It will not be the three of us anymore. It will never be the three of us anymore. From now on, it will be:
Claude.
Lauren.
Neil.
Every person for themselves.
* * *
—
Afterward Dad finds me in the bathroom brushing my teeth. Before I can run away, he says, “I love you, Clew. No matter what. I need you to know that.”
He hugs me. And then, like that, he lets me go. The door closes behind him. I spit. Rinse. Dry my mouth. And then I hold on to the sink and get ready to cry all the tears I’ve been carrying around since May 30, enough to fill that crack in the earth. My mom is right that tears come out eventually, but that doesn’t mean I want anyone to see them.
I hold on and I wait but nothing happens. I stare at my face in the mirror, and my eyes are burning and tired, a little red, but completely dry.
* * *
—
I can’t sleep, so at two a.m. I sneak out. The neighborhood is quiet, the houses dark, the streets empty. I walk three blocks, turn right, and I’m at Saz’s place. Her room is in the basement and she always sleeps with the windows open, even in the dead of winter, because she’s a human furnace and also because she wants me to be able to get in at night if I need to. It’s the same reason I leave our living room window unlocked for her.
I squeeze through the opening and land on the rug. I can hear her snoring. I give my eyes a minute to adjust, and then I tiptoe over to the bed and climb in next to her. She stirs. “Hen?”
I whisper, “Sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t want to go away.”
“I know.” We lie on our sides and she throws an arm around me. “I don’t want you to go either.”
There’s this part of me that’s angry at her for falling for Yvonne and for sleeping with Yvonne and, more than that, for not telling me about it. But mostly I’m angry with her for not knowing that something’s wrong with me. She should be able to read my mind and figure out what I’m going through without me telling her. She should force it out of me so that I have no choice but to tell her, which means my parents won’t be able to get upset. If we’re really best friends, she should just know. But then, I didn’t know about Yvonne until she told me, did I? And there’s this other part of me that’s mad at myself for being able to hide things so well.
“Sazzy?”
“What?”
“Are you scared about college?”
“A little. I wish we were going to the same place.”
“Me too.”
“I wish you and your mom didn’t have to leave so soon.”
“I know.”
“When are you coming back from Atlanta?”
My throat is aching, right at the swallowing point, and all I can do is shrug. I’m not going to Atlanta the entire time. I’m going to an island, and I won’t be back from there until the end of July, maybe even early August. Ever since I chose Columbia and she chose Northwestern, I knew it would be hard to say goodbye to her, but I didn’t expect to have to do it so soon.
She says, “I’ll miss you more than the stars and Dairy Queen Blizzards and Françoise Hardy.”
I say, “I’ll miss you more than my room with the green walls and my daisy sheets and my bookshelves stuffed with books.”
And my dog and my dad and my house and even this town. And you, Saz, most of all. You.
THE ISLAND
ONE
DAY 1
I stand at the rail of the ferry, my hair blowing like a kite, wearing the oversize sunglasses I found at my grandparents’ house in Atlanta, where, for the two weeks we were there, we completely avoided the subject of my dad. In this moment, I hate the wind and I hate the salt water that is stinging my face and I hate my hair. My dress is sticking to me because the air is as heavy and humid as a hot, wet towel, and I’ve never felt this kind of heat before. Dandelion’s carrier is wedged between my ankles so he doesn’t go sliding away. To get here we have driven nearly eight hours from Mary Grove to Atlanta, and then another five hours from Atlanta to the coast on the southern tip of Georgia, where we boarded this boat.