"Please, Dad. Let it go."
He stops talking, but doesn't look away. Neither do I.
"You're reading too much into things," I manage. "That's all."
"Again." He sets the book down slowly, deliberately. "You'd be out with your friends right now if it is nothing. Lily Moreland included."
Damn him. Damn him and his book and his knowing looks and his complete inability to leave well enough alone.
“I’m going to bed,” I mumble.
I hear his annoying chuckle until I close the door to my bedroom.
15
LILY
Isubmit my applications at 8:47 on a quiet morning. One click. That's it. That's all it takes to set the countdown in motion.
I'm sitting at the counter in Erin's shop, coffee going cold beside me, Erin's encouraging smile somewhere in my periphery.
I put all my money on Johns Hopkins and Stanford, but I also have Chicago just in case. Chicago is home, so whatever happens at least I will not feel completely alone.
Medical school applications, officially in. Interviews in the fall. Decision letters in the spring. And then, same time next year, not here.
Not here. The thought shoots through me like pain, like someone dropped a stone behind my ribs and forgot to take it out. Not here. Not in this shop with the morning light coming through the windows. Not down the street to Ruth's, not in the same town as Rome again. Alone again.
I have to move. Literally have to stand up and dosomething with my hands or I'm going to sit here and spiral about a future that's twelve months away when I'm supposed to be here, in this moment, in this life I actually chose.
I close my laptop, shove it across the counter like it is to blame, pick up my scissors, and trim the flowers that’ve been waiting. The stems are thick and stubborn and require more force than I'm prepared for, which is actually perfect because it gives me something to fight.
Then I just stare at the wall for a while. Erin pretends not to notice. She refills my coffee without asking, says nothing, moves around the shop with that quiet competence she has, and I love her for it in a way I couldn't articulate without crying.
Which I'm not going to do. Over flowers. Over an application I've been working toward for years. Over the thing I'm supposed to want.
Four months in Harbor Hill, and the strange thing is that it's been exactly what I came for and nothing like what I expected.
I don't know anymore which parts are going to be harder to leave. The easy answer is Rome and Erin and Poppy. The honest answer includes a man whose name I haven't let myself say out loud to anyone in three weeks. And the easy answer is everything else. This town smelling like salt and pine in June. Everyone just letting me belong here without making me prove I deserved it. Everyone except Cherry, but I think about her as little as possible and my life is better for it.
The firehouse kiss was a month ago. A month in which he and I have been in the same room approximately thirteen times, spoken approximately forty words to each other, andspent a criminal amount of time pretending not to look at each other.
Rome and I had a huge fight about his involvement in the whole mess. I didn't speak to him for weeks, which for us is unprecedented. But I still sent him angry emojis every night and he still responded with a heart because that's us, that's how we work.
He knows he crossed a line. We also know he'll never let go of the idea that I'm too big for this small town, and nothing I say will change that.
I still have a hard time disappointing Rome. Always will. He's been my one and only family since day one. Even those first ten years when I was technically with our parents, it was him. It was always him. The one who gave up everything so I could have a shot at something.
I don't know how to tell him I'm sorry. Sorry he had to give up his life for me, his ambitions, his shot at a normal young adulthood because he was too busy raising his little sister. I will always feel guilty about that. He won't hear of it, says he doesn't regret a single day, and I know he means it. He still got the education and the success he wanted, but I was a burden he did not deserve.
I can't shake the feeling that this is why he pushes me so hard. Experience everything, accomplish everything, reach for every brass ring the world offers. Because he missed out, and he's making up for it through me.
Meanwhile I have the world at my fingertips, thanks to him, ready for the taking. And maybe that's exactly why I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
All I need is to be close to Rome, close to Erin, hopefully eventually some nieces and nephews to spoil rotten andsend home sugared up and exhausted. I want a big family, a full house, people around me who know my name and my history. The world can wait, or I can experience it with them.
Now all I can think about is stupid Callahan. The thing about him is that he doesn't stop looking. He's pulled back in every other way. The drives home got briefer, the porch conversations dried up, the distance is back and freshly installed like he went at it with spackle and a vengeance.
But his eyes never quite followed the rest of him. I catch it, just for a second, just long enough to feel it land somewhere in me, before I look away first. Nowadays I always look away first.
