We do all of it. We do it languidly and with intention. We do it quietly and then loudly and then quietly again. We do it as if the world is about to end and, in a way, it feels like it is. I won’t make believe that one hundred thousand dollars is going to change the way we live overnight, but it is a golden key of opportunity for guys like us.
To get me out of debt. To get Leo a better living arrangement.
However, later, as I lie beside a gently snoring Leo, staring up at the popcorn ceiling in the darkness, I’m reminded that it’s not a magic potion. I can’t drink our winnings and forget that Mom is gone or that the grief I experienced in her absence hasn’t hurt others.
I won’t hurt Leo. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.
I love him too much to do that.
Whoa.It’s fast and ridiculous, but it’s true. In the future. In the present. I do love him. And that love is what leads me to the ultimate sacrifice.
At 5:00 a.m., Leo still fast asleep on the other side of the bed, I slip into my clothes, collect my toiletries, and stand my suitcase up on its wheels. I know what I must do.
In the darkness, I go searching for the hotel stationery only to find it full up with Leo’s notes. All the details of my life he committed to memory. Various pieces of strategy for the game show we crushed only last night. A single tear spills from my eye and lands on the paper. I set it back down.
There’s a plane leaving LAX in a few hours that will ferry me back to New York. I’ve decided that I need to be on it.
There are too many dangling threads of my life that I thought I could snip off with a single, diverting trip. I was wrong. Los Angeles isn’t another universe. Buckley is proof that my old emotions could follow me here.
If I don’t deal with them, I’ll never be able to be someone worthy of loving Leo for real. Better to take the loss, like I’m so good at doing, than face the rejection later. Maybe, hopefully, one day, when I’m better, we’ll find each other again, and he’ll forgive me, allow me one more chance.
But for now, my eyes land on the Monopoly box from the very first night. Silently, I slip a paper bill from the plastic packaging inside. Using the hotel pen, I write Leo a goodbye note:
Leo,
This trip has been amazing. YOU are amazing.
But, I have to leave.
You don’t deserve to fall in love with a ghost. You deserve to be with a fully invested human man who appreciates you for the caring, talented, goofy person you are.
Maybe that will be me, but I can’t ask you to wait for a miraculous transformation that may never happen.
I run out of space on the first slender, slip of paper, so I grab another.
Please don’t try to reach out to me. It’ll only make this harder on us both.
I hope you use your half of the winnings to chase your passions.
You deserve it.
You deserve the world.
Love,
Holden
Twenty-Six
“Happy to have you home, son.” Dad hauls my suitcase out of the trunk of his black, midsize Mazda.
“Oh, I got it. You didn’t have to do that.” After the long flight, my back is tense and my neck keeps cricking, but he’s already letting me stay here again. The least I can do is move my own luggage.
“Nonsense. You just won a nationally televised TV game show yesterday!” he cries. “You hear that, neighbors! My son is aMadcap Marketchampion.”
“Let’s not bother the whole complex,” I say, embarrassed and trying not to think about Los Angeles, trailing behind Dad as he fumbles in his jeans pocket for his keys.
When we’re back inside the apartment, Dad says, “I’ve got leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.” He pulls out the remnants of a rotisserie chicken and slaps it on the counter of the in-need-of-an-update kitchen. His special cheesy mashed potatoes come out in a serving dish. The same ones we’d have every Thanksgiving. The ones Leo will likely never get to try. The ones Buckley asked for seconds and thirds of the first year he came home with me.
