Begin Again(29)

My jaw tenses, waiting for some shift between us. For something to change in the dynamic, now that we’ve both laid out the worst things that ever happened to us.

But Milo just knocks his arm into my shoulder, so gently that I feel a faint smile trying to curl on my lips. “I’m sorry, too,” he says.

I don’t say “thanks,” because we both know by now it’s a word that never quite makes sense. I just knock my shoulder back into him. A quiet give-and-take.

He’s quiet for a few moments, but there’s nothing uncomfortable about it. Just thoughtful, his eyes still on me, like he’s waiting for me to go on. When I don’t, he says, “And that segued into solving everyone else’s shit because . . . ?”

“Because . . .”

The ache is back, but it isn’t just an ache anymore. It’s sharp and demanding. It knows I’m changing shape here, and it’s changing, too. And what it wants is for me to meet Milo’s watchful gaze and tell him the truth—a truth I didn’t know existed until he just made so much space for it. A truth I don’t understand well enough to explain.

Because there is a part of me that genuinely enjoys giving advice and helping where I can. Not just because it feels like a natural progression of what my mom did with her own career, but because it’s something I feel good doing. Something that most of the time, I excel at.

But in the past few years, it’s become more than that. Not just a passion, but a crutch. And if I think too long about exactly what it is I’m using it for, I might look all the way down to the bottom of something I don’t want to see.

I settle for part of the truth, if not the whole of it. “It just makes me happy, knowing there are things that can be fixed. That I might be able to help take a problem off someone’s plate.”

“Oh. So my messy love triangle is just a serotonin hit for you, huh?” Milo teases.

I let out a breathy laugh, relieved to pivot. “You caught me.”

Milo’s quiet for a few more strides. “That’s rough about your dad, though,” he says. “I feel like my mom did the total opposite. She’s like, aggressively involved now. Which you’d think would be harder with seven kids.”

“Seven kids,” I marvel.

Milo kicks a stray twig off the sidewalk with his boot. “Honestly, it’s a miracle I even remember my own name.”

“It must be nice, though. I always wanted siblings.”

Milo lets out a derisive snort. “Yeah, well.”

I stop in my tracks. Milo stops a beat later, his expression quizzical.

“I’m gonna level with you, Milo.”

He sizes up all five foot one of me. “Uh, good luck with that.”

I square my feet on the pavement and look up at him. “I probably do have a fix-it thing. And I am trying very hard not to inflict it on you and your brother. So hard that I have at least eight abandoned coffee cups of failed ‘Semi-Eternal Darkness’ blends in the trash can behind Bagelopolis that should never see the light of day.”

Milo’s lip quirks. I gravitate a little closer to him, lowering my voice.

“And maybe I can’t fix anything. But maybe it would help just to talk about it.”

Milo leans back on his heels, staring out at the quad behind me. “I mean, you already know the details.”

“Kind of.”

I know that Milo had a girlfriend, and their relationship also had a strong Andie and Connor vibe to it—they’d been next-door neighbors and grew up together, so the whole thing was just kind of fated. I also know that in October of last semester Milo caught her and his brother Harley making out in the back row of a showing of The Nightmare Before Christmas a few towns away from campus, which is why he now hates both that movie and the idea of true love.

I also know he hasn’t talked to either of them since.

“Look, new kid. The long and short of it is the same anyway. Family’s complicated.” Before I can say anything, he adds, “Like, this thing with your dad. You know the score, right? And it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t undo what happened.”

I’m not used to being caught off guard, especially this many times in a row.

“I guess . . .” I can’t lie. Not to Milo, or anybody, really. “I mean, he’s been trying to fix things, I think. In his defense.”

Milo shrugs. “So has Harley. Doesn’t mean things are fixable.”

That’s not true, I want to say, but I don’t want to get into the pots and kettles of it all. I can’t argue that Milo should try to fix things with Harley without digging myself into a hole where I’d have to be open to fixing things with my dad, too.

“Maybe . . .” I find myself saying, just to fill up the silence before my conscience can. “Maybe it’s just a matter of being ready.”

“Well, let me know if you ever are, because I’m sure not.”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep back the tidal wave of guilt, and the irritation that follows it. I don’t want Milo to be right. But I also don’t want to feel obligated to fix things with my dad, either. I wasn’t the one who left.

“Hey.” Milo settles a hand on my shoulder. Only when I glance over at him do I realize my entire face has twisted into this not-quite scowl, something so far from the syndicated-talk-show smile that I don’t know how to categorize it. “Doesn’t mean either of you are the bad guy or anything. There are just some things beyond help.”