Page 7 of Forbidden Love Still Blooms

Chapter 3

Therearemomentswhenyou wonder if wishes really do exist. Imagine them, just waiting in the wings, ready to be granted and remove your problems. And there are moments where you wonder if you hit someone in the head with a ceramic coin dishjustright, would you cause amnesia?

The bowl of change rests next to my phone. I put my fingertips on the slim rim, thumb brushing the hard beads of sea glass I'd personally glued to the azure surface. The quarters and dimes shift as I lift it off the counter. Dezmond is watching my face, nothing else. He won't see it coming.

The shop doorbell rings.“Hey man, you done with her yet?” Jake asks, “The boys are ready to go to Chico's place. His brother got some nasty tar for us to share.”

I shoot my eyes over to Jake, lowering the coin dish as I do it. He's scrubbing at his nose with one hand, the other holding a cigarette, and when the door starts to swing back towards him, he gives it a hard kick. It bounces off the wall, shaking it so hard a few small flowerpots with plants inside topple and smash on the floor.

“Shit! What the hell, Jake?” Dez asks, letting go of my arm for the first time in ten minutes. I yank it against me, out of his reach. My skin throbs as blood rushes back where it belongs. He sends his friend a scathing look. “I said wait outside!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he insists, but the way he drags slowly off his cigarette, I know he doesn't feel sorry at all. He looks right at me, speaking to Dez the whole time. “You get her to agree to forget we came by?”

Dez licks his lips as they break into a smirk. “Yeah.”

“You wanna tell me how?" Jake presses.

“Trust me, Jake, we're square. She won't say shit. Right, Lori?” He's daring me to do something. I want to, might have if we didn't have an audience. I can't hurt Dez in front of his friends, they'll be on me in seconds. These assholes would love an excuse to escalate things. I remember them from school … when they bothered to show up at all. You did not want to run into them alone.

“We're good,” I say coldly.

“Smart girl.” His eyes travel down to the counter. I think he's looking at my phone, but then he scoops his fingers through the ceramic dish. I can't believe it; he's taking the fucking change. He keeps sending smug looks at me from the corner of his eye. This piece of shit loves the power he has over me. He's getting off on it. Maybe I can still smash him with the bowl. Maybe it's worth it.

The fact I remain still and don't act irrationally does not soothe me.

Pocketing the coins, Dez winks at me. “See you around, sweet-thing.” He strolls calmly towards the front door. Jake blows me a kiss full of cigarette smoke before he swaggers out of the store in Dezmond's wake. His converse sneakers drag soil from the broken pots across the floor, out to the sidewalk.

It's a long trail of dirt that looks like a smear of gore. There are footprints in it from the boys' shoes, bits of broken pottery, a few green leaves. It's a mess that tells a story. The bell is done jingling—I slap my hands onto the counter, slumping with my head so low my brunette hair drapes across my cheeks, lying in coils on the counter-top.What the hell do I do now?I wonder.

If I call the police, tell them I was robbed, they'll track Dez and his buddies down within the hour. It's the quickest way to return the money to my mother's register. We both run the store, but I'll always think of it as hers. If it was mine alone, I could choose to forget the robbery happened at all.

Lifting my eyes, I stare at the dirt again. In a haze I go into autopilot, picking up the broom I threw at Jake. With a rubber stopper holding the door open I violently sweep the broken terracotta, flowers, dirt, all of it out onto the sidewalk. The cement is freckled with orange as the sun sets. Mom will expect me home soon. Clutching the broom until my palms throb, I clean up everything; busted pottery goes in the trash, trash goes in the dumpster behind the building. No evidence remains of Dez's actions.

Except it does,I think, fidgeting with the ends of my hair.I have to replace the money.There was over two grand in the register. If I can't get it from him, that leaves just one way to refill it. I'll do it, even if I hate it, but first I must figure out what to do about theactualproblem that's tearing me up inside.

He's bluffing. He's got to be.

I wish I could convince myself of that. If Dez waslying about my dad, I accidentally gave him a reason to think he's right. Letting him waltz out with the cash was stupid. I grimace as I realize that.Don't beat yourself up, it happened so fast, you couldn't have known what to do.I should have, though, is the thing. I spent enough time running scenarios in my head about someone confronting me over where my dad and all his lottery winnings were.

It finally happened and I froze like a deer about to be hit by a car.You can still fix this. It's not too late.Until I know for surewhatDezmond Hartford knows … what proof he has of anything … I can't rest. There's too much left to lose.

As I lock the shop up, heading for my car, I make a list of things I need to do.

I won't sleep tonight. But I won that arm-wrestling match, so at least my mom will.

Living in an ocean-side town with no colleges for miles means the night life here isn't great. But every place has teens that become adults who never grow out of house parties.

I'd overheard Jake say they were going to Chico's. In school, he was the kid with the parents out of the picture. They both work graveyard shift at the literal graveyard nearby. I think his mom preps bodies while his dad handles the burials. Combine that with having an older brother who could buy alcohol and Chico's basement was a hot spot for rebellious teens. Nowadays it's more of a hangout for strung out adults. No more high school kids. Or I hope so, anyway.

I've never been to his place—my father would have grounded me for months if he found out his underage daughter was drinking—but I have a vague idea where it is. It helps when your house is over a landmark like the Granite Bridge. It connects the small island, Coral Rock, that's cut off from Crestwind by a mile wide inlet.

The strip of water is rough, but it's the fastest way for ships to get to the warehouses. Over the years the number of boats has increased, creating minor traffic jams when the bridge splits apart in the middle for lengths of time.

Driving through the winding streets with the ocean shimmering in the last remnants of sunset outside my driver-side window, my leg begins to cramp. Anxiety is making my left knee bob up and down. The clock on my dash says it's just after six. How many people will be at Chico's? Will Dez talk to me if I show up out of the blue to confront him like this?

What if I make it worse?

It's a funny thought because, really, how much worse can this get? There's a sword of Damocles suspended over my head. Talking things over with Dez could snap the string or remove the blade entirely, there's no in-between. Doing nothing, though, means living in fear forever.

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