“Wow,” I said, my voice thick and a tremble starts to work its way up my body. Not because of the professional success he saw in our future, but because he saw us together. Not just for a year or throughout college, but always.
Adam shrugs. “I guess both futures are possible, but I like mine better.”
“What about Erica 2.0?”
“Who needs an Erica when I’ve got you?”
The tremble shook my hands until I clasped them tight to hide it. Inside, I couldn’t stop the way my heart forgot how to beat or my lungs how to hold air. I forgot everything but the simple, unconscious honesty in Adam’s face. My version of the future seemed much more plausible, but I decided to pretend, at least for a little while, that his could be true. That we stayed in each other’s lives forever. “You could be a storyteller,” I told him softly. “You came up with all that in two hours?”
“Maybe I’ve been thinking about it—the college stuff anyway.”
I didn’t respond. Knowing he thought about things like that, that he made plans that included me...that he could pluck people out of their lives and graft them into his and make them better, stronger... Sometimes I couldn’t believe people like Adam existed. Other times, I thought it was unfair that he could be like that when I couldn’t.
ADAM
Jolene was quiet on the way back to the apartment. Not angry quiet or even sad quiet, just...quiet.
“We’ve seen worse movies,” I told her after a particularly long stretch of silence.
“What?” she said, not glancing up. My fingers itched to reach out to her, glide along her hand. I’d gone too far with our futures, planning out our entire lives. I knew that was a stupid thing to do when we weren’t even sixteen, but Jolene made me want to try for stupid, probably impossible things. She made my heart sink just from knowing hers was heavy.
“That thing we just spent two hours watching. Don’t you want to pick it apart?”
She shrugged.
I slowed my steps as we reached the entrance to the apartment. “Is this about what I said? Our future? ’Cause I was just talking, you know.”
“I know. It was just...” She chewed on the inside of one cheek. “Do you really think we’ll have any of that?”
My response was automatic. “I think we can have as much as we want.”
Her features went a little slack as she looked at me. I could almost swear she was going to cry, and my heart twisted, but then she looked away and muttered something about needing to go lie down because she had a headache.
“In your apartment?” Incredulity colored my voice. Jolene never voluntarily sought out her apartment. Her head would have to be literally splitting in two before I’d expect her to choose to go there. “We could go sit down somewhere, or—”
“I’ll find you later if it goes away, okay?” She didn’t look back as she started up the stairs.
* * *
I didn’t have the same dread for my apartment that Jolene usually had for hers. We’d been doing this every-other-weekend thing for nearly half a year now. Dad didn’t hassle me too much about being with Jolene most of the time and behind my closed bedroom door the rest. Having to be here at all was far from ideal, but I’d figured out a way to interact with him as little as possible.
It was working.
And usually Dad was, too.
When I closed the apartment door behind me, Dad and Jeremy looked up from the mountain of old metal light switch covers they were stripping on the coffee table. Frowning more over Jolene’s hasty departure than anything else, I gave Dad a one-word greeting and tried to slip off to my room.
“Adam, hold up,” Dad said. “Why don’t you lend us a hand today?”
Even though the question was rhetorical, I answered like it wasn’t. “What, like you want a list?”
Jeremy’s eyebrows lifted. The disrespectful tone of my voice coupled with my insult-laden words was asking for trouble. I got to see Jolene so infrequently as it was. If I got myself grounded, the level of suckage would be unprecedented.
But the volatile, hotheaded part of me had been spoiling for this fight since the conversation with Mom and her faulty explanation for why they lived apart. That and my frustration over Jolene’s cryptic behavior told my brain to shove it.
So instead of lowering my head and mumbling an apology, I stared my father down. “We shouldn’t be here—you shouldn’t be here. And if Greg were here, he’d have said it to your face the second you started packing your bags.” I heard Jeremy’s intake of breath. “I’m just so sick of this.” I shook my head, my sudden burst of anger fizzling out as I listened to my own words. “How can you expect me to just sit on the couch and pretend that Mom isn’t at home getting ready to go visit Greg?” She went every Saturday at sunset without fail. “And you...” I slid my gaze to Jeremy. “Is this where you want to be right now? Do you even think about what it’s like for her at the cemetery without us, huh?”
For once Jeremy lowered his head rather than shout back at me. Mom going to Greg’s grave alone was something that even he could agree was wrong. We used to visit Greg together as a family, but it had just been the three of us since Dad moved out. I know Dad went on his own, because we always found the sunflowers he left when Mom and Jeremy and I went, but thinking of her going to his grave by herself the way she’d been for months... I lost the strength to stand and sank into the nearest chair, my gaze unfocused on the floor. I didn’t have enough goodwill left with Dad after the way I’d just spoken to him to ask if he’d let me go with Mom for a few hours, but maybe Jeremy did. I’d swallow any amount of pride I had to make that happen. It wouldn’t be nearly enough, but it was something. I dragged in a breath.
“Dad, would you—”
“Sarah,” Dad said and my gaze shot to him to see the phone to his ear. “No, we’re fine. We just thought—I thought we’d visit Greg with you this afternoon. Would that be all right? You’re sure? Okay, we’ll leave right now. Should take us about forty-five minutes. Thanks, Sarah.” He stood up and, without looking at Jeremy or me, said, “Get your coats.”
* * *
Dad tried to start a few conversations while we drove, but I didn’t give him a lot to work with. And for once it wasn’t because I was trying to make a point. Jeremy at least recognized that, so after the first time he caught my eye in the rearview mirror, he didn’t give me crap about it.
Greg had always been the family mediator. He could still do it without even having to be in the car.