if it makes you shit yourself. Be the Nike swoosh.”
I embody the Nike swoosh. I just do it.
I’ve been up since, like, four in the morning, thanks to jet lag and my crash nap yesterday, so while Shane goes to shower and get ready for the day, I pack my laptop and take a walk. A sourness gnaws at my gut, because I know I need to call my parents before they freak out, but I don’t want to FaceTime them from Aunt Leah’s place. They bolted out of here a year ago with no remorse, so they don’t get to see it.
Any of it.
It’s a Costa Coffee, a chain I’ve seen often enough around here, even though I’ve only been here one day. I order a hot chocolate and take a seat near the back. As I connect my laptop to Wi-Fi, I idly swipe through my phone and ignore the woodsy tea smell that invades the entire space.
It’s around noon here, so seven at home, which means Mom’s already left for work. I send a FaceTime request to Dad’s phone.
Under the table, my legs shake, as I wait for the call to light up my laptop. Each time I force my legs to stop shaking, they start again. It’s the only thing that eases the worry inside me, the panic pouring through my body. I try to sort out what’s causing the anxiety:
I’m not really missing them, but shouldn’t I be missing them already?
Is it that my shoddily made tower of lies could crumble at any second?
Will just hearing his voice invoke some sort of trauma?
Either way, this is a shitty situation. Dad’s face fills the screen, and his voice tumbles into the speaker.
“Hiya, Mart.” He leans back and flips the camera to the side, then back, to try to get the view. He’s never really gotten the hang of this. “You’re not at your aunt’s?”
“Decided to take a walk and went to a Costa Coffee. That one we went to last year a couple times.”
“How was the flight? How’s London? I think you’re starting to pick up the accent already.” His voice is almost perky, which brings my guard down a bit. It’s always hard to remember that even if they were shitty to me about certain things, they do genuinely care about me as a human. Even if they don’t act like it all the time.
Dad’s on the porch with a glass of orange juice. I recognize my home—my old home—in the background. A bit of warmth fills my insides at the familiarity of it all.
“It’s all okay.” Vulnerability creeps into my voice. “Just, you know, different here. It’s finally starting to hit me just how far away I am from Avery. I’m not homesick or anything, but, you know.”
He nods. Takes his time in forming a response.
“Hold on.”
He taps on his phone to check a message. Or at least, that’s what I thought he was doing, but when he looks back at the camera, he says, “Okay, you’re at that Costa Coffee, right? I’ve got their menu up. I want you to go and get yourself, let’s see … a sausage roll, a Bakewell tart—remember when they had to make those on that British baking show?—and a mince pie.”
“Mince pie, like, a meat pie? No thanks.”
“I’m on the dietary page and it’s marked vegan, so I’m pretty sure this is a fruit pie. Or it’s one sick joke by the baristas. Go ahead, do it. Or get something different that looks good. I’ll put some money in your account later; this is our treat.”
I laugh. “Noted.”
A couple of minutes later, I come back to my table in the back corner with the goods.
“Okay, now what?” I ask.
“Well, you eat them.”
“Sure. A sausage roll, here goes,” I say. I take a bite, and the flaky pastry crust and boiled, reduced, or otherwise tortured meat hits my tongue. I chew. Consider. “It’s not bad. It’s actually better than it has any right to be.”
“Exactly. Next, what do we have?”
“I got the mince pie,” I say. “And some kind of tart. I can’t believe you’re force-feeding me junk food.”
“They call them sweets there,” he says. “Get it right or you’ll never fit in.”
After tasting both, I look into the camera and arch an eyebrow. “Okay, they were both proper delightful treats. The point of this?”
“The point is that everything you just ate? You can’t really get them in Kentucky. It doesn’t exist, even at the fanciest of coffee