him a moment longer, then looks back at the highway, where all the other cars are moving again. Someone behind us honks, and Mom hits the gas.
Chapter Fifteen
Alexis
Shit,” I say as we zoom past the exit where I was supposed to get off. “Sorry.” I bring my eyes up to the rearview mirror, hoping to find CeCe looking back at me. There was a moment when Tommy was coughing that it seemed like she knew we were going to need each other to get through this.
“What?” she asks with snark in her voice, as if she forgot that just moments ago she had to go to the bathroom so badly that she broke her resolve not to talk to me.
I know she’s scared, that she’s sad and angry. I know because I’m feeling all of those things, too. I wish I could tell her that, but I’m supposed to be the grown-up. I’m supposed to comfort her, to reassure her. But I have no idea how I can do that for her when I need someone to do the same exact things for me.
In different circumstances, I would have talked to Tommy about it. But I can’t tell him how I’m really feeling—how my heart practically stopped when he started coughing like that. I was so scared that we waited too long, that I screwed it up by not saying yes sooner. He couldn’t die before we even got to Destin, before he got to do any of the things he wants to do this summer. His last.
“The exit, I missed it,” I say.
“Whatever,” CeCe says from the backseat. “We’re almost there, anyway.”
Tommy clears his throat and my eyes dart over to him. “I’m okay,” he says.
I wish I could believe him. I know he hates seeing what this is doing to us, and I’m trying to keep things as normal as possible. I was actually happy that CeCe was being a monster earlier. If she had been sweet and agreeable, it wouldn’t have been real.
“There’s another exit in a few miles,” I say.
Tommy nods and turns the music back up. I didn’t realize I had turned it down. One of my goals for this summer is to work on being more present and in the moment, especially since our moments are running out.
“Tell me the story about our first kiss,” Tommy says.
“You were there,” I remind him. “And you’ve heard me tell that story a hundred times.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearing it a hundred more.” He puts his hand on my leg, letting it slide down to my knee.
My eyes drift up to the rearview mirror to see if CeCe is listening, but she’s got her headphones back on and is staring at her phone again.
“You were quiet and shy,” I say.
“And you were beautiful.”
I laugh. Only through the eyes of love could I be considered beautiful at that awkward twelve-year-old stage. My hair was frizzy, I was at least twenty pounds too heavy, and the style of the clothes we all wore in the eighties was anything but flattering.
“We were standing in the closet on a dare,” I tell him. “You were on one side, I was on the other.”
“I made the first move,” he says proudly.
“But you missed and rammed my nose with your chin.”
“It was my first kiss,” he says, moving his hand up and down my thigh. I don’t remind him it wasn’t my first. Now, I wish it had been.
“You were embarrassed and went back to your side of the closet. Then our time was up, they opened the door, and I walked out.”
“But you came back.”
“I came back.” I smile. For years, my memory of the night stopped when I walked out of the closet. It wasn’t until years later when I finally came back to Destin that Tommy reminded me what happened next.
I remember now, looking back toward the closet where Tommy hadn’t moved. His chubby cheeks were flushed in embarrassment, and he looked sad. Even back then, I never wanted to disappoint him. So I walked back to the closet, leaned forward, and let my lips briefly brush against his. It had been a flutter of a kiss, but it made him smile again.
“I didn’t wash my lips for the rest of that summer.” Tommy leans over and gives me a quick kiss. He looks in the backseat before giving me one more. “We’ve lived a good life.”