Chapter 29
Rafe
“So, how was England?” his dad asked in the car ride home from theairport.
What aquestion.
Rafe rested his head against the window, drained from the long flight and his general heartbreak. His body was on a five-second delay, weighed down by sandbags ofexhaustion.
His mom handed him a bagel from Dunkin Donuts. “Welcomehome!”
He stared at the bagel as if it were an alien. He had zero appetite, and he wouldn’t tell his parents that he declined both meals offered on hisflight.
“I’ll bet it was nice to see the American flag and regular signs once you got off.” She was way too perky for first thing in themorning.
“Yeah.”
“You look exhausted,” she said. “Did you sleep on theflight?”
“How was the flight? Were you in a window or aisleseat?”
“And what kind of food did they serve? You never get meals on airplanes anymore, but I think it’s different for international flights. They had to at least have given you breakfast and asnack.”
“I didn’t really get much sleep on the plane,” Rafe said. Every time he tried to shut his eyes, he kept seeing montages from his time at Stroude. Flashes of hanging out at Apothecary and cooking dinner in his flat and waking up next to Eamonn. Hearing Eamonn say “cheers, mate” and shut the door. The montages never ended on a high note. His time abroad felt like he had entered a new dimension. Alice went down the rabbit hole and nobody would believe hertales.
“How does the jetlag hit you coming back?” his dad wondered aloud. “You should probably be more awake since it’s afternoon foryou.”
“But then he’s going to be more tired tonight because it will feel like midnight atdinnertime.”
“He should probably fight to stay up until his regularbedtime.”
“Can you guys stop talking about me like I’m not even here?” Rafe’s voice had a cat-like scratchiness in his throat. “It’s kind ofrude.”
“We didn’t know if you were sleeping back there,” his dadsaid.
“Well, I’m not. I’ll try my best to stay up until tonight.” Rafe was afraid of going to sleep. He didn’t want any more montages and their downendings.
“Rafe, are you all right?” his mom asked him through the rearviewmirror.
Y’alright?
Rafe felt a tear forming just above hischeek.
“He’s just,” his dad started before looking into the rearview mirror. “You’re just tired,right?”
He glanced out the window. They were driving on the right side of the road. He saw all the familiar green highway markers, all the familiar billboards with their familiar stores and prices listed in their familiar dollar signs. It was good ole Virginia. No more adventurehere.
“Yeah.”
“Was it hard to say goodbye?” his dad asked, and he was not referring to the campus. It took Rafe bysurprise.
“Itwas.”
His mom turned around in her seat, her face full of motherly concern. “Are you two going to keep in touch? It’s so easynowadays!”
Keeping in touching sounded so trifling for him and Eamonn, as if they’d met at a networking event. And Eamonn had already given him an answer. A door in his face. No need dragging out the slow death of their relationship. All those times he’d been the Baxter or his grand romantic gestures failed, he had bounced back. Because it wasn’t serious. It wasn’t deep. He had given it the old college try and nothing more. But with Eamonn, he was invested. He had given himself completely and came up short. Being heartbroken was so much worse than being rejected. His heart wasn’t even broken. It had been ripped apart, and he could feel everytear.
As he stared out the window, he thought that maybe there was a still of version of himself back there in England, one who stood on his own two feet. And they wereconnected.
