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“Wyatt!” his mom called, holding one hand above her forehead to block the sun. “We have to go.”
“What, were you just going to, like, call me from a payphone or something?”
He shook his head. “I hadn’t figured it out yet.”
He reached for my hand, but I pulled away, stepping back. “Your mom’s calling.”
“Tilly, c’mon. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Tears poured from my eyes, and I wiped them away roughly with the back of my hand. “You were going to leave me and not say a word. I would’ve shown up here and, what? Found an empty house?”
“I don’t know.”
“School starts on Wednesday…did you tell Matt or any of your friends?”
He nodded. “Yeah, they, uh…they know.”
“Oh, great, so Matt would’ve told me that my boyfriend left the country. If you wanted to break up with me, you just should’ve done it.”
“Wyatt, I mean it! We have to go,” his mom called from the edge of the driveway.
She was wearing her bright white Keds. Wyatt’s mom always wore those same damn Keds. We used to joke that she had stacks of them in her closet. Stacks upon stacks of bright white Keds. If one got the tiniest speck of dirt on it, we speculated that she tossed them immediately and grabbed a new pair.
But I didn’t feel like joking with Wyatt. Not now. Not anymore.
Enraged, Wyatt’s face turned as red as a tomato, and he snapped his attention back toward the house. “Hold on, Mom!”
“You should go.”
“No, Tilly.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” I said, overcome with disappointment and sadness as the gravity of the situation finally settled in my brain. Wyatt was leaving…and I might not see him ever again.
“I wanted to, I just…I didn’t know how to do it. I love you, Tilly.”
“Love doesn’t feel like this.”
“That’s not true. I fucked up, okay? But I’ll buy a bunch of calling cards, and we’ll talk, like, all the time. I’ll even send you letters, I swear—”
He tried to pull me in for a hug, but I pressed my hand to his chest, holding him back.
“Right,” I said, nodding and wiping more tears from my face. “The boy who was going to leave without saying goodbye is going to write me love letters? Sure, right. Sounds reasonable.”
“Tilly, I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and sniffed back my tears, holding my head as high as I could. “Forget it.”
“Forget what? Us?”
“Wyatt, you were going to leave without saying a word.” I shrugged. “Maybe that’s all I need to know.”
“That’s not true. I just…I—I screwed up, okay? But it’ll be okay, it will.” He placed his hands on my arms, pressing gently. “Please, Tilly.”
Backing away from his touch, I shook my head. “You should go. Norway’s waiting.”
“Tilly, don’t do this.”
“You did this. Not me. Don’t you ever forget that.”
