I hardly even notice the elevator descending. I won’t give up my dreams for my family, I decide. I just won’t cut them out, either. Because there might come a day when, like Fitz, like Lewis, I need someone to hold me when the rest of my world has imploded.
My whole life, I thought needing them carried a cost. That I couldn’t find myself unless I forced distance between me and the people in my past. I decided I needed college to remove myself from the old Juniper in hopes of finding the new one.
But maybe that’s not how finding yourself works. In college and in everything after, I won’t be discovering new pieces of myself. I’ll be uncovering what’s already there. And if that’s true, I don’t need to fear growing into myself while remaining connected to my home. I don’t need to force college and family into harsh opposition.
Everything in my past will become pieces of the new Juniper. My family, my home, my heritage. My friends. Fitz. Even when we’ve parted and he’s out of my life, Fitz will have left an imprint on me. Like Matt did. They’ll both be part of me forever.
I head from the hotel lobby to the street, where I wander aimlessly. The city feels new, or perhaps it’s only me. I follow the sidewalk past Metro entrances and parks with shoveled paths in the snow. While I walk from corner to corner, images come to life in my eyes.
I’m in D.C. for college, and I’m showing my family around. I’m walking them to my favorite restaurants, my go-to coffee shops. I’m touring the campus with them, pointing out my lecture hall, bringing them into my dorm, rolling my eyes when my mom frets over the close quarters, and chasing Callie and Anabel from my desk drawer. I’m growing up, on my own. Except I’m not. I’m with the people who got me here.
I smile, the wobbly kind I couldn’t resist if I tried. I keep walking, envisioning everything I never thought to want. Turning onto residential streets, I pass brick towers with pillars of narrow windows. In front of one of the buildings, I smell something unmistakable.
It’s tamales. The smell wafts from the open window of one of the apartments, spicy and strong and full of familiar flavors. It’s the smell of home.
It fills me with memories. Memories of Abuela folding closed cornhusks with weathered hands, of raiding the freezer with her for leftovers months later.
This time, though, they’re not only memories of Abuela. Tía is there too, in the vista opening wider in my head. Tía, cooking tamales for dinner the first Christmas we celebrated without Abuela. Tía, bringing pans of them to the student government fund-raiser I helped organize when I was a freshman. Even the recollection of finding Tía’s Tupperware in my car holds bittersweet joy.
They bring tears to my eyes. It takes me a moment to comprehend the feeling.
I’m homesick.
It hurts. I’m grateful, though, because the hurt feels right, like discovering pain in places I thought were numb. I pull out my phone, knowing what I have to do. What I need right now. I find home in my contacts and hit call.
I hold the phone up, gloved fingertips brushing my face, while the dial tone rings once, then twice. Tía’s voice comes through on the other end. “Juniper?” She sound stiff, urgent. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice breaking on the word. “I’m fine. I just wanted to say hi.”
There’s a long pause. The longest in the history of telephone conversations, and I feel every agonizing second. I’m holding my heart out over the canyon dividing us and waiting for her to reach forward or refuse.
“I’m helping your brother with his winter break homework,” she finally says, “but Walker is telling me I don’t do the math right.”
I laugh. It’s gunky and overjoyed, and it’s the exact right laugh for the day I’ve had. “Put me on speaker,” I tell Tía. “We’ll help him together.”
Tía pauses once more. I know she understands the significance of my offer to help the family while I’m away, while I’m in the middle of my college tour. It’s not an offer I would have made a week ago, or even yesterday. But though she understands the gesture I’m making, my aunt is nothing if not stubborn. She’s incomparable at holding a grudge. Only a niece who’s refused to speak to her since they fought on the phone could rival her.
“Thank you,” she says. “First, though, I want to hear about your trip. Will you tell me about the school you like best?”
I wipe tears from my eyes. I want to tell her everything this means to me, except I know she knows. In one sentence, she’s strung a bridge over the canyon separating us. It’s easy to walk across.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’d really like that.”
Fitz
I WAKE UP the next morning feeling completely exhausted, yet somehow lighter. Sitting up, I exhale slowly. The room is dark, the drawn curtains letting in only a hint of daylight. It feels annoyingly like a metaphor.
The news of my mom’s health still weighs on me. It’s better since Lewis and I talked, though. I sit, listening to the water running while Lewis showers, and memories of the night rush over me. We spent hours saying everything we’d been holding in. I told him his ever-present cool and easygoing demeanor made him feel unreachable and uninterested. He told me how much he worried for me, and how much pressure he felt to provide for our family. Eventually, we got into how I resented him for disappearing into his partying and job-hunting, vanishing from my mom’s and my life, and he explained he needed room to deal with Mom’s disease on his own.
It was the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and oddly heartfelt. Not because it felt wrong, but because it felt like, why haven’t we done this before? We fought and laughed through years of hidden fears and resentments in one night, and while it was wrenching and totally draining, it felt like a bond. Right now, we’re shattered in the same way. It’s something we have in common, something connecting us as strong as the name we share.
I went to bed around three in the morning. Lewis called Prisha from the bathroom, a conversation I overheard with uncomfortable clarity through the thin door. Prisha couldn’t talk long because she’s visiting a friend at another college and they were at a party. His feelings for her, stripped of the casual veneer he usually puts on, are something I can understand too.
While I wait for Lewis the next morning, I run through our itinerary in my head. We’re driving to UVA today and then beginning the drive back to Boston tomorrow.
I hadn’t considered the rest of the trip in light of everything yesterday. Typing the destination into Google Maps, I realize I really don’t want to visit another school. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to have to package up whatever newly formed dreams I had of college outside New Hampshire. It won’t be easy. Going on one more tour of a campus I’ll never call my own definitely won’t help.
There’s only one reason to go. Juniper. It’s reason enough a thousand times over. I’m not ready to part from her, not yet. If UVA’s where she’s going next, I’m going with her.
Like magic, there’s a knock on the door. I roll out of bed, conscious I’m wearing a rumpled T-shirt and sweats, and open the door. Juniper’s in the hallway, looking perfect. Her hair is still wet, her nose pink from the cold. She’s holding a paper bag I know without a doubt contains bagels—plain for me and chocolate chip for Lewis.
“Hey.” Her voice is gently questioning. “Sorry, I should’ve texted. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I was up,” I say defensively, my self-consciousness over my shirt-and-sweats combo and bed head skyrocketing.
She doesn’t seem convinced. “I brought you breakfast.” She holds out the bag. “How are you guys?” she continues delicately.
Her eyes have filled with sympathy, the respectful kind where it’s clear she’s not pressing me to confide or be okay. It makes me want to kiss her and cry in equal measure.
“We’re good,” I say, taking the bagels. “We talked and . . . it’s nice to have him understand me. To understan
d him.” The sentences come out clumsily. I guess I have to get used to them being true.
Juniper nods. “Is he awake?” She glances past me into the room.
“He’s showering. We’ll be ready to hit the road in thirty minutes.”
“Actually,” she says, chewing her lip. “I was thinking, maybe we should skip UVA.”
I frown. “Skip it? What about your itinerary?”
“Forget the itinerary,” she replies. “I think we’re all about ready to head home.”
I’m half relieved, half heartbroken. True, I don’t want to see any more schools, but canceling the tour means bringing Juniper and me closer to goodbye. I imagine how hard it’s going to be, hugging her for the last time, backing away before driving out of each other’s lives. “Yeah,” I say. “That’s probably a good idea.”
She smiles, but I notice the sadness in her expression. “Great. It’s a seven-hour drive. We could do it in one day, if you’re up for it.”
“Sure.” I’m forcing every word, every gesture. I feel like I’m following commands to break my fingers or something. “Do you want to head out now, before we’re ready, or . . . ?”
The sadness flees from her smile, and she crosses her arms authoritatively. “We have seven more hours together, Fitzgerald. You’re riding with me.”
Relief races over me. “Good. Maybe we’ll hit traffic,” I say hopefully.
She tugs my shirt, pulling us together. “I wouldn’t complain.” She kisses me fiercely, like she does everything.
I try to lose myself in the kiss. My hands find her hips under her jacket, and I take in the unforgettable smell of her skin, the brush of tongues. With her lips on mine, I try to forget the voice reminding me this is one of the last kisses we have left.
Fitz
IN HALF AN hour, we’re on the road returning to Boston. I’m in Juniper’s car, while Lewis follows in his.
There are thousands of things I want to say. I want to thank Juniper for understanding I needed to skip UVA. To hear her thoughts on each of the colleges we’ve visited, to listen to her mind working through variables and contingencies, possibilities and plans. To tell her I think she’s beautiful with her hair down, bronze waves cascading onto her shoulders.
Except I can’t. Everything I could say carries the unsupportable weight of being one of our final conversations.
The silence in the car is suffocating, the way it was in our first drive together. We’ve come heartbreakingly full circle. I know without having to confirm it out loud Juniper isn’t speaking for the same reason, the inescapable knowledge our relationship ends in Boston.
“Want to listen to a podcast?” I finally ask jokingly. Anything to split the silence.
“No, I think we should get the goodbyes out of our system.” Her voice is confident, upbeat.
I don’t see how she can be cheerful. “Explain,” I say.
“It’s hanging over us, isn’t it?” She glances from the road to meet my eyes briefly. “We’re not talking the way we usually do because we know tonight will be goodbye.”
It’s one thing to understand we’re probably dreading the same parting moments, the imminent end of us. It’s something else entirely to hear her put the feeling into words, not to mention with such effortless, immediate efficiency. I know I’ve presumed our relationship will end with this trip, but truthfully, we haven’t had the conversation.
“Will it?” I ask. “Be goodbye, I mean?”
Juniper’s confidence softens into something delicate. “A long-distance relationship in the final semester of our senior year doesn’t really . . .”
“I know,” I say.
I do know. I know this probably isn’t literally one of our final conversations. I know there’s texting. There’s social media. We could stay friends, stay in each other’s lives. It wouldn’t be the same, though, and honestly, it probably won’t happen. I know Juniper well enough to know she could never be content clinging to our one week together, memories drifting unreachably into her past.
I muster a smile, hoping to trick myself into being okay with this. “You were saying something about getting goodbyes out of our systems?”
Juniper nods, and I can practically feel her trying to recapture her cheerful momentum. “Whatever we’re planning on saying in Boston,” she explains, “let’s say it now. That way we’ll have the goodbye behind us. We won’t have to dwell on it during this entire drive.”
I’m not convinced the idea will work. That anything could banish our impending goodbye from my thoughts. But I’m willing to try. “Okay,” I tell her. “You go first.”
Her expression goes stony. “Fitzgerald Holton,” she says. “I did not expect to like you when we first met.”
I laugh, improbably. “Oh yeah. This is working. I’m feeling better already.”
Juniper swats my shoulder, permitting a laugh past her lips. Her dark-pink lips, which she chews when she’s making one of the million decisions her mind processes every day.
No. I won’t do this right now. I focus on her goodbye.
“But what I feel for you has gone past ‘like’ into . . . I don’t know,” she continues, earnest again. She watches the road intently, like she’s searching for something. The right description, maybe. “It’s something bigger,” she says. “I feel like I’ll carry your fingerprints on who I am for the rest of my life. I’m excited for the future. But this week with you has taught me I can still run toward what’s to come while holding on to the past. The boy I traveled down the coast with, the fights I’m glad I had with my family, the feeling of a kiss by a frozen waterfall. Everything.”
I say nothing, and not because of the conversation’s weight. I’ve told Juniper she changed me, and I will never forget the ways she opened my world. I had no idea I changed hers.
“I guess it’s a part of growing up I didn’t understand,” she says. “Who I am, the home I come from, they’ll never be gone even though they’ll never be the same. Hiraeth, right?”
She throws me a small smile. I try to return it, but hiraeth has pulled open torn edges I’m trying hard to mend. “The home you’re talking about only lives in memories,” I say. I hear the hurt in my voice. It’s impossible to hide. I didn’t want this conversation to veer into my mom’s health, and yet, I have a feeling it’s inescapable.
I have no doubt Juniper understands what I mean. She doesn’t reply for a moment.
When she does, her voice isn’t fragile or sympathetic. “You know,” she says, “I remember more about nearly everyone than they remember about themselves.”
I blink, thrown. I don’t understand why she’s changing the subject.
“Do you remember the first thing you said after we kissed?” She glances over, and in a half second of eye contact I catch the endless intensity I know well.
“What?”
“Do you,” she repeats, slower, “remember the first thing you said after we kissed?”
Not getting the game, I play along anyway, re-creating the picture in my mind, immersing myself in the image. The waterfall pillared into the frozen lake. The powder covering everything. Juniper’s lips meeting mine, melting the cold of outside. The two of us parting, and—
I can’t quite remember my words exactly. “Something about being glad you kissed me instead of answering my question?” I venture.
Juniper shakes her head, looking pleased.
“‘Kissing me isn’t a word,’” she says in what I recognize is an impression of me. It’s . . . not terrible.
The funny thing is, I don’t know if she’s right. The sentence sounds familiar, but I can’t recall with certainty whether I said it. I’m only convinced because I have other evidence of Juniper’s incredible memory. The college-related facts and figures she would rattle off, the driving directions she wouldn’t need repeated.
“I could probably t
ell you what you ordered in every restaurant we went to, and what questions you asked on every tour,” Juniper continues. The pride in her voice turns gentle. “I remember more about you than you do. But does that mean you’re not the person I know?”
The question breaks me. I understand her point now, and tears well up in my eyes. I clench my teeth to fight the tremor in my jaw.
“Just because one person doesn’t remember something doesn’t mean the memory is gone,” she says. “It doesn’t mean the person isn’t who they’ve always been. You’ll be there to remember who your mom is even when she can’t. You can carry those memories for her. Just like we’ll carry the memories of this week together. Even if memory is the only place we’ll exist for each other, we won’t be less real for it.”
My throat feels thick. I put my hand on her leg because it’s the only way I have right now to tell her how desperately I needed this. While we pass highway exits in the cloud-white daylight, she gives me time to find my voice.
“Here’s what I wanted to say to you tonight,” I get out. “I’m glad I met you, Juniper Ramírez, for more reasons than I can say. And my feelings for you have gone way past ‘like’ too. Admiration. Respect. Gratitude. Love, or the beginning of it.” I continue hastily, not wanting to linger on the word. “Knowing you has inspired me. You inspire me.”
While I speak, something unfinished in me races ahead of my words. I realize I’ve made a decision, one I need to voice.
“I have no idea how much time I’ll have before my mom needs me,” I say. “But I’m going to go to whatever college I want to for as long as I can.” I don’t feel a triumphant rush when I finish the declaration. The fear isn’t gone. It probably never will be. But I think I have what I need now, truths I’ve found on this trip, to keep the fear quiet.
I might have one year at my dream college, or two, or four. It doesn’t matter. If I’ve learned anything from this week with Juniper, it’s that change can be wonderful, and wonderful doesn’t need to last to be worthwhile. Would it have been easier to have never known her so I wouldn’t have to face this goodbye? Maybe.
Time of Our Lives Page 26