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“I don’t think it would get that bad,” I laughed.
“Maybe not. But I will be there. And if he doesn’t react well, you can always cry on my shoulder, and I’ll take care of you.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful for her friendship and seriously contemplating her offer. “That means a lot.”
“No problem, kid,” she said. “Now eat some of these eggs. They are to die for.”
26
KIERAN
There was something magic about the mountains at sunset.
Driving down the long highway toward Ashford, seeing them crop up in the distance, gave me a sense of wonder and peace. I felt like I had been holding my breath for six weeks. Seeing the purple mountains in the distance, I exhaled and felt my muscles relax. I was going home.
Home.
It was funny. I never really felt at home anywhere before. Mom always said home was where family was, but my uncles and aunts and cousins all scattered to the wind when I was young, and my parents being older meant they had well-established lives before I was even born. I was an addition, not the focus. I knew they loved me, but they didn’t ever really seem to care much about what I was up to. It was a good thing I was generally a good kid.
Then they split up, and Dad married some waitress from Idaho and moved away, and Mom beat breast cancer and then disappeared into activism and old-lady card nights. I talked to her once a week, like clockwork, but the conversations were never deep. I never felt like I could just show up on her doorstep in southern Ohio and be home.
No, home was where I made it to be. And home, for me, was wherever Sofia was.
Six weeks of being away from her, longer than we had even been together before I left, had let me stew on how I felt about her. There was no question anymore. I was in love with her. Deeply, truly in love with her. When I got home, I was going to tell her exactly that. Before the end of the night, she was going to know how much I couldn’t live without her and how I never wanted to spend that much time away from her again.
Slowly, the signs pointing the way to Ashford began to crop up, and I made it a game for myself to count them down. With the music on and the warm late-summer sun tanning my arm with the window down, I cheerfully counted down the miles until I was back.
I wasn’t going to go to my place when I got into town. I wasn’t going to go to the station, either. I was going straight to Sofia’s. There was no place in the world I wanted to be more than her bed. I realized that now. For a long time, I felt like we were torn between places, neither of us feeling completely comfortable in the other’s space. But now I knew I would be comfortable wherever she was. And her bed was heaven. A destination to pursue.
My phone was attached to the dock on the windshield, and I glanced at it as I peeled off onto the route taking me into Ashford. Still no messages from Sofia. Oh well. It would be a fun surprise when she opened the door, and I would be standing on her porch. She knew I was probably coming home today, but the anticipation and surprise of showing up unannounced was something extra.
As I drove into the mountains and onto the back roads that snaked down the eastern portion of Tennessee, down through the mountains that separated the state from Virginia and North Carolina and into the valley where Ashford lay, the sun set. Darkness spread in a purple blanket over the sky, cooling the heat and making the wind coming in the car from the open window almost chilly.
Finally, I pulled into Ashford, just streets away from where Sofia’s place was, and the excitement and anticipation of seeing her was like a hot rock in the center of my stomach. Suddenly, I was bombarded by worry that she wouldn’t be there or that she wouldn’t let me in. That something had changed in the last twenty-four hours. That she wouldn’t want me anymore.
When the truck was parked, I took a deep breath and rolled up the windows. I wondered how I would respond if she didn’t answer the door. I didn’t have an answer for myself. Yet, I pushed on and went to the porch, knocking lightly.
“Come in,” a voice said in the distance. That was encouraging. The worry seemed to fade away and be replaced with that excitement once again. I grinned as I turned the knob and it opened easily.
I was greeted by mostly darkness, pockmarked by tiny yellow streams of light from candles burning in various places. Some were small votives, others long sticks, giving the room a dim, warm glow. Shutting the door behind me, I smiled into the near darkness.
