clearly wishing he were anywhere but here. There was no way Marnix could have been home in July. He shouldn’t even be in New York right now. He should be in Tucson, Arizona, where he goes to college. The next time we should be seeing him is Christmas.

  But here he is. Back at the table that’s been a part of this apartment since before we existed. Eating Jersey-fresh corn on the cob while Mom’s forced conversation glosses over everything that is wrong with this picture. Tonight is Marnix’s first night back home. Mom has been acting weird since he got here. She’s always been a cheerful person, but anyone could see how fake she’s being tonight. She has only touched on upbeat, peppy topics instead of drifting into her usual passionate discussions with my dad about everything from endangered species and the overall destruction of our planet to the increasing prices of health insurance and college tuition. Like she thinks being herself around her own son would send him over the edge. Is she going to walk on eggshells around Marnix until he goes back to Arizona?

  “We should do this every Sunday night,” Mom says. “Sunday family dinner! Wouldn’t that be fun?” She beams at me expectantly. “That way we would be able to see you more when school starts.”

  “Sunday family dinner.” I try to match her enthusiasm. “That would be awesome.” There is no way I am playing this twisted game every single week. Marnix won’t go for it, either.

  “Marnix, what do you think?” Mom asks.

  “Might as well.” He butters the other half of his corn. Marnix has always eaten corn on the cob this way. He likes to butter one half and eat it before he tackles the other half. “Since this is where I live. Again.”

  Mom beams some more. “It’s only temporary. Just until you get your feet on the ground.”

  Marnix puts down his butter knife, carefully balancing the blade on his plate with the sharp edge facing away. He looks at Mom.

  “Is that what you’re calling it?” he says. “Getting my feet on the ground? What does that even mean?”

  Mom is startled. “I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean anything by it. You can stay here as long as you’d like.”

  “Okay then,” he fires back. “How about not at all?”

  “Watch your tone,” Dad says. “Your mother is only trying to help you. You should be grateful.”

  “Grateful?” Marnix snorts. “Helping? How is she helping? By having me committed to a rehab facility? By keeping me prisoner in this apartment for the rest of the summer? By threatening that I might miss next semester if I don’t snap out of it? If she wanted to help me, she would leave me alone!”

  “That’s enough!” Dad yells.

  I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. Dad never yells. Except for those scary fights he used to have with Marnix.

  “What?” Marnix taunts. “You’re going to send me to my room? Don’t bother.” He pushes his chair away from the table, dropping a summery orange linen napkin from his lap onto the table. “I’m one step ahead of you.” Marnix pounds down the hall to his room so heavily that my chair trembles with the vibrating hardwood floors. Then he slams his door.

  This whole scene takes me right back to high school. Marnix was always slamming his door back then. It terrified me every time.

  When I was a freshman and Marnix was a junior, he started having these enraged fits. One day he was the same quiet boy I’d always known, locking himself away in his room for hours and not speaking to any of us at dinner. Then he changed into a boy who would snap over the most minor thing. He had loud fights with our parents that were so awful I hid in my room. One time I even blockaded my door. Mom said it was hormones. Dad said he’d grow out of it. He never did. His door slamming was usually the beginning of one of his fits. By the time he left for college, I was still scared every time I heard it.

  I don’t know if he’s been different at college. Maybe living away from us in the dorms has mellowed him out. I know I’m a lot more aware of my behavior now that I have two roommates. The last thing I want to do is irritate them in any way. So it’s possible Marnix could hav
e calmed down in a new environment with new people. But even if he did, there was obviously still something wrong.

  Marnix tried to kill himself. That’s why he was in rehab. That’s why he came home.

  All I know is that it happened in April near the end of last semester. Mom says she doesn’t know why he did it. Apparently Marnix wasn’t ready to talk about it during the weekly visits my parents made to his rehab facility upstate, and Marnix’s psychiatrist told our parents they shouldn’t push him. He said that when Marnix is ready to talk about it, he will come to them.

  So this is the first time I’ve seen Marnix since last Christmas. A sister seeing her brother should be a normal thing. But with us, nothing has ever been normal.

  I was so nervous walking over here. I built up an arsenal of things to say, conversation starters to use in case we got lost in awkward silence. We never really talked much before, and we definitely weren’t affectionate. But when I put my key in the door and came into the living room tonight, Marnix looked relieved to see me. He jumped off the couch and gave me a big hug.

  “Hey, you,” he said. “I’m psyched you’re here. Mom’s acting crazy.”

  “What else is new?” A smile broke out on my face. I couldn’t remember Marnix ever hugging me before. I thought that maybe things would be different now.

  But then the fight happened at dinner. And Marnix stomped away to his room, slamming his door. Same old story.

  Marnix’s abandoned place at the table is sad. A corner of his napkin fell across the buttered half of his corn when he dropped it. The butter has seeped through his napkin, a dark spot oozing over the bright backdrop.

  The dark spot kind of reminds me of my life right now. This summer was supposed to be bright and cheerful. But it is not turning out the way I was expecting. Not at all.

  CHAPTER 2

  DARCY

  THE GUY WHO WAS ALL bossy about ordering his drink gets up in my face.

  “This isn’t two percent,” he accuses.

  “Um, excuse me.” The lady next in line pierces Bossy Guy with a withering glare far surpassing the intensity of his. He was totally asking for it. When I gave him his drink, he scurried off to his table like a good little customer. But then he hustled back up to the counter like we weren’t about to set the world record for Longest Line Ever. The withering glarer was in the middle of ordering when he interrupted her.

  “I was here,” Bossy Guy tells her. “They messed up my drink.” He slams his cup down on the counter. Apparently my identity has been reduced to They, regardless of the name tag on my black tank top that clearly reads DARCY.

  “Your drink was made correctly,” I say. “With two-percent milk.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m the one who made it.”

  We stare each other down for a few eons. Bossy Guy, infuriated that his pretentious coffee drink was made so skillfully he couldn’t tell two-percent milk from whole. Me, aka They, standing strong behind the barista counter, mentally willing him to take his drink back so I don’t have to make another one.

  Because I’m a barista now. At my job. Where I work.

  “Whatever,” he growls, snatching the cup back.

  “Sorry about that,” I apologize to the lady he interrupted. “What would you like?” Her makeup is flawless and she’s overdressed for a Sunday. My guess is she won’t be staying. She is one of the many New Yorkers zipping through Java Stop on her way to wherever she’s already late to, expecting her drink to be ready way faster than it physically takes to make. I never realized how impatient New Yorkers were about their coffee before. And of course I never knew how long it took to make any of these drinks. I’ve always been on the other side of the counter, ordering my double espresso without thinking about the logistics of not only making it, but making it well.

  Until now.

  Turns out that when Darcy Stewart is facing a life-or-death situation, she can actually learn how to make something without burning the place down. I was the girl who scorched eggs. I was the girl who set off the smoke detector that one time I was trying to cook dinner. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become the girl behind the counter at Java Stop.

  And not just any Java Stop. The same Java Stop on Bleecker Street that Sadie protested in front of.

  Sadie was devastated when I told her.

  “How can you work there?” she wailed. We were having movie night with Rosanna at our place the night I got the job. I was on the couch, Sadie took the puffy armchair, and Rosanna had the violet pouf. “Java Stop is evil. Do you not remember our cardboard sign? Save the West Village?!”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I apologized. “Trust me, I don’t want to be working there any more than you want me to. But they were the only ones who would hire me without previous job experience.”

  “So . . . are you a cashier, or . . . ?”

  “Both. Cashier and barista. Whoever takes the order makes the drink.”

  “But . . .” Rosanna exchanged a look with Sadie. “No offense, but do they know you’re not experienced with making drinks and stuff?”

  “Yes. They are training me. Don’t worry, they’re not letting me make anyone’s drink until I know what I’m doing. The machines do most of the work anyway. How hard can it be?”

  Hard. Much harder than I expected. Which is what I found out when I was allowed to start making drinks last week. Fretting over the perfect degree of foam density while a long line of impatient New Yorkers agitating for their caffeine fix are waiting behind you brings stress to a whole new level.

  “Here you go.” I place Overdressed Lady’s small-batch, cold-brewed coffee on the counter. She doesn’t tip when she pays for it. I knew she wouldn’t. I was surprised to discover that people who look like they can’t afford to tip are the ones who tip most frequently.

  This line is outrageously long. It’s been like this on and off all afternoon. Sadie said Manhattan was empty in August. Is every person not at the beach today here? The only thing getting me through this shift is my plan to meet up with Sadie and Rosanna after work. We’re going to walk around and see where the night takes us. Out on the streets, I will feel like myself again.

  And that’s not all. I am going to tell them why I’m really working at Java Stop. Sadie and Rosanna probably didn’t buy the story that Daddy insisted I needed some work experience. That was the only excuse I could think of when I told them I got a job. I’ve tried to tell them the real reason so many times before. But this is it. They have to know. I have to stop being humiliated about something I can’t even control.

  At the end of my shift, I burst through the Java Stop door like a prisoner breaking out of jail. Except I will be returning behind bars tomorrow for another day of lattes and long lines.

  Rosanna and Sadie are waiting for me at the corner of Barrow Street. Sadie gives me a sympathetic smile.

  “How was it?” she asks. She knows I hate working there even more than she hates that I work there.

  “Exactly how you think, only worse.”

  “It kills me to say this, but I do enjoy how you smell like freshly roasted coffee beans after work.”

  “I know, right?” Rosanna sniffs my shoulder.

  “Enough about me.” I tap Sadie’s arm. “How was dinner?”

  Sadie starts walking toward Grove Street, Rosanna and I falling into step beside her. “Oh, I’d say it went about as well as your day,” she says.

  We wait for her to tell us more. She doesn’t.

  “How was seeing Marnix?” Rosanna tries.

  “Can we . . . maybe talk about this later?” Sadie says. “It was just . . . bad.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. But I could really use a walk-and-talk right about now.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” I say. I love that Sadie feels the same way I do about our walk-and-talks. There’s something about kicking back with my girls that puts me in a kind of sisterhood love bubble. Three days after Rosanna
’s meltdown when she hurled clothes and we both hurled insults, she apologized to me. I was so happy we were speaking again that I hugged her immediately. We made up after she told me how hard it was for her to move away from home. I wanted to tell her about Daddy, but his betrayal was too raw for me to even acknowledge what was happening.

  I know I can trust Sadie and Rosanna with anything. We’ve revealed the most vulnerable parts of ourselves to each other. Sadie, sacked out on the couch after she found out Austin was married. Rosanna, whipping the clothes I bought her at me.

  And now me. Telling them what really happened.

  I start talking before I can wimp out again. “Okay, so . . . remember when my credit card got confiscated? And I thought Logan was messing with me?”

  “Uck.” Rosanna wrinkles her nose. She and Sadie are disgusted by how Logan played me. “Do we have to talk about him?”

  “No. But there is something I need to talk about. It has to do with why I’m working at . . .” I throw Sadie a timid look.

  “I knew there had to be a good reason,” she says.

  “Logan didn’t have anything to do with my credit card being declined. I’ve been . . . cut off. Financially.”

  Rosanna slings her arm against my chest to stop me from crossing the street. I’m so frazzled that my brain failed to process the cab barreling toward us.

  “What do you mean?” Rosanna asks. She’s seen me giving my credit card a workout everywhere from upscale boutiques to the hottest clubs and restaurants. Her brain can’t process the concept of Daddy no longer paying my bills any more than mine could process that cab.

  “My father was found guilty of tax fraud.” Hmm. This is the first time I’ve used the term my father to describe Daddy. It just came out that way. “Can you believe he tried to justify his behavior by complaining how the wealthiest Americans have to support people who don’t want to work? Like he was forced to commit a crime because he thought he shouldn’t have to pay his taxes? He was only in the highest tax bracket because he had more money than he knew what to do with. But no, apparently he needed more, and lying to the IRS seemed like a more attractive option than paying what he was required by law to pay.”