He let out a breath and said, “Do you know what I did that day? How I spent the hours after you left?”
Oh God. Did I even want to know? I know that I’d spent that day with my father and brother, getting set up in my dorm room, walking around the campus, checking out the neighborhood. But that night, after they’d gone home… I spent the evening bawling my eyes out. I’d been heartbroken and scared in a strange new place without even so much as one person to talk to, no one to help get me through it. Trip and I had just had our big farewell scene hours before, Lisa was in a car with Pickford halfway across the country, and my father, Bruce, and I had just spent the entire day together. There was nobody to call, no one left to see. My NYU days turned out to be an amazing chapter in my life, but that first night really sucked the big one.
“No. What did you do?”
He let out a heavy breath, turned his head back up to the sky. “I drove away from your house and I just. Kept. Driving. I couldn’t go home, I couldn’t stay in town. I knew that everywhere I looked…”
…would remind me of you.
He didn’t say it, but I knew that’s what he was thinking.
He swiped his hands over his face, growled into the night air. “I just couldn’t stay there anymore. You were gone, off to some brand new place… It really sucked to be left behind in the same old one.”
“I hardly left you behind, Trip.”
I’d said the words before I even realized what I was admitting, but it was true. I took that boy with me, locked safely away in my heart, where I kept him for years following our separation.
Only Trip took me literally. “I know you didn’t mean to leave me in the dust, but you did. You left. You were gone. And I didn’t realize until that minute that you were the only thing that was keeping me there in the first place.” I tried not to crumble from his words as he continued, “My old man… Things had started getting really bad by then, and my mother refused to do anything about it. I’d spent a really long time trying to watch out for her, but by then, she’d already made it clear what her decision was. She wasn’t going to force him to get help and she wasn’t going to leave him and I wasn’t going to stick around to watch. And here she is, faithfully by his side, still taking care of him. But she’s doing it alone.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” was all that came to mind.
He turned to his side, propping his head up with his cast arm. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, Lay. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, but I’m sorry for leaving you. For leaving you to deal with all that by yourself.”
“You were only living your life. I don’t blame you for that.”
My head turned toward him on its own, and I really wished it hadn’t done that. Because just then, I caught the look on his face, and it was enough to rip out my insides. There he was, propped up on his hand, looking down at me with that endearing, half-lidded stare, his lips curled into that sweet, crooked smile… and it was like I was seventeen again. Back in a time when our biggest concern was what to wear to a party or how we were going to spend our night. Back in a time when we loved each other.
We were both thinking it. I know I didn’t imagine it that time.
He was the first to come to his senses and break the moment, turning away to sit up and grab the glass at his newly planted feet. His back was to me as I watched him down the rest of his drink and pour another. “You need?” he asked, holding up the bottle.
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
Fine was about the last thing I was.
He took another swig before settling the wineglass back down, resuming his lounged position, crossing his feet at the ankles and propping an arm behind his head.
It’s funny how reassuring that was, to see him doing something so simple and familiar. I mean, I knew this man. I knew him inside and out. I knew his every facial expression, knew what his heartbeat sounded like under my ear. I knew how he played, and I knew how he lounged. Recalling the small pieces of the Trip that I knew brought me a bit of nostalgic comfort while dealing with the body of this famous movie star lying next to me.
“Have you seen them at all—your parents—while you’ve been back here?”
“Yeah. I mean, well, I went to visit my mom a few times. She kind of hinted around how she’d like to make the move out west, but she’s sort of stuck here for a little while longer, taking care of him. Drunken asshole.”