Page 64 of Beyond the Hedge Maze

He’d make this easier. He’d leave.

***

Just over twenty-four hours later, Jesse arrived at the French restaurant in the village. He had been awake most of the night regretting his decision to leave Chapman House. The village bed and breakfast had a room available, and he had left so many times to start walking back to Oliver that the woman at the desk had threatened to have him removed.

It wasn’t in his nature to leave things left unsaid, unfinished. That’s how the argument felt—unfinished. And the longer it stayed that way, the more Jesse spiraled. There wasn’t a clear path towards fixing what he had broken.

His father was already at the restaurant, perfectly punctual, standing outside wearing his usual black suit and blank stare. Jesse was woefully unprepared for the next few hours. The armor he usually donned was somewhere hiding back in London, or underneath Oliver’s bed down the road.

He watched as his father appraised him as he approached. All he had to wear was the outfit he had hastily thrown in his backpack. It was wrinkled and not appropriate for the restaurant, and there wasn’t anything that could be done about that now.

His father looked down at his watch. “You’re late.”

Jesse didn’t have the energy to be annoyed, to quip back that he wasn’t at all late, that his father was just early. He was exhausted and on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry,” was all he was able to muster before he moved to enter the restaurant.

His father put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him, and Jesse begrudgingly turned around. He looked at his father and waited. Waited for a comment about his appearance, waited for a scolding on his job performance, or a list of the many ways in which he was a disappointment, but nothing happened. His father looked him over with an expression that Jesse wasn’t sure he had ever seen on Luis Alvarez’s face.

Concern.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. “We should go in. I made a reservation.”

“Jesse, wait.”

He didn’t listen, just continued to the door. He wanted some distance. He wanted a table between them, wanted to get this dinner over and done with so he could use the last of his stamina on figuring out how to make things right with Oliver.

The inside of the restaurant was charming and quaint. There were only a handful of tables, most filled with regulars that Jesse vaguely recognized from his trips to the grocer or other shops in the village. The hostess sat them at a small table in the corner, and Jesse took the seat so that his back was to the room. She sat down two menus, and Jesse hastily picked one up, obscuring his face from his father.

Even with the menu covering his face, Jesse could feel his father’s eyes boring into him. He slowly began to unravel under the scrutiny. The menu blurred, and he rapidly blinked. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need to hear whatever his father was thinking.

“Can you put that down?” The question was soft, noncombative, and that made it worse somehow. They were in uncharted waters, or at the very least, waters long forgotten.

He put down the menu and tucked his hands in his lap, pressing the nail of his thumb into his palm. This time the pain grounded him and gave him something to focus on that wasn’t breaking down in the middle of the restaurant.

“Happy birthday.”

“What?” Jesse had forgotten.

“Your birthday. Are you okay?”

Three words. Three words, and he crumbled. The tears fell hot and fast, made worse only from the sheer embarrassment of the situation. He covered his face, trying to somehow disappear in his seat.

A waitress came to the table to take their order, tentatively asking if they had any questions, and Jesse looked away. The mortification increased tenfold.

His father turned to her with a polite smile. A rehearsed grin from years and years of boardroom meetings and client placation. “I apologize, but unfortunately we have to leave.”

The minutes between leaving the restaurant and Jesse being sat down on a bench outside happened in a haze, and the fresh air was an immediate relief. He took in a few deep breaths to calm down. The bench overlooked a shallow river that ran through the village. When he had first arrived, it was normal to find children splashing around, their parents closely watching from the grass. Now it was mostly home to the few ducks who floated by like they were on a waterpark lazy river ride.

He watched one as the tears dried against his face.

“What happened, mijo?” His father never spoke Spanish anymore. Jesse couldn’t remember the last time he had heard even a single word, not since his mom had died. It made him feel like a child again.

Jesse screwed his eyes shut. “I ruined everything.”

There was a brief pause. “With Oliver?”

“How did you…Did Charlotte…”

“She didn’t need to tell me, and neither did you. I wondered if you two might reconnect, you and Oliver. I’ve always carried some guilt over the way we left that summer.”