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“Listen, I’ll give you the money for a plane ticket if you want to go. It’s not a big deal.”
“No way,” I said automatically. “I mean, thanks but—”
“Okay, real talk: I have a credit card. I have a shit-ton of frequent-flier miles. My parents have money. It’s seriously not an issue. So there’s no need to be all weird about it like you always are.”
“What? I’m not always weird about it!”
“You so are. You’re all pearl-clutchy oh-no-I-couldn’t-possibly whenever anyone even pays for a damn coffee. It’s kind of charming in, like, a wholesome small-town boy kind of way, but you take it to extremes sometimes.”
“Huh.” I’d never known I did this at all. “Do I?”
“Dude, you took us out to dinner for your birthday. You do know it’s supposed to be the other way around.”
“Um.”
“Point is, if this is the part in the movie when you fly across the country and rescue the hero or embrace on the tarmac while your mutual scarves blow in the wind or whatever, then do it. I got you. Mention me on your wedding day. No prob.”
I started to dismiss him again, but Milton clapped a hand over my mouth.
“Leo. Pause. Disregard cultural narratives about propriety and capital. Consider. Do you want to go to Michigan? Nod for yes, shake for no.”
I rolled my eyes. He left his hand over my mouth. I considered.
I knew Milton was joking about me acting like I was in a rom-com, running to confess my love before the plane could take off or whatever. But it hit a little too close to Will’s comments about me being a romantic for comfort. My only relationship experience was from books, movies, and TV, so of course I had absorbed that stuff. And maybe when I’d first gotten here my hopes for me and Will had kind of skewed in that direction.
But I was pretty sure that recently I’d—what? Grown out of it? Or, just seen that there were a lot of ways for relationships to go. A lot of ways that romance could look different.
So, did I want to go to Michigan because I had a fantasy of swooping in like the hero to the rescue? I… didn’t think so? It didn’t feel like it was about playing a role or imagining that I knew what Will needed because I was applying some formula. It felt like I knew what Will needed because I knew Will.
I knew how strong he was, how capable of dealing with anything that was thrown his way. I knew how much he cared about his sister and how much he worried about her. I knew he loved Nathan and Sarah and was scared for them. And so I knew that when Will called me after he’d promised to give me space, sounding lost and sad and scared, and asked me—even if he said it like a joke—if I was coming to Michigan… that he needed me.
Not someone. Not a blank, generic rescuer. But… me. Just me.
I didn’t know where that left us, exactly. I didn’t know what it would be like to see him again. But if he needed me, I had to be there for him.
I nodded at Milton.
“Okay,” he said. “Will you let me get you a ticket?”
I hesitated, and he rolled his eyes at me. I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded again.
“Glory hallelujah,” Milton said, exasperated.
I pushed his hand away from my mouth.
“Thank you,” I said, and I hugged him hard as the movie marquis flashed above us.
Chapter 13
March
WHEN I’D called Will from the airport to tell him I was coming, his reaction had made every moment I’d spent angsting about accepting Milton’s frequent miles worth it. “You’re really coming?” he’d said, and though he’d tried to play it off like it wasn’t necessary, he’d sounded… lighter. When I’d hung up to board the plane, he’d simply said, “thanks.” But that one word had been freighted with such relief that I’d grinned all the way to my seat.
I’d clung to it on the flight, too, focusing on how I was going to help Will rather than letting myself sink into the murk of what precisely our relationship was, or where exactly we stood. I told myself that this didn’t necessarily mean something; it just was. I congratulated myself because the sentiment seemed to fit with Tonya’s yoga teachings about being present and appreciating a thing for itself, and then immediately side-eyed myself because congratulating yourself for being present wasn’t very… present. Thank god it was a short flight.
The cab dropped me off in a part of Holiday I’d never been to before, which was saying something, given its size. Will’s sister’s place was a small prefab with a big yard and a mailbox in the shape of a dalmatian.
I could hear the yelling even before I got out of the taxi. One of the voices was definitely Will’s and I assumed the other was Claire’s. Well, at least she was out of the hospital, anyway.
