“So you’re the only thing keeping your family afloat,” I said.
He nodded. “All I ever wanted was to keep Mama outta the loony bin and my sisters outta foster care, and that kept me so busy I couldn’t give much thought to anything else. But being around you makes me feel … different. Like anything’s possible. It’s almost scary, you know? It feels selfish to say it but I’ve been wanting more and more to leave my family behind and just go wherever I want, be whatever I want.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve spent my whole life thinking about how I’m going to get away. Head up north, disappear in some big city like New York or Boston. Maybe if I’m lucky, live in Paris.”
“Oh,” Grant said, rolling onto his back again. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to apply to NYU. I think I’ll get in. It’s weird though. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, but it’s scary too. It’s scary to think of leaving here, of being so far from my parents and everything I know. But then it’s the only way I can be really free, that I can finally live somewhere that people understand me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he said, frowning and sitting up. I cocked my head and looked up at him, feeling a sudden lurch in my stomach.
“Just that there are things about me that not everyone can understand,” I said, realizing my mistake even as the words were coming out.
“What am I to you?” he said, turning to look at the lake, his nostrils flaring.
“You’re my boyfriend,” I said, rising to a kneel and wrapping my arms around him from behind.
“For now,” he said, stiffening at my touch. “Until you find somebody at your fancy college who doesn’t have trouble understanding movies and gets the weird books you like.”
“Grant,” I said, kissing the back of his neck. “I like you, all right?”
“But you don’t think I can understand you,” he said.
“It’s complicated,” I said, turning his head to face me. His eyes darted away but I kissed him, holding him still. “I like you more than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s just—there are things that are really hard to say.” Grant stared at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I felt naked right then, like he could see everything, the things I wanted him to know and the ones I didn’t too.
“You can tell me anything, Amanda, you know that. Haven’t I shown you that?”
I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in again. I thought about what he had said, that I could tell him anything, and I knew that he was right—or at least that he thought he was. But until the moment he learned the truth, I couldn’t know how he would feel, and that was a risk I wasn’t ready to take. “I’ll try, okay? You deserve that. I promise I’ll try.”
17
I pressed my forehead against the window as Layla’s car pulled north onto I-75. I could just make out Chloe to my right, her reflection ghostly against the mountains on the horizon. She sat with her shoulders slumped and a hollow look in her eyes. She didn’t seem interested in talking.
“Where are we going again?” I said, my breath fogging the glass. I glanced at the phone in my lap and saw a new text from Grant: Sorry about last night. I had wanted to see him today, to try to smooth things over from last night, but the girls showed up around lunchtime laying on the horn, claiming they were staging an intervention: I was addicted to my boyfriend, and it had to stop.
“Maze of the Damned!” Anna and Layla both yelled in their spookiest voices.
“So, what, like a haunted house?” I said, as I typed out a response to Grant: Don’t apologize! I’m glad we talked. I miss you.
“No,” Anna said, “a haunted corn maze just south of Knoxville. So it’s a maze but it’s also ‘maize,’ get it?”
I rolled my eyes but I was smiling.
“You’ll really like it,” Layla said, flourishing her free hand dramatically like a claw and deepening her voice. “It’s a macabre feast for every sense!”
“Also,” Anna said, bouncing, “there’s funnel cake!”
Anna and Layla spent the hour-long trip giggling with each other over snippets of gossip, bickering over something sacrilegious Layla said, and singing along loudly to Taylor Swift. I didn’t know the words so I made up my own, which sent the girls into hysterics—except Chloe, whose silence was as loud as an air horn. It took Grant most of the ride to respond, but eventually I got another text: I miss you too.
*