“Thanks, man. Since you’re being all awesome about this, how about you fish out a few more suitcases from the attic for me? Sabin doesn’t do spiderwebs and bats.” He shivers and pretends to brush off cobwebs from his face.
“You got it. I’ll toss them in your room.” Chris kisses me on the cheek and maneuvers out from behind me. “I’m going to hop in the shower. I’ll see you upstairs later.” He knows I’m shell-shocked and that I need a few minutes alone with Sabin.
Before Chris is even halfway into the house, Sabin stands and begins talking at top speed about the cool restaurant scene in San Diego, the endless perfect weather, the many hot beach babes. “Picture me, surrounded by bikini-clad lovelies, strutting over the hot sand toward a soon-to-be-purchased Jeep Wrangler parked where it’s overlooking the ocean.”
“Sabin—”
“Late nights cavorting around town, dropping into trendy establishments, eating…well, whatever it is San Diegans eat. Is that what they’re called? What I’ll be called? Or maybe just Sandies? How’s that? Cute, right? I’m a Sandy now. Check me out, being a sexy Sandy and shit.” He puts his hands on the back of his head and stretches. “Cool beans, I say.”
“Cool beans?” I’m too dumbstruck to respond to anything else.
“Cool beans,” he says, nodding. “I’m bringing it back.”
“Fine. You and your cool fucking beans can just take off tomorrow like it’s no big deal.”
“Fucking beans? Is that like jumping beans?”
I snarl at him.
He throws himself into his chair and grabs his guitar before scooting closer to me. “Are you sulking, Lady Blythe McGuire?”
“Maybe.”
“I suppose I kinda like that. It means you’re going to miss me.”
He grins and tousles my hair until it’s all in my face, and I can’t see.
I push him away. “Knock it off.”
“Blythe—”
“What?” I snap.
“Please be happy for me.”
“I am.”
“Please be sincerely happy for me.”
I inhale and exhale deeply a few times, and while I can feel my body relaxing, I can also feel the grip beginning to take hold on my throat and the tears threatening to fill my eyes. “I am. But you’re going so far away.”
“And I’ll constantly call you. And we’ll text. And do creepy little video chat thingies and all that newfangled shit you kids are into.”
I manage to smile again. “Play me a song.”
“Whatever you like, my fairest princess of duchesses of the queendom.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Have we met?”
I cannot believe he’s leaving tomorrow. It’s too much to process. I like him here, where I know that he’s safe and loved. Of course he’s tough as shit, but he’s equally fragile. We’reallfragile. But I can’t force him to stay. And maybe he’s right that it’s time for him to go. Maybe that’s what will make him less fragile.
“Play me a song,” I say again.
So, he takes his guitar and straddles the footrest end of my lounge chair, facing me, as he randomly plucks the chords and expectantly looks at me. “Whatcha wanna hear?”
“The song you were playing earlier, before Chris and I came out.”
