“Taylor, I know you are there. I heard you. Please just talk to me?”
I glanced in the adjoining living room, where Papa was snoring on his recliner. I should have just let Ethan stew until he left, but part of me cared so much for him I couldn’t help myself. Maybe he was hurting as much as I was? Maybe he’d come to apologize? Hope blossomed in my chest and I almost hated it. I opened the door a crack, against my better judgement.
“What do you want?” I barked, though my heart betrayed me and flipped when I saw him. His eyes were black-ringed and glassy, which shocked me. Had he cried over this, too? And what was he thinking? Showing up on my doorstep the night before I was supposed to leave? I glanced around him to see where his car was, but it wasn’t in the driveway. Did he ... walk here?
Ethan’s eyes searched mine. “Please, Taylor, just ... talk to me. Will you take a walk with me?”
“I have nothing to say to you,” I whispered. I didn’t want to risk waking Papa, so I yanked my sweater off the hook behind the door and opened the door to step out into the tepid night air.
“Tay-tay? You okay out there?” It was Papa’s sleepy voice from his recliner in the den.
“Yeah, it’s just a friend from school saying goodbye!” I shouted back. Closing the door behind me, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for Ethan to talk. He’d crushed me at the play, and he was a jerk. I hated him.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew if he asked me to stay, I’d try. Even if it meant letting my stepmother down, I’d stay. For Ethan.
“You have thirty seconds,” I told Ethan, because he was just staring at me like a love-sick puppy.
“I’m an idiot,” he started.
“I know. Twenty-eight seconds.”
“I’m really, truly, a terrible idiot.”
“You said that already. Twenty-five seconds, Hersbill.”
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up in front of him. “Look, when my mom told me our dad had left us, I freaked out, okay? I was worried about Amy and me, and where we would go. Her birthday is next week, ya know? And my mom had to tell her she doesn’t get a birthday. What parent does that?”
I felt my shoulders droop. “Twenty seconds. Get to the point.”
“My mom told me I had to focus on my last year of school so I can get into a good acting school, because, well, that’s all I’ve got left. I lost my best friend, who I thought I loved, and I was broken hearted.”
I frowned at him. I felt the tears prick the back of my throat. I took his hand in mine, and he let me. “Ethan,” I breathed, “you don’t get to control how much I take on. That’s my choice, and my choice alone.”
“It’s selfish of me to even ask you to deal with all this. Especially since your grandfather told me about your real mom...”
“He what?” I could barely manage to say it. “He told you about ... my mother?”
Ethan nodded. “That she died in a car accident, and that you hate cars...” he trailed off. “I’m so sorry. I wish I had known I would never have force you to—”
“You didn’t force me to do anything. I can make my own choices,” I insisted. Was he kidding me? “You have no idea what I can deal with, do you?” My mother died; my sister died... how does he know what I can take on? I survived this far!
He shuffled his feet and finally raised his eyes to meet mine. “You mean you want to deal with all this? My parents’ divorce, my little sister freaking out, me moving ... you realize I might lose my car? My phone? Are you prepared to handle that?”
I nodded slowly. “As long as it’s with you...”
He yanked his hand out of mine. “I can’t ask you to do that. I’m seventeen; you’re sixteen. Or did you forget? We’re kids,” he nearly hissed that last line.
“We might be kids, but what I feel for you is absolutely real,” I breathed.
“Oh, Taylor...”
I hugged myself and pulled my sweater tighter around me. I sighed. “What are we going to do now?”
He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight.
The door opened behind us then, more like it was ripped open, and Papa stepped onto the porch. Ethan immediately let me go and stepped back.
“I told you for the last time, boy—”
“I’m not a boy!” Ethan shouted at him. “I’m almost eighteen; and I can make my own decisions, and so can Taylor! And we love each other! You can’t come between us!”
“Oh, I think I can.”
“Papa.” I tried to intervene, before this got worse. “I don’t want to go back to Germany. I want to stay with Ethan. Please.”
He looked between us, and I knew in that moment what the Bible meant when it said God ‘hardened their heart.’ His hard expression never changed, except to flash the anger in his stone-cold eyes.
“If you don’t get off this property right now, I’m calling the police.”
“Papa!” I shrieked at him. I turned from facing Ethan and grabbed for Papa’s hand, which I saw too late was behind his back. “Don’t do this! Ethan...”
“Sir, can we please just talk about—”
In a flash, Papa pulled his hand from behind him and brandished his silvery Smith & Wesson .357 magnum. It was a weapon I knew he kept for home protection; a fallout from his days in the military, I supposed. I never dreamed I’d see the day he’d ever take it out of the lock box in his bedroom.
I never dreamed he’d point at the boy I loved.
Ethan stumbled down the steps backwards very quickly, catching himself from falling by grabbing the bannister. “Y-yes, sir. I’m going. I’m going.” Before he turned to flee, he looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, Taylor. I really did—do—love you. With all my heart.”
I watched him jog to the end of the driveway and disappear down the block.
I turned to my papa, shaking with the anger seething through me. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” I shouted, and then went inside and slammed the door.
I rode in silence the next morning as Papa drove me to the airport. All the wailing and crying I did last night was to no avail; Papa had called my father, who promptly demanded that I come home and take care of my stepmother. I protested; I tried to tell him I didn’t want to come back to Germany. The shouting in German we exchanged over the phone sounded harsh even to my ears.
In the end, I was still going home. Papa was still driving me towards that twelve-hour flight that would carry me across the Atlantic and back to my home country.
It didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered. Without Ethan my world was dark, lifeless, meaningless. He was my world, my sun, my stars. And everyone was dead set against us being together.
I didn’t want to give up; but did Ethan? Papa promptly took my phone last night after the fight across country lines, so I couldn’t even say goodbye to Ethan. I finally collapsed into a fitful sleep after two in the morning; I felt empty, lifeless. My heart barely beat anymore without him.
“Do you have your tickets?” Papa asked as we pulled into the parking garage.
I tapped my purse in my lap. I wouldn’t even give him the benefit of a verbal confirmation.
He shut the engine off and turned to me. “Someday, Taylor, you’ll see that we only did what was best for you. Your mother...”
“I know, I know,” I snapped, unable to contain myself, “got pregnant with me when she was a teenager and screwed up her life, blah, blah blah.” I rolled my eyes, then looked out the window, refusing to look at him. “I’d explain to you that Ethan and I were safe every step of the way, but you don’t really give a shit, do you?”
“Don’t you dare swear in my presence,” he barked at me, which startled me, and I jumped a little. “Do you see what this boy has done to you? Swearing, and... and sex? Just because we are in the world doesn’t mean we are of the world...”
I slammed my door open and got out, kicking it shut behind me. Rounding the car, I popped the trunk open and ripped my bulky, blue suit
case from the back. I slammed the door shut and gripped the handle on my suitcase as I rolled it behind me, stomping away from the car. Behind me, I could hear him get out and start to follow me.
“I can see myself to the gate,” I snapped over my shoulder, “or do you think I’m still a child that needs to be controlled?”
“Taylor!” he called after me, but I just marched right up to the sliding doors of the airport and stepped through into the crowded gateway.
I could hear him following me, which turned out I needed him to check me in at the airline entrance since I was a minor. Much to my annoyance, he insisted on following me through customs and the metal detector and all the way to the gate.
I was an hour early, and at this time of the morning there weren't too many people checking in, so the gate was nearly deserted. A couple dressed like tourists lounged on their phones in the aisle, and a family with two small kids who all spoke German were huddled in one corner. A businessman was busy trying to plug in his laptop on the opposite aisle, but that was it.
Except for the boy standing in the middle of the aisle, holding a sandwich in one hand and a balloon in the other. The balloon was red with white text that just said, “I love you.”
“What is he doing here?” Papa exclaimed behind me.
“Ethan,” I breathed.
“Taylor.”
The way he said my name sent shivers down my spine.
“I couldn’t let you leave without saying goodbye,” he mumbled, but smiled sadly.
I forgot about my suitcase and dropped the handle, abandoning it behind me. My legs worked without me – they must have been linked to my heart – I rushed forward and flung myself into him, throwing my arms around him.
He kissed me. It was deep, passionate; gone was the chaste kisses we started with. This one was filled with need.
“Aww,” crooned a voice near us, “you guys are so cute.” It was the stewardess at the gate. She offered to take the balloon and sandwich from Ethan, which he promptly handed over and scooped me into his arms.
“Get away from my granddaughter!” Papa was shouting behind me.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the stewardess barked at him, “but do you have a ticket?”
“No, but that’s my...”
“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to leave, unless you want me to call security?”
I wanted to cheer for her at that moment. I heard Papa huff and puff the entire way back to the gate entrance. “Have a safe trip,” he called, but I wasn’t even paying attention to him.
I stared at Ethan; my hands draped loosely over his neck and his arms around my waist. He looked into my eyes and I knew then. I knew. He loved me. I loved him.
We were a forever thing.
“I have to tell you something,” he whispered after he kissed me again. “It’s about Maeve.”
“I don’t care about Maeve,” I told him, “I know she died, but this is me; I’m alive. I’m standing right in front of you. And I love you.”
“But I haven’t told you the entire story,” he offered, looking down.
I felt my shoulders slump a little. I frowned. “What?”
“I haven’t told you the truth. About Maeve.”
My mouth parted, but I wasn’t sure what to say. “What do you mean? I know she passed in that car accident...”
“I was the one driving,” he interrupted.
“You... you were?”
He finally looked up at me, and a solitary tear ran out of his left eye, but he quickly whisked it away with the tip of his finger. “I’m a murderer.”
He gasped as he said it and stepped back.
My bottom lip trembled. “Oh, Ethan.”
“The-the bottom line is, I didn’t want you to have to deal with all those things,” he hurried to add. “I mean, you’ve got a lot on your plate, with your parents and stuff...”
“You should have told me about Maeve. The entire story.”
“I wanted to. It wasn’t until your grandfather told me about your mom that I decided I had to. I tried, last night...”
I pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh. Just kiss me again.”
When we parted, he held me a little away, but I touched my forehead to his. “I have to get on the plane,” I muttered. “But I swear I will come back.”
“And I will wait for you,” he punctuated it with kisses. “Everyone thinks we are kids, but you are the love of my life. I can’t explain it, but somewhere in the last few months, I feel for you so deeply I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“Me, either,” I told him, pressing my head to his shoulder. “Me either.”
The stewardess appeared next to Ethan and cleared her throat. “You guys are precious, but I’m afraid I have to put out the boarding call.”
Ethan took the things back from her, thanked her, and smiled at me.
“Why the sandwich?” I asked.
“The first day we met, you hit me with a bathroom door,” Ethan explained. “I figured any girl that can do that deserves a sandwich.”
“Aww,” was all I could say. “I love you, Ethan.”
“I love you too.”
I struggled to break away from his gaze to find my suitcase, and Ethan gripped my hand. He pecked me on the cheek as I got in line to board the plane for Germany. A plane that would take me much too far away from my love.
“I’ll come back,” I told him. “I don’t think a love like ours can be apart for long.”
“I can’t wait,” he told me. His fingers trailed over mine and he let me go.
I blew him a kiss as I turned to board the plane that would take me away from him – but just for a couple of months.
I didn’t know how or why, but I’d come back to him.
I had to.
He was my everything.
Epilogue
Ethan
Three months later:
I let the townhouse door slam shut behind me as trudged up the stairs immediately in front of me. Each stair seemed like an insurmountable torture, an endless uphill battle, as my tired feet plodded forward. I wanted nothing more than to fling myself on my bed and sleep until I had to get up and do this all over again.
“Ethan, is that you?” my mother called from the kitchen on the first floor.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“When you put your stuff away, will you join me in the kitchen please?”
I grunted, not sure if she heard me or not, and didn’t care. She was probably going to ask me what I wanted for dinner again. I was too tired to have that conversation again. Maybe her and Amy would give up and just order out again. I was okay with that.
I knew my mother was trying. The divorce had gone seamlessly over the summer, with my sister and I on alternating weekends with my dad, who secured an apartment a few blocks away. My father left their publishing firm to become an editor at a local newspaper, which meant my mother’s client yielded her enough revenue to keep us living comfortably. Since we moved to the city, she’d signed a few bigger clients and after the divorce was finalized, my mother took Amy and I to Disneyland. That was pretty cool.
It felt like life was kind of returning to normal, whatever normal this was. My mother was around more, even though I was still the one running Amy to her newfound afternoon activity: learning to play the piano. She still loved sports, but in the city there was a waiting list, and one of her teachers at the nearby private school was nice enough to teach her two days a week.
Despite the new normal, there were still some pretty big changes. The townhouse was half the size of our old house, three tiny rooms that barely fit a bed and a dresser, but it came with a community pool and hot tub, plus a weight room, which was pretty cool. Over the summer I taught Amy to swim, which was one of my greatest accomplishments.
We had a blast that summer, but Taylor was always in the back of my mind.
I heard from her sometimes; we texted often late into the night for me, since she was ten hours ahead. Her stepmoth
er had complications with her surgery, and most of the time in the early morning Taylor was headed to bed, just as exhausted as I was.
I missed her. I said it a lot in the beginning, but then it tapered off around August. We didn’t talk about her coming back.
I was too chicken to ask her, to tell her I needed her here. And I think she was, too.
In fact, just thinking of her made me grab my phone, hoping I’d have a message, and email, a meme from her – anything. I missed her so much. But it was almost five o’clock here, meaning it was the middle of the night in Germany. I wouldn’t have anything from her until after midnight my time, especially on a weeknight.
I plopped on my bed, letting my books and backpack fall next to me and flung my arm over my eyes. I didn’t want to think about Taylor, or school, or the fact that I’d tried out for a part in the theater production at my school but had been reduced to stagehand. Everyone there had been acting since they were toddlers, and I just hadn’t made the cut this time around. I imagined Taylor was here to tell me to try again later, and that everything would be fine, but what a blow to my ego.
How did I go from the most popular kid at school to an invisible nobody?
It sucked. Majorly.
Before I knew it, a tiny body flung herself onto my bed and across my stomach.
“Ethan!” Amy nearly shrieked in my face. “You really should come downstairs.”
Sleep. I just wanted sleep. My eyes were so heavy. “Can’t we just get Chinese food again?” I muttered, my arm still over my face.
She jiggled my chubby stomach with both her hands. “Get up, Ethan! There’s a huge surprise. I mean, massive. I mean, you’re really, really gonna like this.”
I peeked one eye at her. “Is it cake?”
“It’s better than cake!” She tugged on my hand, and I sat up. “Please, Ethan, you gotta see!”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered, and allowed her to help me stand.
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