“You stay classy,” Otter says with a wink.
Corey sighs dreamily.
“Gross,” Bear and I say at the same time.
“Now go away, both of you,” Corey says to the front seat. “We’re gossiping.” He leans his head toward mine. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What?”
“Are you excited about being home? You’ve never come back before. Even when Derrick and Oliver made trips back, you always stayed in New Hampshire. Surely you’ve missed this place.”
It’s inevitable, a voice whispers in my head.
“I guess,” I say.
“I would think something called the Green Monstrosity beckons constantly. I know it would to me. You should know I am expecting something grotesquely palatial.”
“Boy, are you going to be disappointed, then. It’s nothing grand.” That’s a lie, though I don’t know why I say that. I’ve missed that house more than a person should probably miss a house. It’s weird. “It’s not too bad.”
Not too bad? it echoes. It’s where you met D—
No. Not that name. That name stays far away from me.
Oh? it whispers. Because actively not thinking about something always works. Say it. Say his name.
I push it away.
“It’s… quaint,” Corey says as we pass by houses along the beach. “It’s not Tucson, that’s for sure.”
“I’m pretty sure there are a few differences where we grew up,” I say dryly.
He flashes that liquid smile at me. It’s cunning, like he knows something I don’t. “Undoubtedly. There’s nothing else?”
“What else could there be?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something. Anything.”
“No.”
He nods and looks back out the window. “I’ll miss you, you know. When I’m gone.” He reaches across the seat and takes hold of my hand. Our fingers intertwine, and it’s familiar. It’s comforting. It’s almost like home.
Almost.
“It won’t be for forever,” I tell him. “You know it won’t. You’ll come see me, and I’ll come visit you, and the next four years will go by so fast until we’re side by side every day again… I’ll work for the Environmental Protection Agency as a toxicologist or whatever else I decide to do. You’ll be an overworked victim’s rights activist. Then I’ll become a billionaire and I’ll buy PETA and make it not crazy again. And then we’ll get a house. You and me. You’ll become a lady of leisure, and I’ll stop the whaling ships along the coast of Japan. Those savages.”
“All that, huh?”
“All that.” It’ll happen. I know it will because I can do it all. I’ve got everything in front of me here. My entire fucking life. I just have to get through this summer, and then real life can begin and I can pick up the pieces and become who I’m supposed to be. It’s that easy. It has to be.
He squeezes my hand. “I’m going to hold you to that, Thompson.”
“I promise.” I allow myself a moment of weakness and pull his hand up to my lips and kiss it gently. He squeezes my hand in acknowledgement, but nothing more.
I turn back to the window. I shouldn’t have come back here, I think. Should have stayed in New Hampshire…. I don’t know why I said yes.
Sure you do, it says, voice full of cheer. You aren’t that stupid.
Go away. Just… go away.