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But A lets me go.
“Thanks for driving all this way,” he says.
Should I tell him he’s welcome? What does that even mean? Welcome to what?
“Will I see you again?” he asks.
I don’t have the heart to say no. Because there’s a part of my heart that wants to stay, and will stay with him until I come to get it back.
I nod.
“I’m going to prove it to you,” he tells me. “I’m going to show you what it really means.”
“What?”
“Love.”
No. I am scared of that.
I am scared of all of this.
But I don’t tell him that. I tell him goodbye instead—the kind of goodbye that’s never, ever final.
Chapter Nine
I remember the way everyone reacted when I got together with Justin, when we became a thing. They didn’t think I was paying attention, but I was.
Rebecca told me I could do better. She told me Justin could never really care about anyone because he didn’t really care about himself. She said I deserved to be with someone who had his shit together. I told her I didn’t know anyone who had their shit together, including her. She told me she was going to pretend I hadn’t said that. She told me I was smarter than I thought I was, but I always liked to prove myself stupid by making bad decisions. I told her I loved him anyway, and my use of the word love surprised us both. I held up; she backed down.
Preston said he was happy for me, and when I asked him why, he told me it was because I had found something meaningful. He didn’t think Justin was unworthy of my love, because he believed everyone was worthy of love. “He needs you, and that’s not a bad thing,” he told me. “We all need somewhere to put our love.” I remember liking this thought—that I had this certain amount of love that I needed to store someplace, and I’d decided to keep some of it in Justin.
Steve said Justin was decent.
Stephanie said she wasn’t sure.
I don’t think any of them—even Preston—expected it to last longer than a month. Any love I stored in Justin would ultimately be given away, lost in a fire, left by the side of the road.
And if this was their reaction to Justin, I couldn’t imagine what they would say if I told them about A.
—
The thought will not leave my head:
If this is possible, what else is possible?
—
I get to school and walk to my locker, and it’s only when I’m at my locker that I realize I haven’t stopped to look for Justin.
And then, even stranger: I don’t go looking for him.
I wait to see how long it’ll take him to come looking for me.
—
Not between first and second periods.
—
