What Happens Now(85)

He was quiet a moment. “I guess you’re right.”

“You say you want to belong to something, but that means you have to follow some rules you may not like. It means you have to do some work.”

“I’m not good with those two things.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“See, last summer you thought I was perfect. I’m not perfect.”

No, he wasn’t perfect. But through my anger right then, I realized this: I loved him still. I loved him more, even. Because I loved what his imperfections were teaching me.

“Ari,” said Camden into my silence. “You’ve saved me a little. Can you keep doing that, please?”

Maybe that was it. The thing. What he and I were all about.

I lowered my voice to match his and asked, “What do you need saving from, Camden?”

“Myself.”

“Don’t we all need that kind of saving?”

“Let’s save each other, then.”

“In Vermont.”

“What better place?”

“You should start writing their travel brochures.”

He laughed, then said, as casually as breath, “I love you.”

I froze. I’d been hoping to hear that for so long. I thought it would bring all the answers, but it only created more questions.

There was suddenly another thing I knew for sure.

“I can’t save you, Camden. Just like you can’t save me. It’s kind of something we have to do ourselves.”

I heard him exhale. “We can help each other though, right? That’s allowed?”

Arrrgh. He wasn’t getting it. If we had this connection, why couldn’t he see what I so clearly did? “And how are you going to help me, Camden? What are you going to give me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at our situations. Who has the freedom to go and be wherever they choose at the moment?”

He was quiet.

“If you can’t give that . . .” I felt my resolve weakening. “I can’t be with someone who’s only going to take. Who’s not going to step up.”

Camden was still quiet.

My thoughts were a tangled knot of sadness and frustration and anger and desire, but in the middle of that knot I could see a clean space. A little loop of understanding of what I needed to do next. I focused on that.

“Good-bye, Camden,” I said into that loop, and hung up.

I put down the phone and crawled into the empty bathtub and cried for about a year, or maybe ten minutes.

Sometimes, there was no victory in figuring out something important about yourself. There was only reality and clarity, which were not much fun at all.

Then I got out of the bathtub and called someone.

“Hello, Mom?” I said when she picked up.

The menu at Moose McIntyre’s was eighteen pages long. I’d never had the time to read the whole thing and appreciate how you could find falafel platters and chicken-and-waffle combos at the same restaurant.

Today, I had that time.

“Go there now and wait for me,” Mom had said on the phone. “I don’t want you home by yourself.”

“Okay,” I’d sobbed, so grateful for instructions. “Okay.” I’d said it at least eight times.

Now I was sitting in a corner booth by the window, nursing a coffee and waiting. Every time the door opened, I looked up nervously like I was on a first date.

With my mother.

On the twelfth time the door opened, it was her. I watched her scan the restaurant for me. I could see the worry and urgency on her face, and that made me feel good. Was that bad that it made me feel good?

Then she found me and moved quickly to the table. I stood up, stepped out of the booth. When she reached me, I fell against her. The first thing I noticed when she put her arms around me was that she felt smaller than I remembered. Maybe I’d just gotten bigger. Maybe it had been that long since I’d truly hugged her.

“I got your note,” I said into her shoulder. “You told me to call.”

I felt her stiffen for a moment, then she tightened her embrace. “You went looking for the box.”

I nodded, pinching my eyes shut.

“Come,” she said. “Sit.”

She shooed me back into the booth, then slid in beside me.

“What did you tell them at work?” I asked.

“Family emergency.”

“I’m sorry you went all the way down there and all the way back. You didn’t have to do that. It could have waited.”

Mom looked at me full-on. Her hands flat and firm on the table had moved the place mat so it was crooked. I wondered if she’d notice.

“Ari,” she said evenly. “I had to do that.”

I felt the tears come again but I bit down hard on my lip, willing them to stop.

“Do we have to call your doctor?”

“I don’t know. Please don’t be a nurse right now.”

She looked taken aback for a moment, then softened. “This was about Camden, right?”

“It’s kind of about everything.”

“But you got hurt.”

Before I could figure out a way to answer, a waitress came by with two glasses of water. Mom ordered a bowl of granola.