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I strap my headphones around my ears, tuck my Walkman into my backpack, and blast music as I bike up the road. I let the music clear out my thoughts. It’s like my ears are open windows and the music is a hefty cross-breeze, blowing away anything in its path.
Because when I let myself think, my thoughts are chicken wire. It hurts to cross them.
You’re doing the right thing, he’d said. You’re making the right choice.
Maybe he’s right, you know? He’s the adult here. I’m a dumb girl who got herself stuck in a dumb spider’s web of problems I can’t easily wiggle out of this time.
As I get closer, the lighthouse peeks out first from the horizon. And then the hospital itself. It strikes me how big it is. How impressive.
How small I feel standing next to it, straddling my bike.
I need to go inside. But I can’t. My feet are stuck to the ground.
I can’t do this, I think. The thought is a lump in my throat, a weight on my chest.
I can’t do this.
“Kenzi?”
Donovan is standing there. The sight of him is both a surprise and a relief, and I nearly fall off my bike. I adjust, keeping balance, and ask, “What’re you doing here?”
He’s by the bike rack, pulling his own bike out. It’s worn and the pedals click loudly when he walks it beside me. “Last day of my summer program.”
“How’d it go?”
He makes a gagging sound. I laugh. Too loudly.
He knits his eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”
Um…
“Here to celebrate you, obviously. Happy graduation.”
That pulls a smile from him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. We can do whatever you want.”
He glances over his shoulder. “We should wait for Jason.”
“No,” I say too quickly. The thought of seeing him right now sends my heart pounding. “I mean…I thought this could just be the two of us. For old time’s sake.”
He bites his lower lip briefly in thought. Then he swings his leg over his bike and says, “C’mon.”
We speed down the road, away from the medical center, even as I feel the pull of anxiety tightening like a noose around my neck with every pedal push.
We end up at the very top of the clay cliffs. We find a spot where the grass is cut shorter and flop down, head to head, watching the clouds. It’s chilly up here, but the sun is hot, and it warms my skin.
“What’s the deal with Jason’s dad?” I ask after a while.
Donovan glances over at me, his eyebrows knit. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…what do you know about him?”
Donovan thinks about it, then says, “My family has a…weird relationship with the Kings.”
“How so?”
A sigh escapes him. “We didn’t always live in a trailer. We had a house in Syracuse. Dad was an accountant. Mom was a teacher. We were comfortable. And then Mom got cancer. He really loved her, so…my dad went all out. The best doctors. The best hospital. That’s how we came here. I was thirteen. It was supposed to be temporary. But…she never got better. She fought it. Hard. For two years. But…well…”
