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The panic squeezes me tighter.
It’s clear that he thinks a delayed graduation is the better plan, and honestly, it probably is. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to slow down and stay for an extra semester. But I told my dad that despite changing my major, I would be graduating as originally planned, and I don’t want to break that promise. I want him to know that he can count on me, that he doesn’t have to carry the weight of my well-being along with Lilly’s and his own. That he raised a son worthy of his respect and pride.
And there’s also Azalea. There’smostlyAzalea, to be honest. She’ll be graduating on time, of course, and heading off to pharmacy school, probably leaving the area to do it. The last thing I want is to be stuck here trying to finish my degree while she’s somewhere else.
I didn’t wait for her this long just to say goodbye.
“I’m going to register for all of them and try to graduate on time,” I tell Bryan.
He sighs, a little louder and longer than his standard. “You need to register for the comm class, too.”
“I will.”
“Fine.” He swivels his chair toward the computer. “I’ll put in my approval for the increased courseload.”
I leave his office with the same feeling I always have after our meetings: palpable relief at being done with him for another few months mixed with the foreboding of having bitten off more than I can chew.
The walk back to my car takes me past the practice fields. I allow myself one peripheral glance before lowering my head and looking at my feet. With every day that passes, with every twinge of pain in my leg and every reminder that Grant doesn’t live here anymore, baseball seems more and more like a distant memory. I have my moments, though—my thought spirals ofwhat if. What if we hadn’t gone to Chicago? What if I had waited until the next town to get gas? What if we had left an hour earlier? An hour later?
It scares me that sometimes my mind still goes there, because I don’t want to be the person I was this summer, the one who moped all day and drove everyone away. I didn’t deserve a second chance with Azalea, and I don’t want to squander the one I’ve gotten, but some days I can still feel that black hole inside of me, threatening to consume me again.
I’m terrified it’s going to win.
Only when I turn the corner toward the parking lot do I remember that Azalea and I drove to campus together today. Realizing that she’s probably waiting for me by now, I quicken my pace until my car comes into view. Azalea is standing beside it with her backpack hanging heavy on her shoulders, looking down at her phone.
I break into a jog, suddenly desperate to be beside her. She looks up as I approach. A smile lights her face and my world. “Hey,” she says, tucking her phone in her jacket.
“Hey.” I skid to a stop in front of her and grab her hands. “Have you been out here long?”
“Maybe ten minutes.”
“Your hands are cold.”
Azalea leans into me, tilting her head up to maintain eye contact. She gently extracts her hands from mine and slides them around to my back pockets. “There,” she teases with a light squeeze of my ass. “Much better.”
Fuck, I love her. I love everything about her: her dimple and her soft body; her playfulness and her uncanny ability to make the world a brighter place; her loving, tender heart that allowed her to forgive me after I almost ruined everything.
“Guess what?” I ask her.
“What?”
“I’m going to graduate with you in May.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You’re going to take all those classes?”
“Yeah.” I reach up to move a strand of hair that’s caught in her eyelashes. “I don’t want to be stuck here without you next year.”
Azalea tilts her head at me. “We can do long distance for a semester, Mav.”
“Not interested.”
When she sighs, she actually sounds a little like Bryan. I don’t love it. “I just don’t want you to overwhelm yourself. I did apply to Iowa, and I should be a shoo-in, so—”
The chilly fall wind whips around us, and I haul her closer by the zipper of her jacket. Her hair blows into her face again; I use my other hand to gather it up and hold it down at the nape of her neck. “You told me you don’t want to go to Iowa.”
Her face falls, and I regret mentioning it. “I only went to Iowa State to be near my dad,” she says quietly. “I can’t live my life like that forever, especially not…now.”
I look at her, and I think about what she’s said. She’s so quick to provide unconditional love and support, but she’s been hurt by so many people this year—me, her mother, even her father—and she’s right. At a certain point, she’s going to have to start living for herself. Making the decisions that are best for her and only her.
