Page 14 of Back to You
“I didn’t want to—you know, ruin your impression of me,” he says. “When you were telling me about your crush earlier ...”
I feel a deep, wrenching sensation inside my chest, because it’s so familiar. It’s exactly how I used to think, about school instead of sports. That if I didn’t perform well, nobody would want me. If I wasn’t successful, nobody would care.
Luke Blythe and I—we aren’t as different as I believed.
“Luke, I don’t like you because you’re perfect,” I tell him. “Whether you win or lose, whether you come in first place or last—that doesn’t matter to me. And if running makes you happy, then yeah, I think you should keep doing it, even if you lost every race. But if running only makes you stressed out and miserable, and you’re only doing it because other people expect it of you, then you should be able to stop, even if you win all your races.”
He stares at me without speaking for a long, long time. “How do you make it sound so simple?”
“Maybe it can be that simple. I used to think that succeeding was the only thing that mattered in life until ... until I had this near-death experience,” I confess, which is as close to the truth as I can get. “And it’s like everything just became so much clearer. What was worthwhile, what wasn’t. I’m not sure how my life will go from here or what my future will look like, but I want to live ... honestly. I want to be honest with myself. And with you too ...” I pause when Irealize I’ve been rambling. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to give a whole inspirational speech—”
“No, god, don’t be,” he says, and then he releases a soft sound between his teeth like a suppressed laugh, though I can’t tell if he’s laughing at himself or at me. He really is beautiful. His dimples, his dark, rumpled hair. Even in the low resolution of the phone’s camera, the night light casting a silvery glow around him. He looks so beautiful that I feel an overwhelming compulsion to tell him, not to flirt or win some kind of reaction, but because it is simply, remarkably true. You just want to point it out, like a full moon or a butterfly with astonishing streaks of color in its wings.
And then I think,Why not? Why not tell him?
But before I can, he says, “You’re really beautiful. Since we’re talking about being honest ... I’ve been thinking that to myself the whole night, and I wanted to let you know.”
I grin. “Funny. I was just thinking that about you.”
Six months later
Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” my mom asks at the door.
“Yes, I promise,” I tell her.
“It’ll be a really long drive,” she goes on.
“Luke’s a good driver,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
“Make sure you take frequent breaks. And try not to drive when it’s dark.”
“I won’t,” Luke answers for me as he makes his way over. He’s carrying my pink suitcase, filled with everything I need for three weeks in different cities: a Polaroid camera, a shawl my mom bought for me, five pretty but impractical dresses, two practical but ugly jackets, face wash, sunglasses, sunscreen I most likely won’t be bothered to put on.
It’s a spontaneous trip, but it’ll be a chance to enjoy ourselves before the next semester kicks in. He’ll be taking a break from his own races to help coach a local high school team; I’ll be editing the college magazine, a role that somehow feels both laughably unimportant and deeply serious. I’ll be graduating later than I originally planned, and I don’t have a job lined up yet, but it doesn’t scare me as much as it should. There are far worse ways to spend my life, after all—I would know.
I wait for my mom to give me another warning, but she passes me a paper bag instead. It’s still warm, the paper darker in some areas with either condensation or grease. When I open it to peer inside, the mouthwatering scent of butter and chocolate instantly wafts up to me.
“Scones,” she says matter-of-factly. “In case you and Luke get hungry on the road.”
“Your mom got up at six to bake them this morning,” my dad adds from behind her.
“You’ve been baking?” I say in surprise. “Since when do you bake?”
“I’m still learning,” she tells me.
“No, no, that’s great,” I say. “These look so good.”
“Scones are my favorite things,” Luke says. “Not even kidding. I don’t think these will last very long with us.”
She gives a stiff kind of shrug, but I can see she’s pleased. “Well, don’t get your hopes up too high, it’s my first time making them.”
But how could I not hope? This is new, the scones in my hand, the boy waiting for me at the door. I feel strangely moved. We’re all changing, even in small, subtle ways, it’s possible. We’re capable of it, more than I ever believed, and we can change each other, for each other, because of each other.
“I’ll see you soon,” I tell my mom, pulling her in for one last hug.
Then I’m stepping out the door of my childhood home, waving goodbye, Luke leading the way to his car. The air is warm and crisp, and the sky is a lovely, open shade of blue, the fragrant orange blossoms swaying down toward us.
He turns around, smiling, the sunlight burnishing his hair from behind, and holds out his hand. “Well? Are you coming?”
In his outstretched hand I see a brief, dazzling glimpse of the future. Running after him into the ocean with my skirt rolled up; walking around campus at twilight, grass gleaming in the dew; grabbing almond croissants from the Old Court Café; muffling our whispers in the library; jotting down notesfor an essay; cheering his name the loudest at his next race. And then beyond that—curling against him while the sun rises, tiramisu birthday cake for breakfast, half-empty mugs on a coffee table, my lipstick stains on his cheek in the darkness of a taxi, my name printed on cream-colored paper, a canary-yellow door for me to come back to every night. All the extraordinary beauty of a normal life.
I quicken my steps.
