Then why haven’t you kissed me yet? It’s my line. It’s what I replied the day we started dating. Except the scene’s over. The memory of Matt, confident and cheeky, walking up to me in the school hallway, draws new tears into my eyes. I divert my gaze, not wanting this to feel even worse.
Matt grabs his bag and jacket from beside the bed, then returns to the doorway. “I’ll stay with Justin tonight,” he says gently, and I catch myself loving him for not dragging out the breakup. Which is such a wrong, confusing thing to love him for that I nearly break down right then. “In the morning I’ll take the bus home,” he continues.
I look up. “You don’t have to,” I say. “I’ll drive you. Really.”
But Matt shakes his head. “No,” he replies with intensity I didn’t expect. His eyes meet mine. While they’re watery, they’ve regained the clarity of purpose I remember from batting practices and the moments before kisses and endless—except, I guess, not endless—conversations.
I’ll probably remember those moments, his eyes, forever.
“Have your trip,” he tells me. “Have everything, Juniper.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’m not used to not knowing what to say, to fumbling for the right words. In student government speeches or confrontations with Tía, they come easily. But what could I possibly say right now? “Thank you”? “Okay”? “What if this is the happiest thing I ever have”?
With one final smile, tears drying on his face, Matt walks out. He closes the door softly behind him.
Fitz
I DON’T KNOW how to read this girl. Or possibly girls in general. But right now, Juniper’s the riddle. Yesterday she texts me for hours while we’re on the road, exchanging favorite words and cities, swapping family stories and photos of the highway. Today, nothing. Well, not nothing—she replies to my texts. But I notice long pauses in between her replies, no punctuation, and none of the ebullience or humor of our conversation yesterday.
I know I’m reading into it, and I kick myself for playing into introspective-hipster-boy tropes. Teenage ginger Joseph Gordon-Levitt decoding the texts of Zooey Deschanel or Zoey Deutch or other Zoeys while wandering New York City. Find me a Joy Division T-shirt and fancy coffee, and I’m ready for my close-up.
I really could go for a good coffee, though.
I’m on my own while Lewis interviews for one of the finance jobs he hopes will keep him from Tilton, New Hampshire. Five hours of interviews for Bright Partners, one of the top VCs in the country, he told me in the hotel this morning, though really it was more like a monologue to himself in the mirror. I thought I caught uncharacteristic nervousness in the waver of his voice. He told me he’d text me for dinner, and emptily I wished him luck. Despite the friendlier moments we’ve had on this trip, I still don’t love the idea of him taking a job in New York.
I have no college tours today while Lewis interviews. Though I could have made up yesterday’s NYU visit, I found myself interested in the city instead. I decided to walk downtown on Broadway, which is when I began texting Juniper.
It’s not worth speculating why her replies have changed, I remind myself. Crossing from street corner to corner in packs of pedestrians, it dawns on me that I’m halfway through this trip. In just five days, I’m returning to New Hampshire, to home-cooked meals and familiar friends and the unchanging prospect of SNHU. Those things are your future, I find myself repeating. They’re important.
Because, I guess, part of me does want more. More new cities. More time with a hypothetical girl who could potentially be interested in architecture and possibly, theoretically want to live “everywhere.”
It’s better I don’t turn this funny light-speed friendship with Juniper into something more. We’re inchoate. Yet unformed and undefined due to newness. It would only hurt worse when I have to return to my life of waiting for the inevitable. Because I do have to return.
It’s why I could muster only a hollow “good luck” to Lewis. It won’t be him home with Mom. It’ll be me.
I know I could have years until Mom declines. I could commit to other schools in other cities. Except I won’t do what Mom did. I won’t go to some other school and then withdraw when her condition worsens. I won’t fall in love with a college or city and have to leave. It’s the same with Juniper. It’s better in the long run if things don’t progress.
Whatever’s out there, I’m certain of one thing. I would rather never know than force myself to forget.
It’s within my rights to be frustrated that I’m living like this, always focused on my mom’s health, every decision hinging on her. This isn’t the first time it’s pissed me off, of course. But I guess at some point over the years, I realized if I bothered to resent this reality every single day, I’d burn out. It would be equivalent to resenting the sun for rising and setting. This—the inevitability of me losing some years to responsibilities I’m too young for—won’t change.
I don’t think Mom fully understands how entirely I’ve structured my life around her well-being. That’s fine with me. It’s not her fault, and it’s the one thing I have the power to keep her from worrying about.
Resolute, I walk down Broadway, immersing myself in the details. They’re keepsakes. The rare winter sun remediates the chilly weather, lighting the cloud cover blindingly white. I enjoy the crisp warmth on my face. Trash overflows from curbside cans and dumpsters in front of buildings. It’s not gross, though. It’s this bold, in-your-face reminder of the towering number of human lives on top of each other in this endless city.
It’s nothing like home. It’s the exact opposite, in fact. I cross Fourteenth Street in front of Union Square Park, somewhat uncomprehending of the momentum, the sheer concentration of people heading purposefully in every direction. The hectic cacophony of car horns, cyclists whizzing past me, and people in suits talking into headsets. I can’t help imagining future Lewis among them. It’s dizzying, in a good way. The propulsive energy pulls me in.
I recognize the feeling. Not from this city. From conversations. From debating college over cannoli. From discussing if a boy who dreads the future could become friends with a girl racing for it.
Juniper told me she lived in New York City when she was younger. It figures. She has the restlessness of this place, the inertia. I walk the brick pathway into Union Square, picturing her here, on the lawns hemmed in by wrought-iron fences and perusing the crowded farmers’ market on the perimeter.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking about her in New York, I tell myself. It’s not the same as hoping I’ll start something with her I could never finish. It’s just meaningless wonderings.