Begin Again(89)

I bow my head, staring down at my feet. For all my changing, I’ve never felt more grounded, more separate, than I do right now. It’s freeing, but it’s terrifying. A burden has been lifted, but a strange responsibility has taken its place—my choices, and the consequences, are wholly my own.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from you aggressively inserting yourself into my business and making me socialize against my will, it’s that there are going to be all kinds of constants in your life,” says Milo. “And I know you. You have plenty of them. Your grandmas. Valeria. Shay.”

There’s a beat where Milo’s breath seems to stall. I close my eyes, steeling myself, then open them.

“But not you,” I say, so he doesn’t have to.

Only then does Milo look up, his eyes so immediately on mine that it’s arresting. Like someone flicking on a light when you’ve slept in total darkness; like looking up from a long, lonely walk in the woods to see someone directly in your path. “Why’s that?”

I try to smile. For once, I can’t manage it. “Shay said you’re leaving.”

When his gaze falls away from mine, the room is noticeably colder. “Yeah,” he says, his hand gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles go white. “I guess you’re right.”

I didn’t mean to confirm it like this. If anything, I was hoping to float the idea of him leaving so he could tell me I was wrong. It’s like Shay said. We’re a family. As prepared as I’ve been for him to leave, it does nothing to stop the ache in my chest from widening, knowing I was wrong. Embarrassingly, ridiculously wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, my voice small. “I know you said you’re not worried about the show, but—but I am. So I need you to know, I really am sorry. For that and for everything else.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he says. “I mean, you and I . . .”

I hang on the end of that sentence even when I understand he’s not going to finish it. He’s giving me an opening here. But no matter what Milo wants me to say, I can’t take it. Not when I know he’s about to cross the country. Not when his future is on the line.

I spent half a lifetime feeling held back from a relationship. And if there’s one thing Milo and I have in common, it’s that we both want the other to soar.

“I’ll miss you,” I say.

Milo just nods, more to himself than to me. An acceptance. “I won’t disappear, Andie,” he says. “We’ll always be friends.”

I don’t want his friendship. I want to shut the door. I want to cross the distance between us and put my hands on the back of his neck and pull him down toward me, want to feel the heat of his body against mine again, want to know what yesterday’s almost-kiss will feel like when it isn’t a “what if,” but a “what now.”

“Of course.” My voice doesn’t waver. My hands don’t shake. “Always.”

I turn to leave, but not before his expression sears into my memory—it’s not acceptance, I realize. It’s resignation. I unlock the door to my room, fishing for the light when my phone lights up for me, a notification from the student app popping up on the screen. I swipe, my heart already sinking even before I see the exam grade. It’s a big, unrepentant D.

Do you really feel like you belong here?

This time the doubt feels different—brutal and sour. This time when I sweep my eyes out the window to the campus below and let the doubt seep in, I don’t have anybody but myself to blame.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


When Shay’s alarm goes off I burrow under the covers and let her leave without me. I wake up again when the sun is up, long after the radio show has been recorded. I can’t bear to listen. I have no idea how Milo handled the aftermath of everyone knowing his real name, and selfishly, I don’t want to—it’ll just make what I did more real.

I put a blast out to the rest of the students in the work-study to find a replacement for my Bagelopolis shifts for the rest of the week, and once they’re snatched up I start packing, tossing odds and ends into a suitcase without any clear intention of what I’m doing or why. I just know I need to get off this campus. Away from the studio, away from the glaring D on my exam, away from my friends, and away from this stupid, fragile feeling in my heart, like it’s one conversation with Milo away from cracking in two.

I pull out my phone. I’m going home for a bit, I text Shay. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help with the show.

I’m about to call the home phone to ask my grandmas to come get me, but before I can, my dad’s number pops up on the screen. It’s an unusual time for him to call, so I pick up without thinking.

“Hello?”

“Hey, A-Plus,” says my dad, his voice normal enough that I rule out any weird freak accidents right off the bat. “I know you said you wanted to meet up next weekend, but I’m nearby today, if you wanted to grab a bagel or anything.”

It’s an embarrassing relief to hear his voice. I feel like a little kid, pressing the receiver to my ear.

“Oh.” The reflex to brush him off almost kicks in, but then some other reflex beats it to the punch. “Well, um—I was actually—thinking of going home today?”