“Thanks for helping, Oz,” Ms. Novak said when I walked over to take the iced tea. It was a rare day off for her, and she was using the time to clean the house. She wore a Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt she’d gotten from a concert she’d attended before I was born.
“No problem.” I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was until I finished the tea in three big gulps.
“Sorry Lua’s not around to help.” Ms. Novak paused. “I’m worried about her.”
“She’s not really talking to me.” Lua had started skipping school again and had stopped answering her phone. I’d driven to her house Saturday morning, determined to confront her, but Ms. Novak had answered the door instead, which was how I’d ended up mowing the lawn.
“Me neither.” Ms. Novak had hardly touched her own iced tea and handed it to me to finish. “Mr. Hightower called from the guidance office. Said Lua’s in danger of not graduating.”
I believed it. At the rate Lua was going, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the principal barred her from attending prom. “Have you ever heard her play?”
Ms. Novak nodded. “Yeah, but Lua doesn’t know. I snuck into one of her shows a few months ago. My girl’s talented.”
“I think she broke more than her hand that night.”
“She can still go on her tour,” Ms. Novak said.
I shrugged. “Maybe. They could hire another guitarist or something, but right now I don’t think Lua’s willing to consider that. Playing is just as important to her as singing.”
Ms. Novak furrowed her brow and looked at me. “Didn’t she tell you? That boy, the one who slammed her hand in the door. He came by with his parents, and they offered to pay for her surgery.”
“Are you serious?”
“Lua didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“She turned them down. Said she didn’t want handouts from nobody.”
Normally I would have said that sounded exactly like Lua, but her music meant everything to her. I never imagined she’d put her pride over her band. And it wasn’t even a handout; paying for the surgery after breaking her fingers was the least Trent could do.
“Sometimes I think I did Lua wrong by teaching her to only rely on herself. I wanted her to be independent, but I forgot to tell her it’s okay to ask for help.” Ms. Novak fell silent for a moment and then shook her head. “Enough about my stupid mistakes. How’re things with you, Ozzie? Lua tells me you’ve got a new boyfriend.”
“Calvin,” I said. “But he’s not my boyfriend.”
“Why not?”
Even though I’d never explicitly spoken to Ms. Novak about Tommy since he’d vanished, I knew Lua must’ve told her. “I’m hung up on someone else.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“But if I start a relationship with Calvin, I’m giving up on Tommy. And if I keep looking for Tommy, I might miss out on something great with Cal.”
Ms. Novak chuckled again, like my pain, my indecisiveness, was a joke. “I’ve dated a lot of men since Lua was born, I even fell in love with a couple, but I never stopped loving her father. I doubt I ever will.”
“How’s that fair?”
“Fair to who?”
“To you?” I said. “To the other guys?”
Ms. Novak shrugged. “I don’t suppose it is, Ozzie. But the world’s going to offer you an endless array of what-ifs over the course of your life, and the only choices that matter are the ones you make.”
I finished off the second tumbler of iced tea. I understood what she was trying to tell me, but she was talking about making one choice that shut the door on all those other possibilities, and as much as I was starting to like Cal, I couldn’t close the door on Tommy.
“Thanks for the tea. I should cut the back before it gets dark.”
377,092 KM
I STOOD IN FRONT OF the mailbox, holding the envelope, trying to decide whether to stuff it into the outgoing slot or fold it up, stick it in my back pocket, and walk away.
I’d chosen UC Boulder because they had a great medieval literature department and mountains I could have driven up into and watched the stars from without the lights of the city obscuring them, if there’d still been stars to see. But I wasn’t sure if I was ready to make this decision. Accepting my place at UC Boulder didn’t have to mean I would actually go, it didn’t mean I was definitely making the choice to give up on Tommy, it just meant I was leaving the option open to choose later. Of course, I’d also have to figure out how to convince my parents to change their minds. My visit with Dr. Laurie hadn’t gone well. She’d spent fifteen minutes with me, asking if I had any allergies and did I hear voices and had I ever taken psychiatric medication before, and then wrote me a prescription for a bottle full of little peach squares I was supposed to swallow each morning. I hadn’t decided whether I was going to comply with my new doctor’s orders—doing so would be admitting I thought there was something wrong with me, and other than a severe case of chronic indecision, I didn’t believe there was—but I hoped at least pretending to go along might help convince my parents I didn’t need to stick around Cloud Lake.
But regardless of what they’d said, this wasn’t my parents’ decision. It wasn’t theirs or Lua’s or Dustin’s or Tommy’s. It was mine. The future—my future—belonged to me and no one else.
I slid the envelope through the slot and stood back. I’d done it. I was going to UC Boulder.
If there was still a Colorado left by the time I graduated.
361,448 KM
CALVIN GRUNTED “HELLO” WHEN HE got into the car and then didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. I’d picked him up to go to a party at Dustin’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Smeltzer had traveled to New York for a wedding, and Dustin had decided to throw a party—the first and only grand bash before his parents lost their house.
I’d grown used to Calvin’s quiet moods, but this one was different. His silence was louder than a plane’s rumble. I’d offered to stay home with him, watch movies, and order Chinese, but he’d mumbled that we should go to the party.
I only wanted to go because Dustin told me Lua would be there. I wasn’t looking for a fight, but I wasn’t about to let Trent derail Lua’s dreams, even if that meant launching a full verbal assault on my best friend.
I pulled up to Dustin’s house and led Calvin inside. Dustin’s house wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to comfortably fit a few dozen of my fellow Cloud Lake High seniors, most drinking, some dancing.
Calvin followed me closely as we searched for Dustin.
Dr. Laurie had warned me I would need to avoid alcohol with my medication, and since I hadn’t decided whether I was going to take it or not, I grabbed a red cup of vodka and juice and downed half in one gulp.