you’re not sick of me yet.”
She stares at me but doesn’t speak for the longest time. “No,” she finally says. “I’m not sick of you yet.”
I brush my lips lightly against hers. “Good,” I whisper.
“So,” she begins, never breaking eye contact, “how would this work, exactly, you…visiting but not… staying?”
“I’ll be here for anything that’s important to you—races, dances, parties, whatever. We’ll plan it all out, down to the minute. You’ll never be surprised.” She fakes a pout. “Well, not in a bad way, that is.” That gets the slightest hint of a smile before her expression turns serious again.
“I’ll know when you’re leaving?”
“Every time.”
“And when you’re coming back again?”
“Every. Time,” I repeat, this time with more emphasis on each word. “I promise.”
“How can you be so certain you won’t get knocked back?” I think about what she said the other night. How she fell apart after I left.
“I’ll never stay longer than a few days. I’ll be in control the whole time. If I ever feel like I’m losing control, I’ll tell you right away.”
She licks her lips and considers me for a moment. I think she’s about to say something, but instead she slides one hand up my arm and around the back of my neck.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?”
She nods and I feel a smile spread across my face. “Yes,” she says as she hooks her finger into my belt loop and scoots back, giving me a little tug. I climb up and settle in next to her. “But I have a condition.”
I kiss her. “Let’s hear it.”
“You need to tell Maggie who you are.” I pull away from her. My first instinct is to shake my head no, but when I see the look on her face, I decide against it. I bite my tongue and let her finish her thought. “You could come and go without having to hide anything. Besides, don’t you think she deserves to know?
“Also—and this is totally selfish, I realize—but when you left last time, Maggie was the only person I could really talk to. And now you’re going to leave again. And again. And when you do, it would be nice to have one person in my life that I can talk to about you—one person I don’t have to keep your secret from.”
I rake my hands through my hair while I consider her request. I was all ready to tell Maggie the other night, but only because I thought she already knew who I was. I didn’t think I had a choice. But she seems content with the way things are. I certainly am.
I decide to stall. “Do I have to tell her before I leave tonight?” I ask.
She shakes her head no and I blow out a breath. “Just…whenever…”
Whenever. My mind starts racing with all the ways I could tell Maggie who I am, and each time, my stomach knots up. But then Anna wipes the whole thing from my mind when she scoots in closer and kisses me hard, her hands on my skin and her hair everywhere, reminding me of all the reasons I’m here and all the reasons I have to keep coming back and the fact that I’ll do anything to make her happy. When she pulls away, she smiles and says, “Emma’s eighteenth birthday is in three weeks and her parents are throwing her a party. It’ll be embarrassingly over the top.”
“Then I’ll be here.”
“I have a few cross-country races you could come to. And homecoming’s in October. Wait, we need to write this down.” She hops up off the bed and comes back holding a pen and the wall calendar, and over the next fifteen minutes, the rest of our schedule falls into place. Homecoming. Cross Country State Finals. Thanksgiving. Christmas. We have plans to see each other every two or three weeks, but I can already tell that won’t be enough. I’m not sure how to do it yet, but I’m already concocting ways to squeeze in more time with her without making her parents suspicious or running the risk of getting knocked back.
Anna closes the calendar and tosses it on the floor. “When are you leaving?” she asks.
“Soon,” I say as I play with her curls. “Maggie will be home in a few hours. I should take off before she gets back; otherwise I’ll have to stage some elaborate cab ride to the airport or something.”
She reaches up and brushes my hair off my forehead. “I want to be here when you go.”
I can’t imagine how that’s going to make this whole thing easier, but she looks pretty determined. “Are you sure?” I ask.
She nods and says, “Positive. In fact, do you mind if I stick around for a little while…afterward?” Her nose crinkles up. “Or is that just weird?”
I smile as I picture Anna and Maggie, hanging out in the kitchen drinking tea. “Stay as long as you want to. I bet Maggie would like the company. You can even come over when I’m gone.”
She rolls her eyes before she covers her face with her hand. “I did that last time you left. I moped around in here for hours.” She looks at me and says, “I even put on your coat,” and then hides her face again. She lets out a sigh and shakes her head, like she can’t believe she’s admitting this to me. But I like the idea of her wearing my coat. I like the idea that this room might help us feel some kind of connection to each other, even when we’re apart. I pull her hand away from her face and knit her fingers together with mine.
Before I can say anything, she changes the subject. “You should probably leave Maggie a note before you go.”
“Good idea,” I say. I come up on my knees and pin her hands above her head. I kiss her neck and she squirms underneath me. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
Downstairs on the narrow desk in the hallway, I spot the Post-its right away. I write a note telling Maggie I’ll be here in three weeks, and stick it on the shelf next to the basket where she always drops her keys.
Then I stare at it. I picture Anna, sitting in my room after I’ve left, alone and wishing she weren’t. I picture myself doing the same thing in a different room two thousand miles and seventeen years away. I don’t want to leave. But at least I’m here now.
I race back up the stairs and open the door.
And she’s right where I left her.
August 2012
9
San Francisco, California
I shut my eyes tight and lift my forehead off the steering wheel. My neck goes slack and I fall back into the seat, gripping the sides of my head and trying to piece together where I am. There’s a faint bit of light streaming in through the cracks on each side of the garage door, and I strain to read the clock on the dashboard: 6:03 P.M.
I rip into the box of supplies on the passenger seat, blindly groping for one of the water bottles. I down the first one without stopping and reach for another. My eyelids are still half closed when I pop the top on the Starbucks Doubleshot, and I let them fall shut completely as I tip my head back, letting the coffee slide down my throat. My whole body is shaking, and there’s sweat dripping down my face even though I’m freezing.
It takes a good twenty minutes for the pounding to turn into more of a dull throbbing, and when it does, I reach into the glove compartment for the car keys and my phone. The screen shows two missed calls from Mom back on Wednesday night, and four texts from Brooke over the last two days. I open the texts first and read them in order:
Ugh. Too quiet without you here. Having fun?
