“You still have another year of high school. I think time apart will help you find direction, what you want out of life—”
“I know what I want!” I cut him off.
“Clock doesn’t count. You do that for fun, you’re always about having fun, but you have to get serious.” Likehim—I knew what he meant. “You have, like, two thousand followers, Field. You have to want more than to define yourself in followers and views,” he said, and just as I was about to add that he was the biggest part of me, he beat me to the punch, adding, “And me.”
“What if I don’t want to.” The words barely audible.
“Ineed to know whoIam without you,” Ricky said, avoiding eye contact, as if he didn’t believe his own words. “I think doing everything backwards put us at a disadvantage.” He was so matter of fact. So practical about this. Like I was a spreadsheet or a piece of wood that wasn’t fitting a mold or molding.
“How?”
“Maybe we met too soon.”
“Please, Ricky, don’t—” I couldn’t finish.
“The world isyours, Fielder Lemon.”
“But notours,” I barely got out.
He shook his head. “No, not now.” He squeezed me so tightly, and the certainty in his voice crushed me more than anything. “Maybe one day.”
“Is this the part where you vow to marry me one day if neither one of us is married by twenty-eight because I’m the love of your life but we just don’t worknow?” No filter.
“You don’t have to do that thing, Fielder,” he said softly. “Hide behind humor.”
I wanted to argue, but nothing would have changed our trajectory.
“I’m so sorry, Fielder,” he whispered. “I really loved you.”
Loved.ThatDdid the most.
I thought “Ricky and Fielder” were endgame. But the future I had mapped out for myself, with Ricky at its center, washed away with the tide.
He left before I woke up the next morning.
As I packed, I found his leather-bound journal beneath the bed. The well-worn pages opened to a fresh poem where an exploded pen fell out. The ink on the page was still wet, bleeding like a dark blue bullet wound to the chest.
I kept it as a reminder of what I had and lost.
That day, I vowed to prove to Ricky DeLuca that he wassowrong about me lacking direction and definition, and that he just made the biggest mistake of his life.
FROM THE JOURNAL OF RICCARDO DELUCA
CLARITY
—is the breath
before the phrase
“I love you,”
and the exhale
after the admission.
—is the silence
that comes after
