He still looked a little stunned, but he said, “I don’t get that impression.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “You’re one of the realest people I’ve ever met.”
I laughed. “You don’t know me. You have no idea how real I am.”
Liam raised his eyebrows. “Then educate me.”
His blue eyes were too intense. I had to look away.
“Ellie isn’t even my real name.” The words sort of fell out of my mouth. “My mother thought I was going to be a boy. Something about how I kicked.”
“So what did they name you?”
“Promise you won’t say it out loud.” I turned to look him in the eye, and he held my gaze.
“I promise.”
I pressed my lips together, then said, “Elias Dante Jr.”
Liam looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was stifling a laugh.
Then he smiled. “It’s different. I like it.”
I felt a pleasant lifting in my chest—and then the quiet descended again, liquid and oppressive. I didn’t know why I’d told him. I wanted to take it back.
Slowly, Liam moved closer until our arms touched. Mine broke out in goose bumps. I needed to say something to break the tension.
“What do you want to do when you grow up, Liam Miller?”
He let out an uncomfortable laugh and ran his hand over his short hair. It was a stupid question, but it had done the trick.
“I don’t know. Travel, I guess.”
“To New York?”
He looked at me. “How’d you know?”
“There’s a giant framed photo in your bedroom.”
“Oh. Duh.” He smiled. I felt a twinge in my chest. “You’ve traveled a lot,” he said.
“I guess.”
“What’s it like? You know, once you get past the soybean sea.”
“Why are you asking me? You’re the one who moved to California.”
“Yeah, but that’s moving, not traveling. There’s a difference.”
I looked at him, at his dark blue eyes and his slightly stubbled jaw. I felt an impulse to lean forward and kiss him; instead, I bit my lip and looked away.
“There’s this saying,” I said, “‘Wherever you go, there you are.’ Traveling is like that. New places are fun for a while, but then you start to miss where you were before. You find things not to like about the new place, and eventually you realize that the thing you don’t like is you.”
Liam stared at me. “You’re like a ninety-year-old woman trapped in a sixteen-year-old’s body.”
It was a weird compliment—but it made me smile.
“What about you?” he asked. “Are you going to be a magician like your dad?”
My smile faltered. “No,” I said. “Definitely not.”
“Do you hate it?”
I leaned back and looked up. The clouds had cleared, and I could see Orion’s shoulders hanging low in the western sky. “No,” I said, “I love it.”
I exhaled, and it was like I had shrugged off that X-ray vest. I’d been pushing back on Dad for so long, trying to stay focused on my future, that it was a relief to finally tell someone how I really felt. And now that I had started, the words spilled out.
“I love the way the lights blind you when you step onstage. That big black chasm full of people you can’t see. The way they all gasp at once when you’ve really surprised them. It’s . . .” I shook my head.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about anything,” Liam said. “Why don’t you want to do it?”
I closed my eyes. What was I supposed to say? That I hated living in an RV and texting on a shitty phone from 2016? That I needed expensive pills to keep from drowning myself in a truck-stop bathroom? Here was a guy who had everything, who ate canapés and won scholarships and drove a vintage Mustang. How could he understand anything about me? I looked down at my mother’s old shoes and hoped he hadn’t noticed how scuffed they were.
“I’m going to be a psychiatric nurse,” I said, glancing at him to see if he was going to laugh. He didn’t.
“That sounds intense.”
“I want to make a difference. Not just be a dancing monkey.”
“I don’t think you’re a dancing monkey.”
“Nurses are in demand. And they get paid really well.” I was babbling now, and I couldn’t stop. “I’m going to get my diploma and go for an associate’s in nursing. I’ll have a job and insurance before my dad turns seventy. And an apartment. With a balcony.” Finally, I bit my lip to stop my blathering.