I tap lightly, silently, at the back of my phone.Tick, tick, tick.I tell myself I’ve kept it close in case there’s some update about our flights, but really, I’m waiting. Either for him, or for me.
I won’t just disappear.
Iwon’t.
I could never do that to someone.
But I was right to walk away from him when I did. I had to walk away, for Tegan.
I close my eyes, feel a trembling, crumbling warning inside me—an avalanche I’m barely managing to keep at bay. If I let myself think about anything that happened on that houseboat, anything my mother said to Tegan, or to me, the whole thing will come crashing down. If I let myself picture the look in Adam’s eyes when I told him to leave us alone, I’ll get buried. I’ll suffocate.
I set the phone down. I think fleetingly about bumping into Tegan and pretending it’s an accident, because at least when she’s awake my heart keeps time for someone else.
But of course, I’d never do that, either.
Especially not right now. Not after I’ve already failed her once today.
Not just today, a little wind whispers inside me, and everything rattles. Long enough for the thoughts to slide forward dangerously.
You should never have done the interview
You should never have looked at the postcards again
You should never have listened to Adam, when he told you to remember
You should never have let him and Salem see what they saw today
My stomach turns over and I have to sit up, scoot gently to the end of the bed and set my feet on the floor. If I get sick, too, Tegan will hear. I breathe carefully through my nose, out through my mouth. Wait for it to pass.
Wish for Adam’s hand on my back. He did that first in Florida, I remember. When we saw—
Did you see my portrait?she’d said. As if we’d only been out on a pleasant sightseeing tour of her life after she left us.
I stand from the bed, desperate to steady myself, to plant my feet. Still, I look back over my shoulder to make sure Tegan’s stayed asleep. Her eyelashes twitch slightly against the smudged-mascara skin beneath her eyes. She looks so young when she sleeps.
She looks like the kid I started taking care of ten years ago.
I reach forward, deftly swipe my phone from where I set it down. I’ll text Adam. Tell him we’re leaving. I’ll tell him that when I get home, I’ll want to talk about the voice actors thing he mentioned way back when I met him at my dad’s house.
Another sliding thought:When you set all the conditions that you didn’t keep to.
My fingers tremble as I navigate to the text box I have with him. See his message from this morning, and my reply:Two minutes.Maybe my heart was keeping time even then, maybe a part of me knew. I think of his big, warm arms around me, his quiet words in my ear, how I knew then that I’d fallen in love with him.
I think of how I begged him for one more minute.
I think of my mother saying I’ve always been the most like her.
You’ll get buried, Jess, I tell myself firmly, sharply.You’ll get buried under this, and you’ll disappear.
I start to tap out a message: the time our flight leaves. That’s all I can manage at first, even though I know it won’t make sense to him. My fingers hover over the keypad, my brain still so sluggish and confused and shocked.
Tick, tick, tick, I think my heart is counting out, but then I realize it’s not that at all.
It’s three soft taps on the door, and I close my eyes, knowing already it’s Adam.
* * *
THERE’Sa distorted symmetry about it, the two of us standing here.
