It’s why I’m always asking her where she and Dad met, or what her dissertation was about, or other pieces of her life I want us both to hold on to. It’s not only that I want to check on her recall. It’s that I want to know she’s still the person she was the day before, and the day before that. Because when she can’t remember those things, she won’t be her.
With my mind running over the daily list of worries, I watch Lewis fit the sheets to the futon. Hours later, I’m staring out the window overlooking the river. The lights of the city are undimmed, despite the late hour. Instead of falling asleep, I’m awake and wondering—wondering if Mom’s okay, wondering if tomorrow’s the day things start to go downhill.
Every day I wait. And one day the waiting will be over, and I don’t want to lose the good years she has left because I’m away at college.
Mom said change is hard. Well, yeah. Every change I’ve ever experienced was for the worse. My parents’ divorce, my dad’s move to Canada, my mom’s diagnosis. Even Lewis leaving for school and effectively removing himself from our lives. Going to college, especially going to college far from home, is a huge, fundamental change, and, honestly, I’ve had enough of change. I’m not eager for the upheavals and uncertainty it’ll bring, not when I know exactly how not okay change can be.
It’s why this trip is a waste of time. Everyone puts unnecessary emphasis on the noneducational parts of college—the city, the “feel” of the campus, the perfect “college experience.” I only want the degree and the opportunity to learn. The rest is white noise. Instead of drowning in it, I’m focusing on where I’m truly needed.
This tour is nothing but an opportunity to observe everything I’m not interested in—while being forced into a car with the one person who should understand, who should share some of my fears and apprehensions, and who instead appears focused on getting me laid.
I look out the window and wish I were home.
Juniper
I HEAR MATT’S even breathing beside me. It’s eleven p.m. but the lights of Boston haven’t gone out. While Matt dozes, I watch the view from the window.
I can’t figure out how to be in the moment after sex. Not because of Matt, who is a perfect gentleman. But I envy him for how completely his mind goes clear, how easily restful he becomes. He’s utterly relaxed.
Not me. My mind’s a tornado. It churns forward, picking up fragments of the future as if they were playgrounds and patio furniture. Hopes, dreams, plans. They rush forward abrupt and unbidden. It’s as if the feelings of sex unquiet everything, rushing me into tomorrow’s tour and this week’s itinerary and the year’s exhilarating and enormous decisions.
Matt brushes my temple with his fingers. “Hey, where’d you go?” he asks, no doubt noticing I’m distracted.
“Just thinking about tomorrow,” I reply.
He reaches up, pulling me closer, and I notice the sheet slip down his chest. Of course, he notices my noticing. I flush, even as I smile—knowing how moments like this go to his head—and just as I suspected, he grins. This boy. I let myself curl up next to him.
“College is going to be just like this,” he says in a low voice.
I laugh into the smooth curve of his neck. “I don’t think our dorms will be quite this nice.”
“Not the room. This,” Matt says. He traces his finger down my arm. “Us. No more sneaking around our parents, finding places to park.”
His words bring back memories of circling parking lots and playing Ten Fingers until the final car leaves, fumbling on the seats. I pull away a little. “We’ll have roommates. And, you know, studying?”
“Oh, is studying something a person does in college?” he asks playfully. “I had no idea.”
I shove his shoulder lightly. “Hey, have you thought about that yet? What you might want to study?” I seize on the new subject, not entirely feeling like discussing our college sex plans.