One Week

Epilogue



So after all that, I'm back in LA. Cameras still follow me around wherever I go—worse now than ever before, actually, but at least now my father isn't calling them with instructions. I go out anyway, though. Dad may have been wrong about what I should have been doing, but in a way he was right—I needed to be doing something.

I'm not sure that shopping with Julia counts as doing something, though. We don't have much to say to each other, though of course we never did. Being back at school was weird at first. It's not like I was gone for that long, but when your father has told every newspaper with a Star Tracks section about your departure, it tends to seem like a bigger deal than it really was. I thought that if I heard, “What the hell were you doing in Nebraska, Bee?” one more time, I'd go back to locking myself in my house. But it's been a couple of weeks now and the talk has moved on to more interesting things, like Willow Smith's new hair product line.

Julia and I went to Book Soup today because Kanye West was doing a reading and Julia wanted to see him. I think it was her first time in a bookstore. Ever. I tried not to look for Jess, but I couldn't quite stop myself. It's not that I really thought he'd be there—what would he be doing back in LA?—but I thought if he was in LA, then he would be there.

But he wasn't there. After a while, I got better about not looking for him.

My father will be home in a few minutes. He's taken to spending a lot more time here, which I feel sort of guilty about since I know he needs to be working and it's not like we are doing anything special, or having more intense discussions about our feelings or anything like that. We just sit around in the evenings watching old movies like we used to.

I'm not going to lie—I love it.

I'm not feeling in a particularly Frank Capra-ish mood at the moment, though. It's not like I wanted to see Jess. Why would I want to see the guy that lied to me and sold me out? But if I did see him, I wanted to see him first, so that I could hide. Or go yell at him. Something.

Because the horrible truth is that I miss him. I've been sitting here at the kitchen counter eating ice cream out of the carton and replaying everything he has done—the way I felt that morning in the trailer, the way he made up with me on the train knowing what was going to happen when we got to New York, and the way he didn't call after me when I walked away. But I can't seem to focus. Instead, I see him sitting on the sidewalk in Hastings, Nebraska having a meltdown because he doesn't like corn nuts. I see him hiding from Tessa, and refusing to get in the back of Sean's truck. I see the way he looked at me that morning in the trailer, before everything went to hell.

And I can't seem to stop crying.

I hear my father come in and wipe my eyes quickly. I get up to shove the ice cream back in the freezer, and shut the door as he walks into the kitchen.

“I brought sushi,” he says, holding up a bag. He looks at my red eyes and frowns. “I got it from that place you like.” Dad sets the bag on the counter and goes to grab a beer out of the refrigerator. I start to edge out of the kitchen, hoping he's just going to let it go, when of course he asks, all fake casually, “What's going on today?”

I shrug. “Nothing. I hung out with Julia. How was your day?”

My father raises his eyebrows. Now his radar is really up. I don't think I've asked about his day in…never. I've never asked about his day. “It was all right.” He pauses for a moment, and then clears his throat. “I've been meaning to tell you, though—I had lunch with my friend Jay the other day. You remember him?”

I shake my head.

“He's at the film studies department at UCLA, and he's had me in to lecture a few times. Anyway, I asked him about that guy you were traveling with. Jesse Ryan, right?”

I nod like I knew Jess's last name already. I wonder for a second how my dad knew, but of course he makes it his business to find out these things. I'm sure he demanded Jess's Social Security number and birth certificate when Jess called him.

“Well, when he turned down the reward money—”

I blink, and catch my breath. “He did?”

“Well, yeah,” my father says, like that was obvious. “I asked around about him before leaving for New York, and after you and I got back home I contacted him and offered to help fix things for him at UCLA, but he refused that too. So I figured that was the end of that. But Jay says he's back, that he called the school and apologized for his actions, and they've got him doing community service and he's required to earn extra credits, but he's back at school.”

My father takes a sip of his beer and leans against the counter. I bite my lip and look away. So he is here. And he's spoken to my father, but didn't want to talk to me. I feel the tears starting to come back again, but I blink them away. I can't believe I spent the entire afternoon wallowing over Jess. Jesse Ryan. I'm not going to do it again.

I lift my chin. “That's nice of them,” I say tightly.

“Forgiveness is a nice thing,” my father says dryly. “And I hear it gets easier with practice.”

It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to scream at him. My father doesn't know a thing about Jess, doesn't have any idea what I did while I was gone. We didn't talk about it at all, because oddly, I felt like it was none of his business. It was private. And so where does he get off thinking he has any right to judge my feelings about Jess. I turn to walk out of the room, but my father walks over and takes me by the arm and sits me down at the kitchen table.

“All right,” he says, taking a breath. “I've been trying to figure out how to talk to you about this since you came home, trying to let you have your privacy, to figure out what you wanted to tell me in your own time. But I'm done. You're going to sit there and you're going to talk to me, because that's what we do now, Bee. We talk to each other. Okay?”

I shift in my seat mutinously, but I don't get up. I know that I could if I wanted to—and part of me does want to just walk away—but I feel like I owe my father this much. He sits down across from me, the sushi forgotten on the counter. I cross my arms on the table and lean forward. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

My father pauses and takes a big swig of his beer. “Everything. Whatever you're willing to tell me.”

I'm not willing to tell him everything, but I give him the general picture. “And then I found out that Jess had betrayed me, and we went home.” I shrugged. “That's it. Not much happened, really.” Saying it all out loud like that, it's clear that nothing much did happen. I missed the train. A lot. I met people, and they were all fairly nice. I came home. The end.

My father frowns. “Why would you call it a betrayal? That seems a little excessive. I mean, you told me on the plane that it was time for you to come home.”

“Yes,” I say slowly. “I did. But I would like to have been respected enough to have been allowed to make that decision for myself.”

My father takes a sip of his beer. “What exactly was the nature of your relationship with Jess?” he asks carefully.

I give him a pained look. I am not talking about that.

“I see. Does it occur to you that perhaps he might have thought that your feelings for him were preventing you from coming to that decision? And that he had your best interests at heart?”

I shake my head. “No. He called you before—” I blush. “Before the feelings,” I finish awkwardly.

My father doesn't press the issue, for which I will be eternally grateful to him. He nods and thanks me for telling him, then pushes back his chair and goes to the fridge to grab another beer. He pulls out a can of Diet Coke for me, retrieves the sushi, and leads the way into the den. I follow him apprehensively, unsure whether we're really done with this conversation.

And of course, we're not. We eat our sushi and watch our movie in relative silence, but halfway through my father hits the pause button. I wish my life had a pause button. “I think you need to consider the possibility that there may have been feelings before your…feelings. Because it seems to me that Jess did everything he could to protect you, and to protect himself from being hurt too badly when you inevitably went home. I don't think you're being fair,” my father says.

I close my eyes. “Can we stop, Dad? Please? Because even if you're right, and Jess did call you out of some twisted concern for me, the fact remains that he's here in LA, and he knows where I am, and he has made no effort whatsoever to see me.” I'm getting angrier by the second, with Jess, with my father for defending him, with myself for wanting so badly for my father to be right. “You wanted to know what happened? Fine. You had a right to that. But you don't have any right to tell me how unfair I'm being.”

My father looks over at me and pushes himself up out of his chair. He comes and sits next to me, puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. “Okay. It's just—you're so unhappy, Bee. You've been unhappy ever since you came home, and I know you were unhappy before, but this seems different. And from what I can tell about Jess, he's not the kind of guy who will feel comfortable knocking on your door knowing how he's hurt you. I think maybe you need to think about how you might have hurt him.”

I startle at that, but my dad stands back up and goes back to his chair and starts the movie again. I don't watch it. I can't even follow the story anymore—which is pretty telling since Frank Capra's stories aren't really all that complicated. It's never occurred to me that I might have hurt Jess. Not by going home—I think my father is right, and Jess always expected that I would go home. But by always thinking the worst of him, from the very beginning. By believing he did it for the reward, and by walking away without even asking for an explanation.

I find that I want more than anything for my father to be right, but I can't quite believe it. But either way, I realize, Jess does owe me an explanation. And if he can't bring himself to come tell me himself, then I'll have to find him.

I get up and walk out of the room. My father doesn't even bother pausing the movie. “Call if you won't be home before morning,” he calls after me.

I resist giving him the finger. My dad is probably wrong anyway, but I have to know. I call a cab and while I wait for it to show up I look up UCLA's student directory. And there he is—Jesse Ryan. He's assigned to the off-campus student housing in Westwood. I spend the cab ride mulling over every detail of the moment outside Penn Station. Didn't he tell me to leave? Didn't I give him every opportunity to talk to me before we arrived?

Just as I think that this is a terrible idea, and will only make me hurt worse than I already do, we pull up outside Jess's apartment building. Before I can change my mind, I climb out of the car and pay the driver. I watch as he drives off, the red lights dwindling, and then I finally turn and walk into Gayley Towers. Great name. The elevator smells like stale beer and crackers, and everyone getting on and off seems to be having a grand old time, even though it's only eight o'clock on a Thursday. It occurs to me that Jess might not be home. Or worse, might be home and having as good a time as the couple that just got off on the fourth floor.

At least Jess's floor is relatively quiet. I'm not sure I could stand to have a dozen drunken college students bear witness to what will probably be the most humiliating moment of my life—and I've had a lot of humiliating moments to choose from recently.

I walk down the hall and before I can change my mind I knock on Jess's door as loudly as I can. My heart skips as I hear him yell from behind the door.

“F*ck off,” he calls.

For a second I think I have my answer, and I half turn to go. But of course he can't possibly know I'm here, and I'd like to think he'd be just a little more polite even if he did know. I pound the door again.

Jess yanks the door open. “Damn it, Brant, I told you—” He breaks off, staring at me. We stand awkwardly in the hall, neither of us knowing what to say, and then as a group of giggling girls appears around the corner, he ushers me inside and closes the door. His room is very small, and yet it feels like Jess is standing miles away.

“Who is Brant?” I don't care, but I don't know what else to say.

“He's, uh…” Jess runs a hand through his hair, and looks around his room. There are clothes and papers and books strewn everywhere, and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. He starts to clean up, then gives up and sweeps a pile of papers off a chair and gestures for me to sit down. I sit on the edge of the chair, clutching my bag. “He's a friend, and he wants me to go bowling or something, and I have to work, but he's been bugging me.”

“Well, if you have to work,” I say, standing up to go.

“No! No. It's fine. Please, sit down.” Jess sits in the chair across from me, and we stare at each other.

“You look good,” he says.

“You mean now that I'm wearing clean clothes and I've showered in the past twenty-four hours and I've brushed my hair?” Jess looks like he hasn't slept in a week, but I don't say so.

“Uh, yeah,” he says.

“Thanks,” I answer.

This is not going how I planned. Not that I had a plan, exactly. But Jess was supposed to either be a complete a*shole, or he was supposed to fall all over himself apologizing.

“Listen—” I say.

“Look, Bee—” Jess says at the same time. We both break off, then start again, and then Jess gestures for me to talk, though I'd really rather not. This is so awkward, and weird, and I have no idea what he's thinking or if he's just waiting for me to leave, and suddenly all I want is to be out of that room.

“I just came to see how you are,” I say. “I'm glad things worked out for you, with school and all. Looks like you're doing pretty well, so, uh…” I stand up and start walking over to the door. “I guess I'll see you around.” I have my hand on the doorknob when Jess grabs my shoulder and spins me around, pulling me into his arms and kissing me.

And it's wonderful. I know that all my questions have been answered, and that we are everything to each other that I ever thought or hoped and none of the rest of it matters at all.

I push him away. “Well if that's the way it is, you a*shole, why didn't you call me and tell me you were in LA?”

Jess tries to kiss me again, but when I shove him off me again he sighs, exasperated. “Well, it's not like you're listed, Bee.”

“Oh, like there's just no way you could possibly contact me,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “It's not like you don't have my father's number or anything.”

“Right, because it made you so very happy the last time I called him. Look, I begged my way back into UCLA so that I could be where you are. So can we please…?”

“That's crap,” I say. “Your coming back to UCLA has nothing to do with me.”

“It does too,” Jess protests. “I could have gone anywhere. I could be at Harvard right now.”

I snort. “Right. Because Harvard would just jump at the chance to have a drug dealer on their roster.” I cross my arms and raise my eyebrows, smiling slightly. All right, I don't need an apology, but I'm getting one just the same. After all, I'm the one who had the guts to come up here. Jess is the chicken-shit, so he owes me. I tap my foot, waiting.

Jess flops into the chair, giving up. “Fine. I came back here, I pleaded my way back in, but when it came down to it I was afraid you would have gone back to your life and wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. Or maybe you would still be so pissed off that you wouldn't let me come near you. And now you've shown up here and that makes you a better person than me and I'll have to grovel for a really long time to make it up to you. Okay?”

I smile sweetly. “Okay.”

* * *



I forgot to call my father to let him know I wouldn't be home, but he figured it out—he didn't think I'd run off to Idaho or something, anyway. It turns out that Jess's community service is to deliver various books, papers, etcetera all over campus—and UCLA is big. He'd been doing it all on a bike, which was why he looked so exhausted. My dad is teaching him to drive.

Jess and my father are both trying to talk me into applying to UCLA to major in Film. I'm thinking Stanford and American Studies. Maybe I'll get Jess to take me on another trip around the country, only this time we'll have money and a reason. Whatever I end up doing, I know that it'll be something that I want to do, and I'm confident that I can figure that out for myself.

Most people grow up slowly, one milestone at a time over their eighteen years.

I did it in one week.