I walk over to them and stroke Bruce’s fur. “I’m going back to basics.” It’s nice to feel like myself again. Or, rather, like the new me again. Confident in what I want, even though I don’t know how everything will turn out. “Hey, Simon? Dad?”
“Yes, love?”
I move over and lean into my incredible father and hug him. “Thank you. So much. For everything.”
“Anytime.”
“Sorry about all this insane baking.”
“We all get a little bonkers sometimes. Better baking than, you know, burning down the house.”
“True.”
I hug him for so long that eventually he laughs and begins patting my back. “Go on. Make your call. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
I step away and smile.
I know what I want, and I’m going to do what I can to get it.
Bruce Wayne stretches and pushes his nose against me in what I take as a sign of approval. I’ll take positivity wherever I can right now.
CHAPTER 32
TIME AND AGAIN
The drive back up to Andrews College the next morning was interminable, and more than once, Kerry clapped her hand over my fingers as they drummed over the steering wheel. I couldn’t help it.
My phone call with Kerry was embarrassing and awkward and full of my apologies, but she’s on my side. And she’s not particularly thrilled with the fact that Esben wouldn’t speak to her about what happened between him and me, so she was glad that I filled her in. After telling Esben that she was fed up with his silence, she drove back to school with me instead of with her brother.
Now, it’s a beautiful evening in picturesque Landon. Kerry and I sit together on the same bench where I sat last fall. As I did then, I stare at the lake; only this time, I am not trying to escape, to drown.
Tonight, I am trying to live.
She puts a hand on my back to ease my trembling. “It’s going to be all right.”
I watch the ebb and flow of the lake. This past week is too much to take in, and while I have lost Steffi, and I temporarily lost the new person I’d become, I cannot lose everything. The water is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
After a while, I say, “I am so in love with him.”
“I know,” she says. “Just breathe, Allison. You can do this.”
At six o’clock, I look at Kerry. “Now?”
She nods. “Now. He got back to school an hour ago. He’ll get the notification for sure.”
My hand shakes as I type out a tweet and tag Esben:Ran when I shouldn’t have. If you can forgive me, meet me at 7. Same place, same 180 seconds together. #thiskissthiskiss2.
I couldn’t pull my plans off without Kerry’s help, and she’s convinced this will work. “He’s hurt,” she says, “but he’s mostly angry at himself for his part in this. I know that without him telling me anything. Also? I’ve seen how he’s been since he’s been home from LA. Allison, he’s hopelessly lovesick. You can practically see his heart bleeding all over his shirt.”
“That’s an attractive image.”
She shrugs. “Today’s a good day for drama.”
“I left him there, Kerry. I left him in Los Angeles.” I rub a hand anxiously over my upper arm. “He did everything, and I went totally crazy. I left him. That is not okay.”
“You were strung out. You ... Allison, you were not thinking clearly. We all get that.Esbengets that. He’s got to. He’s scared right now. Just like you are.”
For forty-five minutes, I neurotically check Twitter, desperately hoping for a reply, for something to tell me that he’s coming, but there’s nothing. There are, however, over six hundred retweets of my post.
