As I’m making my way up to the front door, I hear voices and laughter coming from the backyard, so I alter my course and make for the gate instead. Chase is in the pool, Dad is attempting to spark up the barbecue, and Jamie is kicking a soccer ball around. Gucci barks when she sees it and tries to lunge across the yard, but I grab her collar and hold her back.
“Eden!” Dad lifts his head from the barbecue and gives me a nod, genuinely looking happy to see me. We’ve never really sat down and talked about what happened last summer, and I’m still angry with him, but he’s been trying a lot harder to get along with me recently. Maybe our relationship will never be what it was. Or maybe it’ll just take time. But at least now we’re trying. “Are you hungry? We’re about to cook up a feast.” It reminds me of last summer, of my first day here in Santa Monica and my first time meeting Tyler. It feels like a decade ago.
“Mom’s already got dinner under control,” I tell Dad quickly, because I’m still focused on trying to hold Gucci back. I fire Jamie a pleading glance. “Jamie, please hide the ball for a second.”
He rolls his eyes as he kicks the ball up and catches it, before turning around and gently tossing it through the patio doors. I unclip Gucci’s leash and let her go. She whizzes around the yard like a lunatic.
“Is Tyler here?” I ask. It’s mostly because I didn’t get the chance to speak to him at school today, and I have yet to go a single day without talking to him, but I also ask because part of me wonders what he’s doing right now, and what he’s thinking about, and if he still loves cotton candy as much as he loves amusement park rides.
Dad doesn’t glance up from the barbecue, but he does point to the house with his thumb. “Upstairs.”
I leave Gucci in the yard under Jamie’s supervision and make my way into the house, which is also my second home. I’ve spent more and more time here over the past year, and now Jamie and Chase really do feel like my little brothers. Ella can never take my mom’s place, but I know I can rely on her. Dad…well, Dad is Dad. I alternate weekly between my mom’s place and here, so that I have the chance to live with both halves of my family, because quite frankly, I love them both.
“Eden! Are you here for the barbecue?” Ella’s standing by the island, measuring out jugs of juice, but she pauses to smile at me. She’s wearing her suit, the jacket placed neatly over the back of a chair behind her, and I figure she hasn’t been home for long. She’s been back at work for six months now.
“Not tonight,” I say. “I was walking the dog and I thought I’d drop by. Tyler’s upstairs, right?”
“Yes, he’s packing.” She sighs, but she’s smiling.
Despite the way my chest aches at the thought of him moving away, I head across the kitchen and into the hall, skipping up the stairs two steps at a time. It’s silent upstairs, and the blinding sun lights up each room. Tyler’s door is ajar, a stream of sunlight shining through. I push it open fully.
There are two suitcases laid open on his bed, half filled with his clothes, and the rest of the room is bare. Everything else has already been shipped across the country and is waiting for him in his apartment, right in the center of Manhattan. Tyler steps out of the bathroom and gives me a small smile.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
There’s a silence, the same as there always is every day when we talk. It’s not an awkward silence. It’s become familiar. It’s as though we need a moment to compose ourselves in case we do or say something we shouldn’t. A moment to pull on our game faces, to build up our brave fronts, to convince ourselves that we aren’t still in love with the person standing in front of us.
Ignoring the way my palms grow sweaty and how my heartbeat picks up, I stare at the suitcases for a short while before finally shifting my eyes over to meet his. “Can you believe you’re really moving to New York?”
It took Tyler a lot of convincing to agree to it, but here he is. On Monday, he’s flying over to New York and staying there for an entire year, traveling the East Coast, sharing his story, and possibly helping others. But he’s had to work hard for the opportunity. He’s graduating on Thursday with a 3.3 GPA. He hasn’t been high in eight months. The last time he raised his voice to any of us was last year. It’s like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders now that everyone knows the truth, everyone understands him. Inevitably, the truth had to come out at some point when he let it slip that he was moving to the other side of the country. Rachael’s a little nicer to him now.