Back to You(89)

Lauren stopped reading and glanced at the attachment. She could only see that it was by Coldplay before she quickly closed out of the message.
And then she fell back onto her bed and covered her face with both hands.
She couldn’t finish reading that e-mail. And she definitely couldn’t listen to whatever song he’d sent. She was on the verge of doing something stupid. Something she absolutely could not allow herself to do.
She could feel the inclination building. Like a caged animal clawing at her insides, fighting to get out.
Lauren took a deep breath and did the only thing she knew could prevent that from happening; she allowed her mind to go back to the place she’d been avoiding since she was eighteen.

August 2003
Lauren didn’t like his room like this. It made everything seem too final. Too real.
She sat on Michael’s bed, looking around at the bare walls, at the clutter of boxes scattered around his floor, at his half-empty closet.
She’d had the entire summer to come to terms with the fact that he was leaving. After all, that’s what people did when they graduated; they went off to college.
Except he wasn’t going off to college. He was moving to New York. His friend Jay’s cousin lived out there, about a half hour north of New York City, and he’d offered both of them a place to stay until they decided what they wanted to do with themselves after graduating.
Maybe that was what made it so difficult to accept. The uncertainty of it all. The fact that he didn’t have a plan. Or maybe it was the fact that he was leaving without a reason. He wasn’t going to school. He wasn’t offered a job. He had nothing out there to call his own. So why did he have to go? Why couldn’t he decide what he wanted to do with his life right here? Why couldn’t he figure it all out in the house that was a mere seven minutes away from Lauren’s, where she could still see him whenever she wanted?
Lauren chewed her lip as she picked at her nail polish. She knew that was an incredibly selfish way of looking at it { display: block; text-indent: 5%; font-size: 0.88rem; margin-top: gsi
She glanced up at him. He was still looking down at the picture she’d just given him, the one she took of them at his graduation a few weeks earlier. There was something behind his eyes that made her feel sad, even though his lips were curved into a smile.
“Thanks Red,” he said, holding up the picture before he turned and placed it between two folded articles of clothing in the box in front of him.
Lauren shrugged. “Something to remember me by.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Don’t get dramatic,” he said with a laugh, tossing a crumpled T-shirt at her.
She tried to smile as she dodged it, but it was forced. There was an ache in her chest that fluttered every time she looked at him.
Michael reached into his closet, pulling a handful of shirts off their hangers and dropping them on the dresser in front of him, and then he began folding them and putting them in the box by his feet.
“So…what are you gonna do out there?” Lauren asked.
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Dunno. Maybe I’ll work. Maybe I’ll go to school. Maybe I’ll make it as a gigolo.”
Lauren laughed and threw the T-shirt back at him, and it landed over the back of his head. He reached up and pulled it off, casting a smile over his shoulder before he tossed it to the pile on his dresser.
“Will you come home?” she asked, and when he didn’t answer right away, her smile fell. “You know, for holidays and stuff?”
She watched him put another shirt in the box before he shook his head.
“You won’t come back at all?” she asked, a touch of panic seeping into her voice.
Michael turned toward her. “We’ll still see each other, Red. You can come visit me whenever you want. But…I can’t come back here.” He turned back toward the box and pulled a shirt from the top of the dresser. “I need to erase this place. Get away from the f*cking disaster I’ve created here.”
Disaster? She would have laughed if he didn’t sound so upset. He couldn’t be serious, could he?
“Come on, Michael. No one cares about what happens in high school. So you got in a few fights. Getting suspended doesn’t really count as major life errors.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
His words were clipped, and Lauren looked up at him. His back was still to her, but he had tensed visibly.
She pulled her brow together. “Well then, what are you talking about?”
He stood like that for a minute, saying nothing. Then he dropped his head, shaking it slowly.
“What is it?” she asked softly. “Tell me.”