1
LOLA
Saying goodbye to places shouldn’t be as difficult as saying goodbye to people.
But it is.
My teeth chatter as I push open the door to my favorite restaurant. The holes in my ripped jeans do nothing to stave off the cold, and I wrap my olive utility jacket tight around my middle. When I step inside, I find Greg behind the register and smile at him.
“Bonjour,” I say in greeting.
Greg looks up, his grin spreading wide, then shakes his head. It’s so late and near closing time, it seems I’m their last customer. “Lola! Hi. While this is acrêperie, no one here is actually French.”
“I know,” I say with a teasing smile.
“The usual?”
I nod. Greg doesn’t yet know I’m leaving. I told myself today would be the day, but I still have a few weeks. I’ll let him know in a couple of days when I come back. He hands me a box that warms my hands even through my gray, fingerless gloves. He always throws in a free coffee, and I thank him after he gives me the cup.
“You’re welcome.” His smile is devious when he leans over the counter. “You ever gonna dump that jerk and let me take you on a date?”
I shake my head. This is the time to tell him I’m moving, but the words still strangle in my throat, and I don’t want to cry in front of him. We’re not close friends, but I’ve known Greg for years—he’s asked me out for years. He takes rejection rather well but remains hopeful. I’m going to miss his flirting and the way his smile cheers me up every time I see him.
After adding cream and sugar to my coffee, I head out and walk three blocks up Summit Street to my favorite spot. I get to my bridge and take a seat, my legs dangling from the ledge.
Despite the cold, the warmth from the coffee cup and thecrêpein my hands comforts me. I look over the Kansas City skyline, pausing on the shiny Kauffman Center, wishing I had gotten to see at least one show there before my time in this city is over.
My eyes prickle with tears, and I take a deep breath. I can’t start the waterworks now. I can’t be a crybaby over the next few weeks as I say goodbye to everyone I know—to every place I love. Will I even have time to visit all my favorite places before I go? The graffiti alley in the Crossroads arts district where Ethan and I snuck our initials inside a heart next to my favorite piece, an enormous whale swimming in the alley. Or Shawnee Mission Park, where my dad insisted on hosting my birthday parties every year, even after I told him I was too old for birthday parties.
Or the home I grew up in. I take a deep breath. The home I couldn’t keep renting on my own. Even if I do find the time to say goodbye one last time, I can’t go inside anymore.
A brand-new family lives there now.
I’ve loved this city my whole life. And now I have to leave it.
I’m not wanted here.
Trying to focus on the positives as much as I can, I’m determined to enjoy all my favorites before I go. And I’m starting with this deliciouscrêpe. Setting the coffee next to me, I open the lid to the box and my mouth waters at the sight of thecrêpewith butter and powder sugar. I wrap it in a roll like a burrito and it’s halfway to my mouth when rain starts falling around me, getting thecrêpewet. Now I really want to cry like a pouty child who just dropped her lolly.
I’m considering eating it anyway when my phone goes off in my coat pocket, playing “How to be a Heartbreaker” byMarina. I rub my hand over my thigh to warm it up a little and pull out the phone. The name Sofia displays on the screen, and I get excited for a moment. Maybe she has a job for me.
Since I’ll be leaving soon, I’m determined to work and save up as much as possible before my move, and she always throws a little extra work my way.
“So?”
“Hi, Lo. How are you?”
“You know me,” I say in a teasing voice. “Never good.” I look down at my ruined, soggycrêpethat I didn’t even get to taste. At least my beanie hat is keeping the top of my head warm—even if my long, blond curls are getting wet toward the ends.
Sofia laughs. She thinks my theory that I’m cursed because my parents named me Dolores, which means ‘pain’ in Spanish, is ridiculous. If only she knew how wrong she is. I’m doomed to misery.
I’m convinced I’m cursed. Apart from the daily glitches in my life, I swear every day something goes wrong—a leaky engine in my car, a bird pooping on my head on my way out of a job, or something as simple as a soggycrêpe. It’s alwayssomethingwith me.
Why did they have to name me Dolores? They so fucked me over with that name.
But not more fucked over than when they revealed on my eighteenth birthday a family secret that derailed my entire future. A secret that froze me in place, and that I’m still trying to escape from. My friends all moved away. So did Ethan, the love of my life.
And I’m stuck.