The Truth About Forever(80)

"Well," I said. "Maybe I can."

I turned around and looked at Bethany and Amanda, who were pretending to be huddled over some periodical while listening to every word we were saying. "Hey," I called out, and they looked up, in tandem, like a creature with two heads. "You know, I think I'm going to go."

A moment passed as this sunk in.

Amanda's eyes widened. "But you don't get off for another hour," she said.

"Your shift," Bethany added, "ends at one."

"Well," I said, picking up my purse. "Something tells me you're not really going to miss me."

I stood up and pushed in my chair. Wes was watching me, curious, his hands in his pockets, as I took one last look around my pitiful little workstation. This could be a big mistake, I thought, but it was already happening. I was not a girl with all the information, but I knew one thing. If this was my forever, I didn't want to spend another second of it here.

"If you leave now," Bethany said under her breath, "you can't come back."

"You're right," I told her. And I was so glad that she was. Right, that is. "I can't."

I started to walk toward the swinging door, but, as usual, her chair was in my way. And beyond that was Amanda's. It had been so hard to come in here that first day, and every day since. I figured that by now, I'd earned a clear path out.

So I picked up my purse and tossed it over the desk. It hit the carpet with a thud, right by Wes's feet. Then, in a fashion my sister the rebel would have appreciated, I hoisted myself up, throwing one leg over, and jumped the counter, while Bethany and Amanda watched, stunned.

"Wow," Wes said, raising his eyebrows as I picked up my purse. "Nice dismount."

"Thanks," I said.

"Macy," Bethany hissed at me. "What are you doing?"

But I didn't answer her, didn't even look back as we started across the library, everyone staring, to the exit. This felt right. Not just leaving, but how I was doing it. Without regret, without second guessing. And with Wes right there, holding the door open for me as I walked out into the light.





* * *





Chapter Fifteen





Lucy picked up a crayon, gripping it in her short, chubby fingers. When she put it to the paper she pressed hard, as if only by doing so would the color transfer. "Tree," she announced, as a squiggle emerged, stretching from one end of the paper to the other.

"Tree," I repeated, glancing at Wes. Even now, a full hour after I'd jumped the info desk, he was still looking at me the way he had the entire ride back to Sweetbud Drive, with an expression that was half impressed, half outright incredulous. "Stop it," I said to him.

"Sorry." He shrugged, as if this would help him to shake it, once and for all. "I just can't get that visual out of my head. It was—"

"Crazy," I finished for him, as Lucy, sitting between us on Wes's side porch, exhaled loudly before picking up another crayon.

"More like kick-ass," he said. "I mean, that's the way I've always wanted to quit jobs but never had the nerve, you know?"

"It wasn't kick-ass," I said, embarrassed.

"Maybe not to you."

Truthfully, for me, it just hadn't sunk in yet. I knew that across town something bigger than the mega-tsunami had hit and was already reverberating, sending Shockwaves that would eventually ripple out to meet me. I could just see Jason at the library, listening with that same incredulous expression, as my desk leap was described, in SAT verbal perfect words, by Amanda and Bethany. He was probably already calling my cell phone to demand an explanation, which was why I'd turned it off, deciding to give myself at least until six, when I had to meet my mother, to try not to think about what happened next. For now, I just wanted to do something else. Like color.

Thinking this, I glanced at Lucy again. When we'd come back with the mayonnaise, Delia had been beyond frazzled, frantically boiling huge kettles of water while she and Bert chopped a small mountain of potatoes in the garage. Lucy, hot and bored, was underfoot, and Delia had handed her off to us, asking us to just entertain her until it was time to start mixing everything up. Now I watched as she pushed one of her tight black curls out of her face and pressed an orange crayon to the paper, zigzagging across it. "Cow," she said, with authority.

"Cow," I said.

A breeze blew over the porch then, ruffling the trees, and suddenly there was a flash, something glinting around the side of the house, that I caught out of the corner of my eye. I leaned back on my palms, craning my neck, and saw that in the side yard there were several angels, big and small, as well as a few works in progress: large pieces of rebar twisted and sculpted, a couple of whirligigs that were still only gigs, missing their moving parts. Behind them, lining the fence, was what looked like a small salvage yard, pile after pile of pieces of pipe, metal car parts and hardware, gears in every size from enormous to small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

"So," I said, nodding toward that side of the house, "that's where the magic happens."

"It's not magic," he replied, watching Lucy scribble orange all across the top of the page.

"Maybe not to you," I said, as he made his modest face. "Can I see?"