Maybe if I had parents I could talk to about this whole thing, they’d tell me that Lara and I are too young. But I’d tell them that love doesn’t wait, that when you feel this comfortable in silence with another person, and you can easily see your forever stretching out before you, it doesn’t make any sense to wait.
“Everything?” she asks, dropping her sunglasses and looking at me over the top of them. If we weren’t in public right now, weren’t in the very middle of this lake, I’d crawl over her, tickle her, get my hands in her hair.
“Yeah,” I say, reaching out and jostling her sandaled foot with mine, “everything.”
She laughs and drops her head back, rearranging her body in a way I swear is meant to torture me. A moment passes, and I ask, as casually as I can, “Did you get a chance to talk to your parents?”
Lara doesn’t open her eyes, just reaches out and rests her arm on the side of the boat so her fingertips trail through the water. Irest the paddles and let us drift, staring at the ripples that follow in her wake.
“Not yet,” she says, mouth barely moving, looking almost like she’s falling asleep. “They’re still mad at me for the wholenot applying to collegething.”
I bite my tongue. Lara isn’t used to her parents being upset with her. The night they argued, I’d held her in my arms while she cried, not understanding the close relationship she had with them.
My dad and I are so hardened against each other at this point that we don’t even talk to each other. I followed through on my promise to block him, and I go out of my way to make sure I don’t see him at the house. When there’s a job to work, Lawrence reaches out, and he’s the one to pay me, too.
Every lock on my door is engaged when I’m sleeping, and I lock the door behind me when I leave. I treat my own home like a campsite, leaving no trace that I ever existed there.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, hating the fact that I’ve affected her relationship with her parents, who seem like good people. There’s the strangest urge in me to get to know them. To get their approval, see if they like me.
“It’s not your fault. I know why they’re mad.” She sits up, rubs her eyes and drops her hat into her lap. “We’ve always been honest with each other. I think, more than being angry, they’re upset that I felt I couldn’t be honest with them.”
“That’s…” I trail off, not even sure what to say about that. What would it be like to have people who cared about you like that?
Lara pinches the bridge of her nose, and I feel sorry for bringing it up. I didn’t want to disturb her peace like this. “They think I’m going backpacking with Zachery, even though I never said that. I guess it was just an assumption. And they’re really excited for me to do that. My dad even bought me this huge, hideous backpack he said was just like the one he took.”
I go still for a moment, wondering if I should tell her to go with Zachery. Maybe coming with me to Michigan isn’t what’s best for her.
She’s special. And maybe backpacking through Europe would open her world a lot more than Ann Arbor could.
“Stop whatever you’re thinking,” she says, pressing on the center of my forehead with her pointer finger. “I want to come to Michigan, Jake. I love Zachery, but backpacking through Europe with him…” she lets out a breath of air that ruffles her bangs. “I’d basically be like his mom, and I think he knows that. That’s why he wants me to come — to take care of him when he’s hungover and figure out the public transportation. Zachery is terrible at navigation.”
I’m great at navigation. For a fleeting moment, I almost wish I was the kind of kid who could do something like take a gap year and backpack across Europe. But I need this scholarship to propel my future, my career.
“Hey.” Lara’s voice is serious, and when I refocus on her, she brings her hands to the side of my face, her thumbs swiping over the stubble I’ve let grow there. Her hands are cool, and they instantly calm me. “I’ll talk to them, okay?”
I pause, just to keep her hands on my face, and let this moment stretch out between us. Then, I let out a breath, smile, and say, “Okay.”
When I slipinto the house hours later, I’m pleasantly pink and still buzzing from kissing Lara in my truck. Hidden behind the landscaping at the edge of the property, I’d slipped my fingers under the still-damp hem of her jean shorts, but she pulled back, breathless and smiling.
“I’ll talk to them,” she’d said before she pulled away and hopped out. I’d crept the truck forward, watching her walk the length of the driveway and slipping inside the house.
I’d hidden how much I wanted to meet her parents. When I brought it up, she always made it seem like it would be a hassle for her. I had to fight the feeling in my gut that told me she was ashamed of me, that she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of her being with a dumb jock.
They definitely wouldn’t approve of her throwing away her future and moving to Michigan with said dumb jock, where she wouldn’t even be going to school.
“Jake?”
I jump, dropping my keys on the floor. The noise isn’t that loud in reality, but as I bend down to pick them up, I feel like a gun has just gone off.
“Dad,” I say, straightening up and meeting his eyes. Like usual, he’s drunk, sitting at the table, one hand gripping the edge likehe might fall over without the support, and the other loosely around a bottle of whiskey.
He’s not even bothering with the shot glass beside the bottle. I can always tell the kind of night when he’s been drinking straight from the source, putting aside pretense completely.
His five o’clock shadow is all salt-and-pepper, and for the first time in my life, I realize he’s getting old. Not only that, but I can see how the drinking is aging him too fast, the lines around his eyes and on his forehead that wouldn’t be there without it. The acceleration of his life, each drink pushing him closer to some sort of collapse.
I glance down the hallway, see Shelby’s door shut and no light under it, and I hope she’s over at a friend’s house. It’s not often Dad is home on a night like this, and it’s not usually a good thing when he’s here.
“Where have you been?” he asks, and I laugh, which wasn’t the right way to keep him calm. He bristles, “What the hell you laughin’ about?”
