Page 24

Going to Willow Creek’s fall festival

Showing her the touristy parts of Oak Ridge again (the waterfall, the mountains, the lake, the Bloom Barn, even the pumpkin patch)

And then it hit me: What is the most powerful, most potent emotional drug possible?

Nostalgia.

Nostalgia seeps into your bones and makes everything all…cozy. Warm and familiar and inviting, and it makes you want to stay in that exact moment.

So, the list went from what exciting things are going on, to what nostalgic things can I present to my mom that would be enough for her to stick around longer than a single night?

I ran through the few memories of my childhood that I could bring together, a puzzle with just enough pieces to make out the idea of a scene, and there’s one consistency that I kept running across.

Memories of my mom holding me close on the couch, watching old rom-coms and hearing her whisper about her “old days.” “I was in love once. It feels exactly like that.” She pointed to the screen. “The best feeling you can imagine.”

The thing is, I have never truly seen my mom with any guy. Even though she moved, her social media is all just pictures of her and her girlfriends hanging out—yoga classes and sip-and-paint nights and occasionally her next to some B-list celebrity, but that’s all, never any boyfriend pictures.

That’s when it hit me: She hasn’t really dated anyone since the guy she was with before she got pregnant with me, whoever that may be.

I know for a fact it’s not my dad—I gave up on that long ago. No reason to find someone who never made an effort to be here, and apparently he was just some guy she saw in passing when she was out of town. But the guy right before that? He was the one she would whisper about, the one she had to have been clinging to for all the years she talked about romantic love like it was an unreachable, distant place.

If I can find whoever that is—God forbid he’s married or has kids or is living in Antarctica with penguins—and get them in the same room, that might be enough.

Nostalgia to the absolute max.

I look up to the sky. Little bouts of wind cause red and yellow leaves to float from the tall trees and litter the ground near me. I pull my sweater closer and fight back the disappointment of crawling with my tail tucked between my legs onto this rusted death trap.

Please. My brain begs the world for something to change here. Make the bus break down and have the whole day canceled. Or better yet, send me an angel. The kindest, best driving angel you have.

“I heard there’s a cute girl who needs a ride.”

My chin drops, and there—parked crookedly in front of my driveway like he owns the place—is Knox in his ridiculous red truck. The windows are rolled down, and “Pretty Woman” blares loud enough to shake the gold-painted pumpkins on Riley’s front steps.

“Knox.” I breathe his name like a sigh as relief floods over my entire body.

The early October air is cool but soft, carrying the faint scent of woodsmoke and mulch. Orange leaves skitter across the pavement in tiny whirlwinds, crunching under my boots as I jog toward him. This sweating, music-playing teenager is one I am more than happy to endure a fifteen-minute ride with.

“Better hurry before we get stuck behind them. Last time, a kid in the back flipped me off the whole ride there.”

I waste no time in sprinting to the passenger side of the truck I know like a second home—or a second car, I guess—and slide right into place. The seat is still locked in my perfect settings, just how I like it. Sitting straight up but with my seat pushed back so I can stretch out my legs as much as I want.

There’s a crumpled receipt for duck feed sitting on the dash and an empty Riley’s paper cup on my side that I scoot over to put my backpack down.

“Sorry.” He leans across the console—close enough that his soap-and-cedar smell mixes with the crisp morning air—and grabs the trash, tossing it into the back as if I haven’t experienced his mess a hundred times before.

My brows crinkle, but I move past it.

“You’re not working this morning?”

“I’ve been up since four; I figured a break wouldn’t hurt.”

“Miller and your dad won’t mind?” Pretty sure last week they were mad when he ran twenty minutes late to a finance meeting after visiting me at work for too long.

From the driver’s side, Knox gives me a look—gritted teeth and an unapologetic frown.

I level him a look right back. “They don’t know you’re gone.”

“Ah, no.” He takes a right turn and chuckles to himself. “I told them I was going to check on something and that it will be a while.”