Right then I hear the sound of a car engine. I know it’s Dean before I even look, and the soft purr fades into silence as the car pulls up on the driveway. Jack, my mom’s boyfriend, has parked his truck further up, so I crane my neck to get a better view.
Dean’s pushing open the door of his car and stepping out, but his movements are slow and his face is blank, like he doesn’t want to be here. This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. Last night his replies were blunt and he spent the evening mostly looking at his phone, and when I left his house he didn’t walk me out to my car like he normally does. Just like Mom, he’s a little pissed off with me.
A lump grows in my throat and I try to swallow it down as I pull out the handle of my suitcase. I wheel it toward the front door but then pause to fix Mom with an anxious frown. It’s finally time to leave for the airport.
Dean doesn’t knock before he enters the house. He never does; he doesn’t have to. But the door swings open slower than usual before he steps into the house, looking tired. “Morning.”
“Morning, Dean,” Mom says. Her small smile becomes a much wider grin as she reaches out to gently squeeze his arm. “She’s ready to go.”
Dean’s dark eyes flash over to meet mine. Normally he smiles when he sees me, but this morning his expression is neutral. He does, however, raise his eyebrows at me, as though to ask, “Well, are you?”
“Hey,” I say, and I’m so nervous that it comes out sounding weak and pathetic. I glance down at my suitcase and then back up to Dean. “Thanks for doing this on your day off.”
“Don’t remind me,” he says, but he’s starting to smile and it puts me at ease. Stepping forward, he takes my suitcase from me. “I could be in bed right now, sleeping until noon.”
“You’re too good to me.” I move closer to him and wrap my arms around his body, burying my face into his shirt while he laughs and squeezes me back. I tilt my face up to look at him from beneath my eyelashes. “Seriously.”
“Aw,” Mom coos from beside us, and it makes me realize that she’s still in the room. “You two are so cute.”
I shoot her a warning glance before looking back to Dean. “And that is our cue to leave.”
“No, no, listen to me first.” Mom stands and her brief smile quickly disappears, a disapproving frown taking its place. I fear that when I come home this frown of hers will have become permanent. “Don’t go on the subway. Don’t speak to strangers. Don’t step foot in the Bronx. Also, please come home alive.”
My eyes roll to the back of my head. I received a similar lecture exactly two years ago when I was leaving for California to reconnect with Dad, only then the warnings were mostly about him. “I know,” I say. “Basically, just don’t do anything stupid.”
She looks at me hard. “Exactly.”
I let go of Dean’s arm and step toward her, wrapping my arms around her. Hugging her will shut her up. It always does. She squeezes me tightly and sighs against my neck. “I’ll miss you,” I murmur, but it’s muffled.
“And you sure as hell know I’m going to miss you too,” she says as she pulls away from me, her hands still on my shoulders. She glances at the clock on the kitchen wall before gently pushing me back toward Dean. “You better get going. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
“Yeah, we better head off,” Dean says. He swings open the front door and rolls my suitcase over the threshold, pausing. Perhaps it’s to see if my mom has any more unnecessary words of advice for me before I leave. Thankfully, she doesn’t.
I grab my backpack from the couch and follow Dean outside, but not without turning back around to offer Mom one final wave. “I guess I’ll see you in six weeks.”
“Stop reminding me,” she says, and with that, she promptly slams the front door. I roll my eyes and make my way across the lawn. She’ll come around. Eventually.
“Well,” Dean calls over his shoulder as I follow him to his car, “at least I’m not the only one who’s being left behind.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and run a hand through my hair, lingering by the passenger door as he throws my suitcase into the trunk. “Dean, please don’t start.”
“But it’s not fair,” he mutters. We slide into the vehicle at the exact same time, and the moment he gets his door shut, he lets out a groan. “Why the hell do you have to leave?”
“It’s really not that big of a deal,” I say, because I really don’t see what the problem is. Both he and Mom have disapproved of New York since the second I mentioned it to them. It’s as though they think I’ll never come home again. “It’s just a trip.”