The Geography of You and Me

“Yes,” he said with a decisive nod, and the word echoed through his head: Yes, yes, yes. His chest felt light and expansive, his heart lifting at the thought, and it seemed so sensible, so obvious—that they would go west, that they would move forward, because where else was there to go?—that it almost felt like a trick, like at any moment, Dad might tell him it was all some terrible joke.

But he didn’t. Instead, he folded up the map, giving Owen a searching look. “You’d be missing some school.…”

“I’ll survive,” Owen said, nodding at the map. “You can use that thing to teach me geography.”

“Seriously,” he said. “I don’t want you falling behind because of this.”

“I have enough credits to graduate now, if I wanted to,” Owen said. “And I can do my applications on the road. It won’t be a problem. Really.”

Dad smiled, but it didn’t make it all the way up to his eyes, which remained solemn. “So we’re doing this.”

Owen nodded. “We’re doing this.”

“Okay,” Dad said, and he lifted his coffee mug, nudging another toward Owen. They raised them at the same time, the clink of the ceramic ringing out through the drab kitchen and along the halls of the little apartment.

Owen floated through the school day in a haze, daydreaming about the road ahead of them. They could end up in Chicago or Colorado or California. It didn’t matter. It would be a new start. Not in the dungeon of some great city castle but out west, where there were more mountains than people and where the skies were lousy with stars.

After school, he walked home with his head still buzzing, his thoughts several time zones away. He crossed the lobby and hurried through the mailroom, eager to get downstairs and see what other plans his dad might have come up with while he was at school, pausing only to unlock the little cubby that belonged to the basement apartment. He threw the two catalogs and the envelope full of coupons directly into the bin, and was just about to slam the door when he noticed something in the back.

Even before he reached for it, he knew what it was. He had no idea where it was from, or what it would say, but he knew it was from her. He just knew.

The scene on the front was an overhead view of the city of London, and he stared at it, stunned that she could be an ocean away without him even knowing. He was still puzzling over this as he flipped it over, and his heart began to beat quick as a hummingbird.

There, on the back of the postcard, were the exact same words he’d written just yesterday.

I actually do.

He blinked at it, stunned, and he felt his mouth stretch into a slow smile.

She’d sent him a postcard, too, and with the very same message he’d sent her. It seemed impossible, yet here it was, and as he stood there gaping at it, his mouth hanging open, he sensed someone in the doorway.

“It’s because of what it says on the front,” she said, and it took Owen a moment to wrench his eyes from the message in his hand. When he finally looked up, there she was, leaning on the handle of her suitcase, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. “The whole ‘wish you were here’ thing.” She shook her head, and a few strands came loose from her ponytail. “It’s stupid. I didn’t expect—I didn’t think I’d be here when you got it.…”

“No,” he said, holding it up like an idiot. “It’s great. Really. Thank you.”

“I’m just getting back, actually,” she said, pointing at the bag. “My parents flew me over there a few days after the blackout.”

“I looked for you,” he said, then shook his head, wishing he could think of something better to say, wishing his mind would keep up with his heart, which was thundering in his chest. “I guess that’s why.”

She nodded. “Guess so.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about—about the roof that day,” he said in a rush. “I was coming back, but then—”

“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting—”

“It was just that my dad—”

“It’s okay,” she said as their words crossed like swords in the air between them.

Owen glanced down at the postcard, the small blocky letters on the back. Then he flipped it over again, and the words went tumbling around in his head: wish you were here.

He had. And he did. And now he was leaving.

He raised his eyes to meet hers, pulling in a breath. “There’s actually something—” he began, but once again, she had started to speak as well.

“I need to tell you something,” she was saying, and he nodded. Her mouth twisted to one side. “I think,” she said, then paused and began again. “I think we’re probably moving.”

Owen stared at her. “You are?”

“It’s still not completely for sure, but it looks that way, yeah.”

“Where?”

“To London, actually. My parents are still over there, working out the details.”

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head back and forth. “That’s… wow.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s crazy. And really fast.”

“How fast?”

“Next month, probably,” she said, and he must have looked surprised, because she hurried on. “But we’d be keeping the apartment here, and my dad promised we could still come back for the summer, or at least some of it. So maybe…”

Owen forced a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”