She sighs. “You can’t stop me.”
“I’m not, I—” He chokes up and shakes his head. She wasaliveduring their rift last fall, yet he barely survived, even knowing he could find her if he needed to. How is he supposed to carry on if she is gone forever? But he can’t argue with her choice. She is a walking bomb, and neither of them knows when she will explode again, or who will be in her blast radius when she does.
“What about Jessie and Lena?” She’s grasping for anything to keep him away, but nothing will.
“I’ll send a text.”
“School?”
“Hasn’t started yet.”
“You just came back from Lincoln—”
“My mom’s always happy when I visit two weekends in a row.”
“But ...” She blinks rapidly and looks down. “I think it’ll be easier if I do it alone.”
He tilts her chin up. Eye to eye. “After everything, don’t I deserve a real goodbye?”
She sinks into him, and that’s all it takes. He is going with her to Lincoln.
James calls to ask his mom to pick them up from the airport in Atlanta. Which means he has to explain, using the fewest descriptions possible, who Nelle is.She’s from Lincoln, too. She lives in New York with us.That is all his mom needs to know about the girl he’s bringing home, for the first and last time.
James spots his dad’s tan Tacoma in the pickup zone, and he guides them through lanes of buses, shuttles, and cars. All his earthly possessions having burned to ash only forty-eight hours before, he and Nelle have no luggage, and it feels odd to walk around the airport empty handed.
Shit, he’s nervous. The shaded windows are rolled up. He’d only just seen his mom, and they’d parted on bad terms. The story he told everyone the night of the fire was only a half-truth. Yes, he and his parents had a civilized conversation about his choices, and they had alotof questions. Then they went to dinner. His dad had to leave for an early-morning conference in Macon before the check was paid, so it was James and his mom alone on the ride home from the restaurant.
She went off as soon as the truck door shut.
“What thefuckare you doing?” she said, the swear word clumsy in her mouth. “Don’t you realize how much stress you’re putting on your dad and me?”
“How?”
“Well, you’ll have to take out student loans.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s formeto stress about.”
“But you don’t understand how much of a burden it’ll be. When you could go to school nearby, get agooddegree, and graduate with no debt!”
“Don’t you have student debt?” he asked.
“Yes.” She blinks back tears, right on cue. “And it sucks.”
“But wasn’t that something youhadto do? How can you tell me not to get student loans when you have them, too? We want different kinds of lives, and I respect that, but you don’t.” He’d been practicing those words, whetting them for a blow.
She was silent the rest of the way home. That drive was twenty minutes. This one will betwo hours.
James gulps as he opens the back door for Nelle. He is clammy, shaking, a stone in his throat. He opens the passenger side, steps up into the truck, and buckles his seat belt. He checks the rearview mirror to make sure Nelle has hers on. Then he faces his mom.
“Hey, baby,” she says.
The ice around his heart melts. “Hi.”
They reach across the console and hug, and suddenly James is seven again. Nostalgia settles sweet in the back of his throat. He has fallenoutside and scabbed his knee. She sits him on the bathroom counter, opens the medicine cabinet high above his reach, and treats him. Wipe with cold alcohol. Apply ointment. Tape on bandage. Kiss it to make it better. His mom used to be his rock.
Now that rock is Nelle. But Nelle is leaving.
Once upon a time he was that timid little boy. Now he is James Finch, New York City writer. James Finch, the friend. James Finch, the roommate. James Finch, the lover.
