When he looked up into my eyes, I thought I was going to cry too. He looked helpless and lost. “You’re not gonna leave me over this, are you? You won’t leave me for him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ll stick by you.”
AT MY APARTMENT that night, Trevor called his parents and told them. They were completely supportive, insisting that they pay all the costs for rehab. His mother got on the internet and found a place that would take him in a week. He stayed the night and slept in my bed, but we only just kissed each other good night.
I spent the next several days helping Trevor get ready to leave for the month he’d be in rehab. He was distant, but I think it was the drugs and his looming fear of the struggle ahead of him.
I talked to Jase every night after I’d leave Trevor’s. We basically just laughed at all of his book tour adventures and the growing number of women who were trying to throw themselves at him on a daily basis. I told him Trevor was going to rehab, and instead of reminding me of the parallels to his book, he just said, “Well, at least he’s getting it taken care of.”
My copy of All the Roads Between sat on my dresser and taunted me all those days. I promised myself that I would wait to read it until Trevor left, when I would be all alone to think about the book and my life and what I wanted to do. I also knew I owed Professor James ten thousand words before I could show my face at work.
I drove Trevor to the rehab facility, which wasn’t too far from my apartment, and sat with him until he was all checked in. When it was time for him to go, he kissed me on the cheek. “I hope that we’re both thinking more clearly by the time I get out,” he said.
“Me too.”
“I love you, Emi.” It was the first time he had said it while looking me in the eye.
“I love you too.” There are so many ways to love. My foster family, my aunts, Cara, Trevor, and Jase had all taught me that.
I went home and opened All the Roads Between.
From All the Roads Between
“Emerson, can you wipe down tables one last time before you leave?”
“Sure,” I said to Cathy, the night manager at the diner where I worked. I had been working graveyard shifts there for over a month, so I had gotten used to the weird hours. Twenty-four-hour diners can attract some interesting people in the wee hours of the morning, but I didn’t mind—it was a job.
I’d leave the diner around six a.m., when the sun was coming up beyond the cornfield horizon. Sometimes I’d stand there, watching the sun rise, thinking about Neeble. I hadn’t driven out there since I had returned to New Clayton. I just couldn’t bring myself to go back. But that morning, as I stood there in the parking lot, I realized it was my birthday.
After finding Jackson’s book a month ago, I had thought about our adventures on the old dirt road. I’d thought about all the pain Jackson had endured too, losing his brother and losing me. I hadn’t celebrated my birthday in years, but that morning, as I pulled onto the highway headed toward Neeble, I made a pact with myself that I would face my fears. And if I saw Cal Junior, I’d run him over with my car, even though he was probably almost eighty years old by now.
I pulled onto El Monte Road as the sun crept higher in the sky. Each time I passed a mile marker, I called the number out loud. Right where old Carter’s egg ranch used to be was a pile of wood scraps next to the skeletal remains of the big chicken house. Beyond that were just miles of dirt and weeds until I got to the five-point-five-mile marker.
I gasped when I saw that there was still a mailbox there. I thought, Who in their right mind would want to live here? I pulled onto the dirt road, which had bumps in almost the same exact places it did thirty years before. When I got to the end and saw that the house Jax grew up in was still there, I almost peed my pants. There were two cars parked in front. I pulled off to the side, still about a hundred yards from the house. After turning the engine off and rolling down my window, I sat back and listened. I could hear the trickling sound of the creek, the loud buzzing of cicadas, and nothing else.
Closing my eyes, I thought about Jax and me playing explorers in the field. I could almost hear the triumphant voice of ten-year-old Jax joyously shouting at me as we chased each other around. I looked in the mirror at my pale eyes framed in heavy lines. I wished they were laugh lines, but they were only reminders of the sadness I had endured.