BooksBarbecue
Back Never Look Back
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

What’s strange about that is, Gabriel never touches me. He never even kisses me anymore. He says that if we were to kiss, he might not be able to stop himself from going further. But we used to kiss a lot, so I don’t think that’s the reason. I think it’s because of Ed Hart. I think that when Gabriel looked him in the eyes again after all this time, it was like stirring up a hornet’s nest. Those ugly memories that he’d put to sleep got woken up—and they’ve been buzzing around in his head ever since, stinging him and stinging him, making him confused and weak. I know he’s done some bad things, but I’m not sure that even Gabriel deserves to be in this much pain.

Anyway . . . Like I was saying, prom is coming up soon. That boy will buy his mean, rich girlfriend a corsage. Wrist, so she won’t poke holes in her fancy dress. Orchids or red roses, because they are the two most romantic flowers in the world. He will wear a tie to match her dress, and she’ll stash little airplane bottles of booze in her beaded purse. The two of them will sneak out of the gym and drink those bottles so quickly they won’t even taste them. And then he will take her face in his hands, and he will gaze into her eyes. He will tell her she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And she won’t even say thank you.

I believe that if you think about someone hard enough, they can feel it. My mom used to say that when she was at work and I was missing her, she always knew. And these days, I feel Jenny thinking about me all the time—it’s how I know she’s still alive. So here is what I’m going to do: After Gabriel falls asleep tonight, I will lie on my back in bed. I will stare up at the ceiling of our motel room as though it were a sky full of stars. And I will think about that boy. I will think about him so hard that he will appear to me in three dimensions and in my mind, I will call out his name: Brian Griggs.

He will feel my thoughts, and that will make him think of me. And no one else will ever know.

Love, Future Mom April

June 17, 1976

8:00 A.M.

Dear Aurora Grace,

This morning, Gabriel woke me up with a glazed donut from Winchell’s and a Styrofoam cup full of coffee with cream and lots of sugar, the way I like it. Then he got down on one knee and asked me to be his prom date.