His hands pause.
“Supposed to?” he asks carefully.
I nod. “I withdrew.”
The words feel heavier in the silence of the room than I expected. It’s the first time I’ve said them out loud.
“I didn’t fail,” I add quickly. “I just…quit.”
Now, his hands still completely. But he doesn’t push me to say more.
I force myself to keep talking. “It’s not that I can’t finish,” I add. “My GPA is good; I’m a solid student. And maybe I should just…” I shake my head, more for myself as I remember what it felt like to be at school. “But I can’t. I’d sit in class and read my books, study for assignments and exams, and it just didn’tfeelright. Every time I thought about what would come next, I’d panic. My classmates all got excited about graduating and accepting positions in the finance world, and for me, just thinking about it made me feel claustrophobic, like I was slowly suffocating.”
The confession loosens something inside me, making it easy to keep talking.
“I’ve been following this plan for so long, I don’t think I realized when it stopped beingmyplan and became everyone else’s. If it ever was mine.”
The fire pops softly in the hearth. I take another sip of wine before I admit the rest of my truth. “I haven’t told anyone else yet,” I say. “You’re the first.”
Holt’s thumb resumes its slow movements against my skin.
“Did you come to tell Luke?”
I nod. It feels safer to tell Dad before I break it to my mom. Like, he might at least understand. Mom isnotgoing to understand.
“I was going to surprise him,” I say with a half-smile. “And then keep going.”
“Going? What’s the plan now?”
I swallow because this is the part I’m not sure about anymore.
“I want to travel,” I say quietly. “Not like a vacation. But just…go somewhere new. See something different. Do you know I’ve never really gone anywhere?”
He doesn’t answer my rhetorical question.
“My mom took me out East once to visit an old friend, but she didn’t really have a lot of extra money growing up, and traveling wasn’t really a priority.”
Holt nods. “It’s never a bad idea to see life through a different set of eyes,” he says carefully.
“Right? I just want to…I don’t know, see what happens when I’m not trying to meet anyone else’s expectations. Maybe I can write, or…” I lift my shoulders in a weak shrug because, truthfully, I don’t know what I’m hoping to find out in the world. And somehow, in the last few days, my desire to pack up and leave has completely gone away. Now I think I want something else.Someoneelse.
We’re quiet for a moment before Holt speaks again. “And what if you don’t find what you’re looking for out there?”
I meet his eyes then.
It’s an honest question. And an unexpected one.
I open my mouth with the easy answer.
Then at least I tried.
But the words don’t come, because suddenly I’m not so sure that’s the truth anymore.
I glance down at his hand on my feet and then up to the firelight flickering over his face. I’ve never been here before. Never even been to the mountain. But for the first time in my life, I feel like I’mhome.
It doesn’t make any sense. Not really. But somehow, I feel like I fit here. I’m settled. Calm.
“I don’t know,” I admit quietly.
