A plane trip by myself?
Well, you were going to ask Rachel, but she doesn’t want to have anything to do with your videos right now.
I could invite Abi—
No, I couldn’t. I had a feeling she wasn’t going anywhere for a good long while.
Mom?
No, Vivian. You need to do this yourself.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I jumped out of my skin again.
I might not be off to a great start, but I would do this.
Dylan.
“Hey, Buddy Bear, what’s up?”
If he heard anything different in my voice, he didn’t let on, because he barreled ahead with, “Mom. Guess what?”
“What?”
“You have over a hundred thousand subscribers!”
It took me a minute to realize he was talking about YouTube. “Yay? A hundred thousand of anything sounds good.”
I could almost hear him roll his eyes. “Mom. You get a Silver Creator Award, and you can talk about it on one of your shows. It’s a pretty big deal.”
“Oh. Well, that’s cool.”
Silence stretched between us.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, it’s just that Abi and Rachel left before we could finish our trip. I was trying to do something nice for them, and it all went to hell. Now I’m here in this hotel room by myself, and I feel lonely.”
“Abandonment issues. I get it.”
I had to laugh at his know-it-all tone. “Abandonment what? Look, Dr. Freud, I don’t know which I’m more concerned about: the fact you diagnosed my abandonment issues or the fact you understand.”
“Come on, Mom. You don’t like to do much of anything alone. I’m no expert, but I think it’s because Grandpa left when you were little. I mean, that’s why you took in the cat when I started high school. You didn’t like being alone all day.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I didn’t have a defense. Hadn’t I just been psyching myself up to do more things alone?
“Okay, fine. So what do I need to do? Find a chaise to recline on and someone to tell about my childhood?”
He laughed, and the joy of it filled me with warmth. Then he paused a little too long for my liking.
“Everything going okay with you and your classes?”
“I, uh, made another C on a paper in my English class.”
“Dylan Harvey, have you been to office hours to ask your teacher about it?”
His silence spoke volumes.
“Look, if you ask what you’re doing wrong and try to correct it, your professor should help you. If not, make a nuisance of yourself in a perfectly polite way, of course—and that might be enough to get your grades where they need to be.”
