Forgive Me, Alex Read Free Page A

spring-fed lake wafted a faint metallic aroma that reminded me of... I couldn't place it—something that made my stomach clench.
    The water swirled in ever-broadening circles around my feet, which were submerged in the reflection of my cheeks. I leaned farther over the ledge, came almost face-to-face with myself, as if the reflected me would provide some of the answers I so desperately sought.
    Diana pulled me back to the moment. "Be careful," she said. "You're liable to fall into the lake." The cool temperatures and bright sun had joined forces to paint her cheeks a rosy shade of unbearably cute.
    I leaned back and let the sun work its springtime magic. The season was supposed to inspire rebirth, renewal, grand dreams and revived hopes—at least according to much of the poetry I read. I aspired to such promises, yet couldn't escape the relentless melancholy. Nothing new there.
    It had built throughout the winter, as if I'd been buried in an avalanche. Each time I'd dug away three inches of snow, four new inches sealed my frozen tomb.
    Shit! Don't be so melodramatic all the time, Tony. Focus on Diana.
    The extraordinary Miss Gregario, perhaps the future Mrs. Hooper, dominated my thoughts. We'd met at our dads' company picnic the previous Fourth of July; they were accountants with the same firm. I'd seen her around school before then, but we hadn't actually met prior to the picnic. I'd surprised myself when I mustered the courage to ask her out, as I tended to be shy about such matters. I'd bumbled my way through it with a tongue twisted into nervous paralysis, made a complete fool of myself, and she accepted!
    Whenever I contemplated the prospect of life without her, I wanted to vomit. We fit together. I told her I was the night and she was the stars, and that she brought an unimaginable light to my life. That made me a walking, talking cliché straight out of the classical novels I read but, what the hell, a little corny never killed anybody.
    She was my first and only love, and when I departed for college in a few months, I'd leave her behind. Every time I pondered my future, platoons of emotions waged war within me. Even at that moment, the battle thundered in my chest and a wrenching lump bounced like a cannonball in my throat.
    How will I—
    "Happy birthday, Baby," she said. "I still can't believe you wanted to spend it here , although it is pretty."
    I smiled, unsure how to broach the subject weighing me down.
    "The big eighteen . Wow. So how does it feel to be a man? Well, in the eyes of the law, at any rate."
    I snorted. "Oh sure, and where have they been for the last three years?"
    I didn't mean to take out my frustration on her. She knew that, and took it in stride. Hell, she knew me better than I knew myself.
    In one of my customary fits of introspection, I'd wanted to go there to take measure of the moment, to examine my new manhood. I thought I might enjoy some time alone on my birthday. Perhaps enjoy was not the right word. No matter, for Diana would hear none of it. She'd insisted that I spend the day with, as she put it, "the most magnificent girlfriend the world has ever known."
    I couldn't argue with the "magnificent" part, and it was apparently some kind of unwritten law that she must share the "big day" with me. I didn't know which was funnier: her words, her goofy smile and Groucho Marx eyebrow shuffle, or the ridiculous way she'd curtsied.
    She squeezed my hand until I looked at her again. "You're having another one of your moments, aren't you? Pondering the changes coming up, contemplating the meaning of life, the expanse of the universe, the—"
    "I love this place, especially in summer. We weren't dating long enough last summer to come out here, but I think you'll like it. This is the hotspot."
    "What does everybody do here? Besides swim, of course."
    "You name it, somebody does it here. We bring food and pop, maybe a few beers—make a day of it."
    "That sounds like fun."
    "Some of the kids smoke