I was afraid to look at him, could feel him holding back, and I didn’t want to know what it was. I threw my spray can, too, but it hit a wire dangling from the ceiling and just missed the wall.

Finally, he softened into me, rested his hand on top of my thigh, palm up, and I slid my hand into his.

I don’t want to be like my dad.

I stiffened. You’re not.

I need to get away from him, Claire. I have to leave this place.

Not even the floating numbness of weed could keep his words from cutting into me. You can’t leave.

Come with me.

I remember how I wanted to say yes, imagined myself following him anywhere, maybe even traveling the world like Harriet and Pete had. But then I thought about Dad and Ruth, and my mother, and I swallowed hard. I wasn’t weak like her. I didn’t need to run, because everything I wanted was right here in Whittier. So I tried to laugh him off, grabbed his face in my hands and kissed him, savoring the roughness of his cheek, the softness of his mouth, the way his hands slid around to my back, pulling me against him, and I remember how it felt both passionate and desperate. Like a first and last kiss.

He stares at me now, so different from my memory, grown-up and confident in a way I’ve never seen. I feel suddenly shamed, stuck in a past that I thought we’d shared. And now he’s back and we couldn’t be more different.

My mouth opens but I can’t sort out my thoughts; I’m caught in the past, unsure of what we’ve been talking about. “Um . . .” I search my notes, find what I’m looking for. Bill’s dead. “Oh, um, when did he die?”

“Last year. They think he lost his w . . . w-ay home from the bar.” Tate makes a noise in his throat. “Not surprising he’d go out . . . like that.”

“Oh.” I know this; I’m sure I do but I also don’t, so I write it down, hating that I have to do it in front of Tate.