“I guess.”
“Please don’t emasculate me any further. Take the money.” He holds the check out and places it in my unwilling hand. The feelingof his skin on mine ignites a spark in my chest cavity, familiar but brand-new.
“Fine. I’ll hold the check, but I won’t cash it. That way it’s ready to go if you change your mind.”
“Deal,” he agrees.
Without another argument, I shove the check into my pocket.
“You know, for all that Leyla did wrong, I think she may have been right about one thing,” Matt says.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The part about it being fate,” he replies, looking up. “Because you’re here.”
Chapter ten
18 Years Ago
Real love is more than just romance.
Most people don’t know that when they’re 13 years old, but I did.
“I can’t live like this anymore!” my mom screamed.
“Well, maybe ifyouhelped out more, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” Dad hollered back.
Their bedroom door was closed, so nobody noticed when I slipped out of the apartment that Saturday afternoon. I packed a bag with clean underwear, a fresh outfit, and a toothbrush, pausing only to empty a coffee can doubling as a piggybank (containing $17.64, mostly in coins) into a brown paper lunch bag.
I walked the half-mile down Queens Boulevard to Continental Avenue and boarded a Long Island Railroad train heading east with no ticket and no idea of where exactly the train was headed. When a conductor came to collect my ticket, I explained that I didn’t have one. He looked at me with sad eyes and asked where I needed to go.
“Bethpage,” I replied.
He took out a long, white paper ticket with a map and tiny writing in red, blue, green and purple and began punching holes into it quickly, like Morse Code tapping.
“Zone one to zone seven, off peak. That’ll be seven dollars and fifty cents.”
I paid the fare in quarters.
“Change at Jamaica for the train across the platform,” he said. “And keep the ticket with you.”
I nodded, grateful for the information.
At the Bethpage station, I found a lone pay phone, dropped in another quarter and dialed Matt’s number, which I knew by heart. His mom answered.
“Hi, Mrs. Thompson. Is Matt home? This is Taylor.”
“Hi there, honey. I’m sorry; he’s out with his dad at a birthday party for a friend from school. I’ll have him call you back when he gets home, okay?”
“Um, it’s just—” I began.
“Is everything okay?”
“Well, sort of. Not really. I’m at the train station.”
“The train station? Where? Bethpage?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
