Page 7 of Back to You
Victoria gapes at me. “You’re—wait, whoa, hold up. Nothing you said makes any sense. First, you don’t go clubbing. Ever. And also—you’re going out withwho?”
“Luke Blythe,” I say. “From high school—”
“Yeah, trust me, I know who Luke Blythe is,” she cuts in. “But no offense, why would he askyouto hang out? I’m not trying to be ... but. You know.”
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “What?”
“Well, like, you’re not ugly, and you do well at school, I just didn’t think you were his type. At all.”
My stomach sinks.
“You’re sure he wasn’t joking?” she asks. “How did you get to talking to him in the first place? I remember you’d freeze and go all red anytime he passed by you at school, it was funny but also like really sad, I won’t lie ... Hold on, where are you going?”
I wasn’t even aware of myself standing up. I’m only aware of how hard my heart is beating, how hot my face feels, of the sick feeling churning in my gut. Another thing I had so conveniently forgotten about Victoria over the years—for her, respect is a prerequisite for love. She does not respect me, and so she cannot love me. She never has.
And if I can’t tell her what I want without fear of being judged or mocked, if I can’t even confide in her aboutdying, then—
What’s the point, really?
“I’m going to go home,” I tell her.
She stares at me incredulously. “Are you offended or something? I was only being honest, like any good friend would.”
But I’m not so sure about that. I’m not sure about anything anymore.
My house is the same as I remember.
The windows are open when I walk in and the air is balmy and I can hear my parents’ voices in the kitchen, low and indistinct, the coffee machine whirring. For some reason, the heat feels nostalgic, like a weighted blanket; summer always reminds me of home. I’m even wearing the same gray cotton T-shirt I always wore when I was in middle school, the fabric soft and stretched thin.
Before college, I briefly considered moving into the dorms on campus, but my parents talked me out of it. It was so much cheaper to live at home, easier to do laundry, I could enjoy my mom’s cooking, my bedroom was more comfortable. It was only a fifteen-minute walk to campus, anyway. These had all seemed like perfectly valid points, and so I stayed.
I stayed, and I accepted that this was my life in its entirety. This unchanging house, the forty square feet of my backyard. But now I have this suspicion that my life is actually happening somewhere else, not here but outside, that it’s much bigger than I ever realized.
“Allison, dinner will be ready soon,” my mom calls.
I wander over to the kitchen to help them set the table, reaching instinctively for the chopsticks, the bowls, even the same plates I used before.
“How was school today?” she asks over her shoulder.
“Eventful,” I say, counting the chopsticks in my hands to make sure I have enough. Carefully, I add, “I changed majors.”
My mom whirls around. “You changed majors?” she repeats with an incredulous smile, like she doesn’t believe me.
“What? When?” my dad asks from beside her.
“Today,” I say. “I switched to English.”
The smile vanishes from my mom’s face. Suddenly, she looks as if she might burst into tears instead. “That’s not—but you didn’t even tell us.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“You can’t just do that,” she says. “This isn’t a game, Allison. This is your future, your wholelife—”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’smylife, and I don’t want to spend it studying something I couldn’t care less about. I mean, I hated my classes. Economics is so deeply, unbearably boring to me—”
“Many things are boring,” my dad cuts in. “We’ve talked about this, it’s part of being an adult. Taxes are boring, chores are boring, jobs are boring, but you have to suck it up and do it anyway.”
“I tried that. And it didn’t work for me. It only made me unhappy.”
