I vaguely remember having a brief thought ten seconds ago about Dillon and how I felt sorry for him. I take that thought back now.
Dillon looks at me and winks. “What you doing, Tate?”
“Washing elephants,” I say with a straight face.
Dillon shoots me a confused look, not at all understanding my random response.
“If you don’t want a sarcastic answer,” Cap says to him, “don’t ask a stupid question.”
The elevator doors open, and Dillon rolls his eyes at both of us before walking onto the elevator.
Cap cuts his eyes to mine, and he grins. He holds a palm up in the air, and I high-five him.
chapter twenty-four
MILES
Six years earlier
“Why is everything yellow?”
My dad is standing in the doorway to Rachel’s bedroom,
looking at the few items we’ve collected in the months since
he’s known about the pregnancy. “It looks like Big Bird threw
up in here.”
Rachel laughs. She’s standing at the bathroom mirror, putting
the finishing touches on her makeup. I’ve been lying on her
bed, watching her.
“We don’t want to know if it’s a boy or a girl, so we’re buying
gender-neutral colors.”
Rachel answers my dad’s question as if it were one of many,
but we both know it’s the first. He hasn’t asked about the
pregnancy. He doesn’t ask about our plans. He usually leaves
the room if Rachel and I are both in it.
Lisa isn’t much different. She’s not past the point of
disappointment or sadness yet, so we don’t push it. It’ll take
time, so Rachel and I are giving that to them.
Right now, Rachel only has me to talk to about the baby, and
I only have her, and even though that seems like too little, it’s
more than enough for both of us.
“How long will the ceremony last?” my dad asks me.
“No more than two hours,” I tell him.
He says we should go.
I tell him that as soon as Rachel is ready, we can go.
Rachel says she’s ready.
We go.
• • •
“Congratulations,” I tell Rachel.
“Congratulations,” she tells me.
We both graduated three hours ago. Now we’re lying on my
bed, thinking about our next step. Or at least I am, anyway.
“Let’s move in together,” I tell her.
She laughs. “We kind of already live together, Miles,” she
points out.
I shake my head. “You know what I mean. I know we already
have plans for after we start college in August, but I think we
should do it now.”
She rises up on her elbow and looks at me, probably trying to
read my expression to see if I’m serious.
“How? Where would we go?”
I reach over to my nightstand and open the top drawer. I pull
out the letter and hand it to her.
She begins reading it out loud.
Dear Mr. Archer,
She looks up at me, and her eyes are wide.
Congratulations on your summer registration. We are pleased
to inform you that your application for family housing has been
processed and approved.
Rachel smiles.
Enclosed you will find a return envelope and the final
paperwork which will need to be returned by the postmarked
date.
Rachel looks at the envelope and quickly flips through the
attached paperwork. She pulls the letter back to the top.
We look forward to receiving the completed forms. Our contact
information is below should you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Paige Donahue, Registrar
Rachel covers her smile with her hand and tosses the letter
aside, then leans forward and hugs me.
“We get to move now?” she says.
I love how evident the excitement is in her voice.
I tell her yes. Rachel is relieved. She knows as well as I do how
awkward the next several weeks would have been in the same
house as our parents.
“Have you asked your father yet?”
I tell her she forgets that we’re adults now. We no longer have
to ask for permission. We only have to inform.
Rachel says she wants to inform them right now.
I take Rachel’s hand, and we walk together to the living room
and inform our parents that we’re moving out.
Together.
chapter twenty-five
TATE
It’s been a few weeks since Corbin found out. He hasn’t accepted it, and he still hasn’t spoken to Miles, but he’s beginning to adapt. He knows on the nights I leave without explanation, only to come back a few hours later, where I’ve been. He doesn’t ask.
As far as things with Miles, I’m the one doing the adapting. I’ve had to adapt to his rules, because there’s no way Miles is adapting to breaking them. I’ve learned to stop trying to figure him out and to stop allowing things to get so tense between us. We’re doing exactly what we agreed to do in the beginning, which was to have sex.
A lot of sex.
Shower sex. Bedroom sex. Floor sex. Kitchen-table sex.
I’ve still never spent the night with him, and it still hurts sometimes how closed off he becomes right after it’s over, but I still haven’t figured out a way to say no to him.
I know I want so much more than what he’s giving me and he wants so much less than what I want to give him, but we’re both just taking what we can get for now. I try not to think about what will happen the day I can’t handle it anymore. I try not to think about all the other things I’m sacrificing by still being involved with him.
I try not to think about it at all, but the thoughts still come. Every night, when I’m in bed, I think about it. Every time I’m in the shower, I think about it. When I’m in class, in the living room, in the kitchen, at work . . . I think about what’s going to happen when one of us finally comes to our senses.
“Is Tate a nickname for something else?” Miles asks me.
We’re in his bed. He just got home from four days at work, and even though our arrangement is supposed to be all about sex, we’re still fully dressed. We’re not making out. He’s just lying with me, asking me personal questions about my name, and I love it so much more than any other day we’ve ever spent together.
It’s the first time he’s ever asked me a semi-personal question. I hate that his question fills me with all these feelings of hope, and all he did was ask me if Tate was a nickname.
“Tate is my middle name,” I say. “It was my grandmother’s maiden name.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth Tate Collins,” he says, making love to my name with his voice. My name has never sounded as beautiful as it did just now, coming out of his mouth. “That’s almost twice as many syllables as my name,” he says. “That’s a lot of syllables.”
“What’s your middle name?”
“Mikel,” he says. “People always mispronounce it and say ‘Michael,’ though. Gets annoying.”