Chapters (31)
The hallway that runs along the upstairs balcony feels endless as I pass the doors to his parents’ room and his sister’s. I can’t believe I was thinking about moving in here while he was ready to dump me. He’s just done? It doesn’t make any sense, and the irrationality of it all gives me a certain sense of calm. Tomorrow he’ll text. I’ll wake up to “Love you”—Zander’s version of an I’m sorry—and all will be right. Because serious relationships don’t end like this. They don’t end without tears or yelling. Over the years my mother’s boyfriends just left. One day they were there and the next they were gone. Zander isn’t some guy I met at the grocery store and brought home on a whim. Why did he have to kiss me?
I had almost gotten used to him and Horrible Ellie Henderson, to the idea that we’d never get together. I had a crush on Joey Hammond that spring. He had just started texting me, and showing up at the ice cream shop after my shifts. But then Zander broke up with Ellie, and we sat on his bed, and he kissed me. He changed everything. Now I wish he had just left me in my little bubble, loving him in secret. We wouldn’t have anything to lose. But no, he just had to go and kiss me.
As I make my way through the kitchen I give Trudy a quick smile. She’s leaning her hip against the counter, hunched over a notepad as she scratches at it with a pen. Her hair is long and blond and everything about her is soft-looking. Not like my mother, who is all sharp angles, straight lines, and cropped dark hair. Trudy has always felt like what I thought a mother should be. Not just soft, but warm. I want to stop, to tell her what a jerk her son is, but it’s embarrassing to admit how dysfunctional we can be. Plus it isn’t fair to her. Or to me. Because she’d march me right back up there and somehow fix this. I’m not sure if I’m ready for it to be fixed.
I want the text.
I want to ignore it for a few hours, to make him wait and wonder. I want to be on the other end for once. I never realized how much I needed it until this moment. I’m out the door before Trudy can even say a word. And as I walk out of Zander’s house, along the brick walkway and down the driveway, where the family’s speedboat sits, waiting to be hauled five hours north, I realize that my problems have only multiplied since I arrived. I still don’t have anywhere to live next year.
This isn’t how I imagined summer starting.