Miller held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about it. My mom’s boyfriend is a dick. Let’s leave it at that.”
I shook my head. “But fucking hell, Miller…”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll deal with him when I get back.”
Ronan’s hands balled into fists as he drew close to Miller, his voice low and hard as he spoke. “When you get back, we’re going to handle it. Okay?”
Miller’s eyes swam. He nodded. “Okay.”
“Good.” Ronan gripped his shoulder for a moment, then looked to me, questioningly. I nodded to show I’d heard him and understanding passed between us. We’d burn it all down for Miller.
For a few hours, I forgot about my own heartache and concentrated on cheering Miller up. While Ronan cooked us up some hotdogs, I regaled them all with tales of my incarceration at the sanitarium.
The group laughed as I spoke, but Violet, who was on a path to be a doctor, watched me with a clinician’s gentle concern. The following night was Prom. Since Miller would be in LA, she was still going with River. I tried to hate her and couldn’t.
The sun sank and it was time for Miller to go. It should have been the most exciting time of his life, but Miller’s hope was struggling under the worry that the executives at Gold Line would take one look at him—poor, bruised, and beaten—and take a pass.
I rose unsteadily and planted my hands on his shoulders, giving him my hardest, this-is-fucking-serious look.
“Listen to me. If you get to this meeting and start to panic or freak the fuck out, I have a sure-fire solution that I use when I get in tough spots.”
“What’s that?” Miller asked skeptically.
“I ask myself one question and one question only… What would Jeff Goldblum do?”
Miller smirked. “Thank you, that’s super helpful.”
My gaze dropped down to those bruises, purple and stark, on his skin. I unwound my knit scarf and slipped it loosely around his neck.
“You don’t have to explain anything to them, okay? Not a goddamn thing.”
“Dammit, Parish.” He blinked hard and pulled me in for a hug. “Thanks, man.”
I held on tight, eyes squeezed shut.
Thank you, Miller. For giving me a place in the world for a little while.
At home, my aunt and uncle were sitting at the patio table, clearly waiting for me. They jumped to their feet to intercept me before I could slip into the guesthouse.
“Holden, my boy,” Uncle Reg said, jogging up to me with a short chuckle. “You’re a hard man to get a hold of these days.”
“We’ve been wanting to talk to you about graduation,” Mags said with a bright, nervous smile.
“What about it?”
“We’d like to attend the ceremony. Beatriz too. To celebrate you.”
“It’s a major milestone,” Reg added. “Not to mention the tradition of it, turning of the tassel… All the fun stuff.”
“I won’t be walking,” I said. “I’m getting my diploma and getting the hell out of town. You’ll be rid of me.”
They exchanged glances.
“It’s been nice having you, Holden,” Mags said slowly. “We’ve been talking and if you’re thinking you have to leave because the year is up, well…”
“Plans can change,” Reg finished. “For instance, if you wanted to stay—”
“I don’t,” I heard myself say, my voice like ice, even as part of my stupid heart still reached for them. “There isn’t anything for me here.”
Chapter Twenty
Talk to me. Please.
I hit send on the text. Like every other text I’d sent to Holden over the last few days, it went unanswered. Calls went to voicemail.
I slumped on my bed. My tux for Prom that night hung on a hanger on the back of my door as it had on Homecoming at the beginning of the year. I closed my eyes, a stupid hope that when I opened them, Holden would be lounging against my dresser with that irritatingly smug look on his face I loved so much.
He wasn’t there, and his absence was like a hole that had opened in me, empty and cold.
Flowers for Algernon lay open on my bed. I hadn’t read it until a few days ago, after the incident under the bleachers. That night, I’d picked it up and finished it within hours. Charlie, a man with a clinically low IQ, participates in an experiment to enhance his intelligence. His genius skyrockets, but the experiment slowly fails, and Charlie eventually sinks back into his old life.
“And he loses the love of his life.”
Holden had neglected to mention that when he gave me the book.
I sighed heavily and set it aside. My phone was silent. I’d have to pick up Violet in a few short hours, take pictures with her parents, then drive us here and do it again with Mom and Dad. I’d put my arm around Violet and smile as if we were a happy couple.
Outside my room, I heard Mom and Dad’s bedroom door close softly, followed by a muffled sob. I tore off the bed and found Amelia in the hallway, one hand pressed to her mouth, shoulders shaking.
“Hey,” I said, moving toward her.
She shook her head but let me wrap my arms around her. I held her as she sobbed quietly into my shirt. Mom’s scans had come back. Dad could hardly speak when he sat Amelia and me down at the kitchen table a few nights ago. The road was coming to an end. A few weeks at most. And this time, there wouldn’t be a miracle.
“Come on,” I said, leading Amelia into her room, next to mine. We sat on her bed surrounded by posters of BTS and Riverdale. Russian nesting dolls lined
