Seventeen years ago
Nick wiped a sweaty palm on his button-down shirt and stared at Aubrey’s front door. He squeezed the bouquet of flowers so hard the stems oozed.
He should just press the damn doorbell already, instead of standing out here like an idiot. He knew this house better than his own. But he’d only ever climbed through the window when Aubrey’s father’s silver SUV sat in the driveway, as it did now.
He glanced down at the slacks he’d bought from the Gap. Were they overkill? Probably, but it was too late to change. And this wasn’t getting any easier. He squared his shoulders and jabbed the bell. Chimes rang inside the house.
Silence. Then thumping. Nick’s heart took up the rhythm of brisk footsteps. Sweat dampened his forehead.
The door swung inward. Green eyes, set beneath bushy red brows, considered him through the screen.
“Mr. MacLean,” Nick stammered. “Hi. It’s good to see you again. I came to see if Aubrey was—”
“She’s gone.”
“Oh.” He realized he’d offered the flowers and lowered his arm again. Stupid. “Okay. I can come back later.”
“No, I mean she’sgone. To New York.”
The wheels inside Nick’s mind ground. Afternoon sunlight slanted beneath the portico, searing his cheek. “What? But she said she’d be back today.”
“She would’ve been, but the time away cleared her head. We packed her up last night. She left for NYU this morning.”
“She... did?” The buzz of Nick’s voice reached him like a distant hive of bees.
Mr. MacLean’s caterpillar eyebrows crooked. A show of...compassion, Nick’s brain spit out, as if reading the word from a dictionary. A dictionary about ten thousand miles removed from this moment.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. MacLean said. “She thought it would be easier this way, without a goodbye. I’m sure you understand.”
Nick nodded, then wondered why, because he absolutely did not understand. How could Aubrey just... leave, without a word?
Yet as he contemplated, a slumbering dread awakened in his gut. It cracked open a sleepy eye and smiled, its teeth like a row of knives.
Because he’d known, hadn’t he? All this time. From the moment he’d first kissed Aubrey, he’d seen this coming. He’d gone hurtling off the cliff without any attempt to check himself, and the fall had gone on for so long he’d almost begun to trust it, yet here it was at last, the ground rushing up to meet him, the crashing end that would splinter his bones to pulp.
He looked up. Shit, was it his turn to say something? And where had his flowers gone? He glanced down. Torn petals dotted his shiny black shoes, like fallen tears.
“Do you want to come in?” Aubrey’s father pushed open the screen. “I realize this must be hard.”
The offer zapped through Nick like a bullet, lethal. Final. He would never be invited inside if Aubrey hadn’t actually left. “She’s not waiting for me, in New York?” a small voice said. His. “It’s over?”
“I’m afraid so, son.”
Son.His own father didn’t even call him that. The word seemed significant—one last brushstroke on the heartbreaking tableau of this conversation, the cruelest one of his life. “I... I don’t want to come in.”
“I understand.” The screen slapped shut. “And I’m sorry, again. But it’s best if you don’t contact her. Better for everyone to make a clean break.”
Acid scorched the back of Nick’s throat. Clean? Right. This was about as clean as having a leg hacked off with a rusty spoon.
“Yes, sir,” he said, and walked away.
His shoes thunked hollowly down the steps. When he reached the cul-de-sac, he kept walking, and then he walked some more, each footfall another link in the chain leading him forward, a lifeline dragging him away from the house that would forever contain the bloody wreckage of his ruptured heart.
He walked. And walked. He didn’t stop until gravel crunched under his feet. When he looked down, mud caked his brand-new shoes. When had he walked through mud? He didn’t remember.
He glanced around. An unpaved lot flanked the highway he now stood beside. The sky had dimmed to a mocking peach while crickets jeered from the shadows. The swaying trees hissed recriminations. In the middle of it all, a neon sign blinked.
Wish You Were Beer.
