It couldn’t keep out a toddler, let alone a determined, lovesick teenager. I lift an eyebrow at him.
“I doubt anyone will come here tonight anyway,” he adds with a smirk, trying to convince me. “They’ll all be at the drive-in.”
I want to argue, but I also know my brother will always do whatever he wants. Whether I agree or not. Whether I think it’s a bad idea or not.
Archer breathes, then nods down at the envelope in my hand. “Now that you have your diploma, what’s your plan?”
We’ve never really talked about this, not seriously, anyway. Maybe he didn’t truly believe I’d do it: leave Cutwater. But now he looks at me with the smallest hint of sadness in his eyes.
“There’s a town on the coast, I, uh—I figure I’ll start there. Train can get me there in a day.”
His face goes slack, eyes falling to the floor briefly before he looks back up. “You don’t have any money.”
“I have enough… enough for a ticket, anyway. I’ll find a job when I get there.”
“Where will you stay?”
“Not sure yet. Hoping to rent a room somewhere.”
He touches the front door handle, then smirks. “You’d really leave all this behind, huh?”
“Because this place is so great?”
“Anywhere can be great if you let it.”
A soft exhale leaves my lips. “This place will never be great. As long as our last name is Goode, it will torture us. The only way to become someone new is to leave this town behind.”
My brother nods, like he understands. “When you leaving?”
“A day or two. Just need to pack, buy a train ticket. Now that I have this”—I hold up the envelope with my diploma inside—“I don’t have a reason to stay.”
I realize too late that this sounds harsh—because Archer is a reason to stay. He’s the only thing I love about this place.
But he nods, unfazed by my words, and flashes his eyes to the door. “Well… we might as well go break some hearts tonight while we have the chance.” He winks, and I know: his nonattachment, his recklessness, is how he survives.
Without it, he’d be the one left heartbroken over and over.
“Come on, you’re leaving this town anyway. You’ll never see these people again. You have nothing to lose. Think of it as your send-off party. One last night out with your charming brother. How can you say no to that?”
I’m about to shake my head, tell him no—I have no interest in repeating what happened on the front lawn at school—when another thought tiptoes through my mind:
Maybehe’llbe there. At the drive-in.
The boy named after a tree.
If I could see him one more time, I could finish the sketch.
One last time… would be enough.
It’s a simple curiosity,I tell myself. That keeps my thoughts returning to him. Nothing more. He is a boy I don’t understand. A boy whose unfinished sketch haunts me whenever I turn the page.
And maybe my brother is right: if I’m finally leaving… maybe I have nothing to lose.
“Okay,” I say.
Archer’s eyes widen, and his mouth falls open.
“Don’t make a big deal of it or I’ll change my mind.”
