Begin Again(77)

“Andie. Shit. Are you okay?”

I’m too stunned by the sound of Milo himself to stop myself from turning around, ginormous, embarrassing tears and all.

“Oh, hi,” I say, and whatever else I was about to attempt is swallowed by an embarrassing hiccup. I open my mouth, trying to collect myself, but it doesn’t end up mattering. Milo has already crossed the small room and wrapped his arms around me so fast that I instinctively crush my eyes shut right into his chest, so grateful for the presence and the pressure of him that I can’t do anything else.

I spend the next minute scrambling for something to say, some way to recover. Some way to laugh this off and walk away—he may have seen me at my worst, but he doesn’t have to continue seeing me at it. But at some point it becomes very clear that he’s just going to hold me like this for as long as I need it, that he’s just going to let me muck up his jacket with my tears, that’s he’s just going to ride out this storm with me the same way he did back in that little shed in the woods.

And so I let myself cry. I don’t know how long, but long enough that it feels like I’m empty of something, something that needed to leave. Something that’s been weighing me down so much that it feels like it had its own gravity, and now without it I might float away.

“Valeria told us what happened,” Milo says quietly, once most of the tears have stopped. “We were looking for you. I don’t know why, but I just . . . had a feeling.”

When we pull away the room feels a little colder. Milo’s eyes search mine with this careful concern that makes me feel more raw than I’ve ever been; like he’s not just seeing me on the surface with my puffy eyes and red nose and hurt, but all the way down to whatever just left me. His eyes only stray for one moment to the photo behind me, so quick I almost miss it. He must have seen me staring at it when he walked in.

It feels important to tell him then. Like we’ve seen so much of each other that it’s only right he knows. Maybe even long overdue.

“The original Knight,” I say, turning to face her again. “Amy Janson. She’s, um. My mom.”

“Oh.” Milo may be caught off guard, but it doesn’t take him long to recover. “Is that why you’ve been here all this time?”

I shake my head. “Well, maybe—maybe a little, at first. But then I was just . . . I fit here. With you and Shay.”

Milo gently knocks his shoulder into mine, a quiet way of saying he feels that way, too.

“Your mom was Amy Rose, huh?” He looks between the photo and me, registering the slight surprise on my face. “I should have made the connection. I listened to her show every morning for years.”

“You did?” I feel the sting of tears again, but this time I don’t shy away from them. They’re not the happy kind, but they’re still the good kind. It hurts to hear, but it also means more than I can possibly ever say.

“Yeah.” Milo looks away, giving me some space to react. “She was amazing.”

I nod.

“I didn’t get enough years with her, but I . . .” I swipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand. “I know people romanticize the past. That things are always sweeter when you look back. But my mom, she was kind of just magic, you know? Always wanted to go on adventures, whether it was driving all the way up a mountain to see the stars at midnight or check out an ice cream store three towns away.”

The tears feel like a relief now, like a way of letting my love for her out into the world; like maybe the energy of it is bigger than I am, even though I’ve spent so many years trying to hold it in for myself. “She could set anyone at ease. Make anyone laugh. Turn any dull thing into a game.”

“I remember,” says Milo quietly, his eyes trained just as carefully on the frame as mine are.

I tear my eyes from it, looking up at him meaningfully. “So you get it. I can do my best with all this, but I’m never going to be like she was—she just made everything shine.”

Milo lifts his hand toward my face like he’s going to hold my cheek in it, like he might brush away the tears. He stops and shakes his head, something more urgent pressing in him, something that roots me to the spot as he says it loud.

“You’re right. You’re not like her, Andie,” he says, with a certainty that cuts right past his usual bluntness. “Your mom was an entertainer. She knew what people needed to hear, whether she was cracking jokes or giving their problems a voice. She helped people get through their shit, and so will you—in your own way. By helping them face it head-on.”

For a moment I’m too stunned to answer, not sure which is more overwhelming: how well Milo understood my mom, a person I never even imagined in the same world as his, or how well he understands me.

“I think I’m always going to worry I’m riding her coattails,” I admit. “I don’t think I even got in here on my own merit. I was the only transfer in my class. I’m worried they just realized who my mom was and let me in because of that.”

Milo dismisses this so easily I almost envy him. “Well, I know that’s not true. I mean, look at this place.”

“Exactly,” I say miserably. “I’m a pity admission.”

This time Milo does reach out, putting a hand on my shoulder. “There is no such thing.”

There is a quiet part of me that has trusted Milo since long before either of us earned it from each other, a trust I feel in the warm pressure of his hand. A trust that makes me want to believe those words are true, and understands, objectively, that they must be.