Little Do We Know(96)

“I can,” I said, forcing a smile. “It would have been boring. You would have hated every second.”

He kissed me again. “No question in my mind.”



I waited until he left to fall apart.

I was still in Luke’s jersey. I ran my fingertip over the number thirty-four, remembering how I didn’t want to wear it at first. Now I didn’t want to take it off. I hugged my knees to my chest. And then I turned on the playlist he made me and sat there in the dark, ugly-crying for hours, until I’d demolished an entire box of Kleenex, my pillow was soaked through, my throat was dry and sore, and my eyelids were so puffy I could barely see through the slits.

But I wasn’t done. I opened my Notes app and scrolled down, reading every single thing I’d captured over the last three hundred and fifteen days. I read all the words he said to me at least four times, crying all over again.

Somewhere around 4:00 a.m., when I was so exhausted I could no longer keep my eyes open, and my body was so empty, I couldn’t manufacture a tear if I’d wanted to, I took a deep breath and held it in as long as I could. And then I let it out.

And I told myself I was done.

I went back to my Notes app, scrolled down to Day 315, and added a new entry.

“I can’t imagine what my senior year have been like without you.”

It was a good last line. I wasn’t sure he’d be able to top it.

I deleted all the empty lines and left it at that.





On Saturday morning, I pulled my shades open. I was about to open my window, too, but I stopped cold. Emory was sitting cross-legged on the grass, smack in the middle of our houses.

She held up her hand and waved. And then she curled her finger toward her chest and patted the empty space in front of her.

It was warmer than it had been in a while, so I went straight for the back door without grabbing a sweatshirt. I didn’t even put my shoes on. I stepped off the back porch and let the grass tickle my feet.

I sat down next to her. And I knew right away.

“He told you about the mission trip?” I asked.

Emory nodded. “How long have you known?”

“Just since last night. My mom told me he was considering it, but it didn’t sound like a done deal or anything.”

She sucked in a breath. “Well, it is now.”

“Are you okay?”

She plucked a blade of grass and wrapped it around her pinky finger. “No. I’m…” She paused, searching for the right word, and settled on, “Heartbroken.”

I hugged her. When she hugged me back, she squeezed me a lot harder than usual.

Then she pulled away and reached into her pocket. She handed me a slip of paper.

“Why are you giving me a Mentos wrapper?”

“Turn it over.”

On the other side, there was a hand-drawn map of the California coastline, starting in Orange County and ending in San Francisco.

“Luke drew this one night. It was our summer plan.” She rested her chin on my shoulder and began pointing at each of the dots. “We were going to camp in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Big Sur. We planned to make our way up the coast, stopping along the way whenever we felt like it, until we reached San Francisco. We figured our road trip would take two weeks, maybe more, and if we weren’t done, we could keep going up to Oregon or Washington.”

She pointed at the Mentos wrapper. “Anyway, I was stress-cleaning my room this morning, and I had this crazy thought. Luke made other plans for the summer, but this,” she said, tapping the map with her fingertip. “This was my plan. This is what kept me going when I was worried about my mom, or missing you, or watching Luke struggle with what happened to him. I was holding on to this. And I might have to let Luke go, but I’m not ready to give this up, too. I still need this trip.”

“You should go.”

“I know, right?” She smiled at me. “And you should come with me.”

I laughed in her face. “That’s ridiculous! I can’t go to San Francisco.”

“Why not? What’s keeping you here?”

Nothing, I realized. There was nothing keeping me there. Aaron and I were over. Alyssa was spending the summer at a music program in New York. Mom would be on the mission trips off and on, and Dad would be at the church every day, like he always was.

“Look,” Emory continued. “You’re leaving for Boston and I’m going to LA. We’ve spent our whole lives thirty-six steps away, and in a few months, we’re going to live two thousand nine hundred and eighty-four miles away.”

“You know the exact number?”

“I googled it.”

“I don’t know—” I began, but she cut me off.

“Look, I need to get away from here. I need to breathe in ocean air and feel sand between my toes. Don’t you?”

I didn’t say anything.

“We’ll make an epic playlist. We’ll blast it and sing at the top of our lungs, and it won’t matter that I can’t carry a tune to save my life, because you’ll be the only one who can hear me. We’ll drive winding roads, and stick our arms out the windows and flap them like wings.”

I was warming to the idea. When Emory grinned, her eyes twinkled, and I could tell from the look on her face that she knew she was getting to me.