What Happens to Goodbye(58)

He thought about this for a second. “True. But if you never really make friends, you probably don’t have anyone to be your two a.m. Which would kind of suck.”
I just looked at him as he stirred his soup, carrots spinning in the liquid. “Your what?”
“Two a.m.” He swallowed, then said, “You know. The person you can call at two a.m. and, no matter what, you can count on them. Even if they’re asleep or it’s cold or you need to be bailed out jail . . . they’ll come for you. It’s, like, the highest level of friendship.”
“Oh. Right.” I looked down at the table. “Well, I guess I can see the value in that.”

We were quiet for a moment. Then Dave said, “At the same time, though, I can understand the whole blank-page thing. You don’t have to constantly be explaining yourself.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Nobody knows you were ever friends with Gerv the Perv. Or part of a vicious, girl-fight-inducing love triangle.”
“Or that your parents had an awful divorce.” I looked at him. “Sorry. But that’s kind of where you were going, right?”
It hadn’t been. At least not on purpose. “My point is that all the moving has been just what me and my dad needed. It’s been a good thing for both of us.”
“Being temporary,” he said.
“Getting a fresh start,” I countered. “Or four.”
Another silence fell. I could hear the fridge humming behind me. Weird how some things you’re never aware of until there’s nothing else to notice.
“So you think you’ll move from here again, soon? ” he asked finally. “When six months is up?”
“Don’t know,” I replied. “Sometimes we stay longer or shorter than that. It’s really up to the company my dad works for. And next year . . .”
I trailed off, realizing only once I’d started this sentence that I didn’t really want to get into it. But I could feel Dave watching me, waiting.
“There’s college, and all that,” I finished. “So this one already kind of has an end date, regardless. At least for me.”
We looked at each other for a moment. He was a smart guy, probably the smartest I’d ever met. So it didn’t take long, only a beat or so, for him to get what I was saying.
“Right.” He put his spoon down in his now-empty bowl. “Well, at least you’ll be ready for the dorm. You’ve got living simply down.”
I smiled, looking at the cabinets. “I do, don’t I?”
“Yeah. Maybe I should take some lessons. Might come in handy when I’m packing for our road trip this summer.”
“The road trip?” I asked. “Does that mean it’s back on? Your parents gave the okay?”
“Not exactly. But they’re warming up to the idea a bit.” He pushed his bowl to the side. “Mostly because I said I’d spend the second half of the summer at Brain Camp, which is what they want me to do. It’s all about compromise. But if it means I get to go to Texas with Ellis and Riley, it’s all good.”
“So Heather wasn’t invited?”
He smiled. “Good assumption, but actually she was in until recently. She, uh, kind of wrecked her car and got her license pulled for points. Her dad’s making her pay back all the debt and for a new policy before she can drive again, so all her money went to that.”
“Was this the guardhouse incident?” I asked.
“It was.” He sighed. “I swear, she is the worst driver. She doesn’t look when she merges.”
“So I hear.” I looked down at my bowl, pushing a stray carrot around. “So what’s in Texas?”
“Austin, mostly. Ellis’s brother lives there, and he’s always talking about how good the music scene is, all the cool stuff there is to do. Plus, it’s far enough that we can stop a bunch of other places along the way.”
“You’re excited,” I said.
“Well, unlike some people, I’m not exactly well traveled. And everyone likes a road trip, right?”
I nodded, thinking of my mom and me, driving to North Reddemane and the Poseidon. I knew he thought my life was weird, and the truth was, I didn’t expect him to understand where I was coming from. How could he, when he’d lived in the same place his entire life, with the same people around him, his history and past always inescapable, inevitable? I wasn’t saying my way was necessarily best. But neither was never having any change. And given the choice between these two options, I knew the life I was living was the better one for me. I might not have had spices, but I wasn’t lugging useless, chipped glass pans around with me either. So to speak.
“David? Hello?”
I turned to see Mrs. Dobson-Wade, standing on her side porch, her door open behind her. She was craning her neck, scanning the side yard, a concerned look on her face.
Dave got up, walking to our door and sticking his head out. “Hey,” he said. She jumped, startled. “I’m over here.”
“Oh,” she said. When she saw me, she waved, and I waved back. “Sorry to interrupt. But that documentary your father mentioned earlier is coming on, and I knew you wouldn’t want to miss the beginning.”
“Right,” Dave said, glancing at me. “The documentary.”
“It’s about the lives of cells,” Mrs. Wade explained to me. “A really fascinating, in-depth view. Highly acclaimed.”
I nodded, not sure what to say to this. “I’ll be there in a minute,” Dave told her.