Lucy sighed. “I’m still not sure how I feel about all this.”
He nodded numbly; he wasn’t sure why this news should be hitting him so hard—why he should be feeling left behind—when he was leaving, too. “Well,” he said, “it’s a lot closer to Paris.”
“And Rome.”
“And Prague.”
She grinned. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t play the sullen new girl card.”
“Not at all,” he said, twisting the postcard around in his hands like a pinwheel. “You can complain to me anytime you want.”
“I might just take you up on that,” she said, and he took a deep breath, trying to work up to his own news, to explain that he would be leaving, too, that they’d been brought together again only to go pinballing off in opposite directions.
But he couldn’t find the words. And so instead, they just stood there, regarding each other silently, the room suddenly as quiet as the elevator had been, as comfortable as the kitchen floor, as remote as the roof. Because that’s what happened when you were with someone like that: the world shrank to just the right size. It molded itself to fit only the two of you, and nothing more.
Eventually, a woman with a baby on her hip inched her way around Lucy’s suitcase, scraping her key against the lock of her mailbox, and they stepped aside to give her room. When she left, the spell had been broken.
“So,” Lucy said, turning her suitcase around so that it was facing the other direction. “I should probably go unpack.” She nodded at the postcard he was still clutching. “I know it’s kind of cheesy.…”
“No, it’s great,” Owen said, and a laugh escaped him. “Actually, you should keep an eye on your mailbox, too.”
She tilted her head, eyeing him like she didn’t quite believe it. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay, then,” she said with a smile.
He nodded. “Okay, then.”
He watched as she wheeled the suitcase back through the lobby and over to the elevators, the place where they’d first met. As soon as she punched the button, the door opened with a bright ding, but just as she was about to step inside, he called out to her.
“Lucy,” he said, and she whirled around, looking at him expectantly. Behind her, the doors eased shut again, and he jogged over with no plan at all, no words in mind, no brilliant speech, no idea at all what he might possibly say next. But something urgent had bubbled up inside him at the sight of her walking away, something desperate and true.
“If you’re about to suggest the stairs instead…” she said, teasing him, but he only shook his head.
“I was just going to say…” He trailed off, looking at her helplessly. He wanted to tell her that he was leaving, too, even sooner than she was, and that this might be good-bye. He wanted say let’s keep in touch or I hope we’ll see each other again or I’ll miss you. But none of it seemed quite right. Instead, he just stood there, tongue-tied and faltering, unable to say anything at all.
But it didn’t matter. After a moment, she leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder, and then, to his surprise, she rose onto her tiptoes and kissed him. His eyes widened as their lips met, and the nearness of her made the world go blurry, the lights hazy and the room muddled, until all at once, it wasn’t; all at once, it came into focus again, and the clearest thing of all—the truest thing of all—was the girl right in front of him. And so he closed his eyes and kissed her back.
Too soon, she broke away, and when she stepped back again, he could see that she was smiling. “Don’t worry,” she said, just before stepping into the open elevator. “I’ll send you a postcard.”
PART II
There
9
There was only one square of pizza left on the table between them, and it was no great prize. The cheese had lost its battle with gravity, slumping off to one side, and the whole thing was shiny with grease. But still Owen refused to give in, his eyes watering as he stared down his father, whose face was twisted in concentration. A few more seconds went by, and finally—half-gasping and half-laughing—Dad closed his eyes and then opened them again.
“Ha,” Owen said, reaching for the slice, which he flopped onto his plate. He blinked a few times himself. “I don’t think you’ve ever beat me. You need a new game.”
Dad sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “How about arm wrestling?”
“Not fair,” Owen said around a mouthful of pizza. Even though it had been months, his dad’s arms were still muscular from working construction sites. Owen’s were alarmingly scrawny by comparison.
Dad grinned. “Then maybe we need a third game to decide what game we play to decide on things.”
The Geography of You and Me
JENNIFER E. SMITH's books
- As the Pig Turns
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Breaking the Rules
- Escape Theory
- Fairy Godmothers, Inc
- Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism
- Follow the Money
- In the Air (The City Book 1)
- In the Shadow of Sadd
- In the Stillness
- Keeping the Castle
- Let the Devil Sleep
- My Brother's Keeper
- Over the Darkened Landscape
- Paris The Novel
- Sparks the Matchmaker
- Taking the Highway
- Taming the Wind
- Tethered (Novella)
- The Adjustment
- The Amish Midwife
- The Angel Esmeralda
- The Antagonist
- The Anti-Prom
- The Apple Orchard
- The Astrologer
- The Avery Shaw Experiment
- The Awakening Aidan
- The B Girls
- The Back Road
- The Ballad of Frankie Silver
- The Ballad of Tom Dooley
- The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel
- The Barbed Crown
- The Battered Heiress Blues
- The Beginning of After
- The Beloved Stranger
- The Betrayal of Maggie Blair
- The Better Mother
- The Big Bang
- The Bird House A Novel
- The Blessed
- The Blood That Bonds
- The Blossom Sisters
- The Body at the Tower
- The Body in the Gazebo
- The Body in the Piazza
- The Bone Bed
- The Book of Madness and Cures
- The Boy from Reactor 4
- The Boy in the Suitcase
- The Boyfriend Thief
- The Bull Slayer
- The Buzzard Table
- The Caregiver
- The Caspian Gates
- The Casual Vacancy
- The Cold Nowhere
- The Color of Hope
- The Crown A Novel
- The Dangerous Edge of Things
- The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets
- The Dante Conspiracy
- The Dark Road A Novel
- The Deposit Slip
- The Devil's Waters
- The Diamond Chariot
- The Duchess of Drury Lane
- The Emerald Key
- The Estian Alliance
- The Extinct
- The Falcons of Fire and Ice
- The Fall - By Chana Keefer
- The Fall - By Claire McGowan
- The Famous and the Dead
- The Fear Index
- The Flaming Motel
- The Folded Earth
- The Forrests
- The Exceptions
- The Gallows Curse
- The Game (Tom Wood)
- The Gap Year
- The Garden of Burning Sand
- The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)
- The Getaway
- The Gift of Illusion
- The Girl in the Blue Beret
- The Girl in the Steel Corset
- The Golden Egg
- The Good Life
- The Green Ticket
- The Healing
- The Heart's Frontier
- The Heiress of Winterwood
- The Heresy of Dr Dee
- The Heritage Paper
- The Hindenburg Murders
- The History of History