Why did he need to know? Why did Nick need to know it was Syd? Couldn’t we just go on with our lives? Couldn’t I tell him in a year or two or fifty?
“You’re right,” he said again plainly. He stood up. “Okay.”
“Wait. What?” I said, looking up at him.
“I’m just going to do it.” He looked more scared than I did. “You’re right.”
I wished he’d stop saying I was right. “You don’t have your car,” I bumbled. “I drove. You want me to drop you off? Or wait in the car?” Stop making suggestions, I thought.
“Yeah. Okay,” he said. He put on his backpack. I took out my keys. And then we walked silently up the ditch and across the bridge, into the math wing and through the empty halls of the school to the parking lot.
* * *
The car ride felt exceptionally short. We passed the bowling alley, the mall, and a thousand strip malls, including the one that housed Desperados and the nail place next door to it. Nick was silent the entire ride. I kept whispering to my brain that there was nothing to be scared of. I wasn’t even going inside.
I pulled into the driveway. Nick stared at the garage door as if in a trance.
“I want to come in,” I heard myself say.
“Really?” Nick said. Really? I thought.
“Yeah. Really. I can help. I want to be there. You know?” I nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
And the next thing I knew, I was opening the car door and stepping out. When we got to the front door, I gave him a look of solidarity. He tapped on it and then turned the knob and we walked in. “Hello?”
As soon as we stepped inside, I heard his parents in another room. It was only a second, but I could tell they were arguing.
“Hey,” Nick called out. “I’m home.”
“In here, Nicky.” I blushed a little on Nick’s behalf. Under normal circumstances, this was something I could tease him about.
“Miranda’s here,” Nick said, just as his mom walked into the living room. She lit up with surprise when she saw me standing next to Nick.
“Miranda!” She made a beeline for me and gave me a hug. It made me want to weep. I felt so bad for her all of a sudden. I remembered Nick saying he thought his parents might get a divorce. When he said it, I felt sad. But now I understood. A divorce was just what this woman needed.
“Hi,” I said. She smelled good, like lilacs. “You smell good,” I blurted out. I was immediately embarrassed.
“Oh, thank you. That’s so nice.” She leaned forward and touched Nick’s arm lightly. They passed a look back and forth to each other. I’d been watching the doorway, knowing any moment Dr. Allison was bound to enter the room. Hadn’t he heard us come in? Hadn’t he heard me say hi and tell his wife she smelled good? At this point, the fact that he’d not entered the room was uncomfortable. We’d heard his voice when we’d come in. We knew he was there.
“Sam,” Nick’s mom called. “Nick and Miranda are here.”
I felt my stomach seize. His shoes were so heavy on the wooden floor. It took him forever to arrive. I squeezed Nick’s hand and he squeezed mine. And then: nothing. Dr. Allison entered the room, aloof as he’d been before, when he was just Nick’s weird, snobby dad. “Hello, you two. Nice to see you, Miranda.”
“Hi.” I must’ve smiled. I must’ve smiled the way people who are at the deepest point of being pranked on TV sometimes smile, in total bafflement and with an edge of anger, hostility, and simmering violence. There was something so infuriating about Dr. Allison’s performance, something so pathetic, I understood quite suddenly that I had power over him in this moment. I held this man’s life in my clammy hands and he knew it.
“Nice to see you,” I said. I refused to take my eyes off him. Was he nervous? I hoped so.
“Can I get you guys anything?” Nick’s mom asked.
“No, thanks,” I answered before Nick could. I could tell my talking was making Nick nervous. I couldn’t tell if it was making him angry. I didn’t want to make him angry. No matter how much I hated Dr. Allison, I had to remember the boy I loved was standing beside me doing one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
“You guys excited about the prom?” Nick’s mom was trying so hard to keep things from going off the rails. It made me feel tremendous empathy for her.
“Totally,” I said.
“Miranda knows what happened,” Nick blurted out. “I told her.”
I looked up at him and could see how much it cost him to say it. I nodded as if to reassure him, to transmit that I believed in him. When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything else, I turned to his father. But I found I had nothing more to say to him. I’d said it all the day before. So I turned to his mom. “Your son is—incredible, as you know.” I could feel my voice quaver, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t even hesitate. “If I were you, I’d do whatever I could to keep him in my life.”
I looked at Dr. Allison. His face had changed. He glanced at Nick and then his eyes darted around the room before settling back on me. He looked angry, but I knew deep down he was full of shame. He was rotten with it. At least that was what I told myself. I looked up at Nick. His face was inscrutable. I felt him release his fingers, disengaging them from my own sweaty palms. My heart fell. “I’m sorry,” I whispered to him.
“Here,” he said, taking me by the shoulder and walking me back to the front door. “Wait for me in the car, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Just wait in the car.”
“Okay.” It felt so weird leaving without saying good-bye to Nick’s parents. It was a courtesy my father would have insisted on. But I stumbled out into the bright sunshine and did what Nick asked me to do. I got in the car.
I waited. I put on my seat belt.
I took out my phone and checked the time. A minute passed. Then three. Five. Ten. I rolled down the window because it was hot, but also because I wanted to see if I could hear anything coming from inside the house. I couldn’t. I stared out at the lawn, neat and tidy and green. My father would’ve hated it. Lawns don’t live in the desert.
I kept thinking of what I’d said, alternately wishing I’d said more and wishing I’d said nothing at all. I thought of Syd and felt a great swell of sadness. I’d have given anything to have her there with me right then. Not because she’d know what to do—I didn’t think of Syd that way anymore, as the one who always knew what to do. I just wanted to see her. I missed her.
I was lost in thoughts of Syd when the door flew open and Nick emerged with a backpack slung over his shoulder, the big kind you’d take on a backpacking trip. My eyes must’ve widened when I saw it, because Nick gave me a sad little smile and raised his eyebrows. He walked around the car, popped the trunk, plunked the backpack inside, then came around the other side and got in.
“What happened?” I asked as I turned on the car.
“I left,” he said matter-of-factly.
I eased out of the driveway and onto the street. I looked back at the front door, sure one of his parents would appear at any moment to call out to him. To stop him. But no one came.
“What are you talking about?”
“I told them everything,” he said. “I told them about UNM and the Forest Service and that I didn’t want to study math and that I wasn’t going to Harvard. My dad just sat there. My mom. Oh my god, she’s so desperate.”
“It’s okay, Nick,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”
He nodded.
“I’m going to text my dad and tell him you’re going to stay with us.”
“No,” he said. “I can stay with Tomás.”
“Stay with us,” I said. “For tonight, at least.”
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.” He looked at me. “Thank you for what you said.” He ran a hand through his hair. “God, that was so bizarre.” He let out a short, stifled laugh. Then he went silent.
“Tell me what happened!”
�
�Oh.” He snapped out of it. “Yeah. So. You left. And I was standing there with my parents. I told them about the Jemez and UNM and I was just thinking, This is it. Like: this is it. You know? And my dad did this thing—he’s always done it—like, to try to get me on his side, you know, like it’s always us against the world. Like we’ve been wronged and misunderstood and we need to stick together. He said: Your girlfriend is very opinionated. And I just, like—laughed in his face. It was so awesome. I wish Jason could’ve been there. I told them everything. I knew what he’d say. He basically said exactly what I thought he’d say. He told me I was throwing away my gifts. I was making a mistake. Blah, blah, blah. And I listened. Then I just looked him right in the face and I said, ‘You’re such a hypocrite.’”
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
“I did,” he said. “I did!” He didn’t sound happy about it, or sad, just amazed and maybe a little relieved. “I went to my room and packed my bag. I said good-bye to my mom. I told her I’d call later. I couldn’t even look at my dad.”
I was stunned. “This isn’t what I thought would happen.”
“I know,” he said. “But there wasn’t another way. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Before you—before we even moved here.”
“Yeah?” I thought again of what my dad had said. Life is a test. There comes a point.
“Yeah.” Nick laughed again. “Oh my god. I packed the stupidest stuff. I think I packed two pairs of swim trunks. I wasn’t even thinking. I grabbed anything. I think I have my Scout’s uniform.”
“What?”
“I keep it in my camping pack. I realized while I was packing that I hadn’t taken it out. So it’s in there.”
“That’s actually kind of funny,” I said.
“What did I just do?” Nick said.
“It’s gonna be all right,” I said, channeling my dad. But not even I believed what I was saying.
16
Nick really had packed the stupidest things. He’d grabbed every pair of underwear he owned, but had no socks. He had a winter scarf and what turned out to be not two but three pairs of swim trunks. But he’d only packed one pair of jeans. Most disappointing to him, he’d left the tuxedo he’d rented for prom hanging in his closet.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” I said, sitting on my bed, feeling a little discombobulated surrounded by Nick’s stuff.
“It’s not a sign.” Nick was still high on adrenaline. He kept stopping in the middle of sentences to put his hands on his head and laugh maniacally. I imagined it wouldn’t last long.
I excused myself to the bathroom and sat on the side of the tub and texted my dad. I told him Nick had a huge fight with his parents and needed a place to stay for the night. I told him he could stay here. I thought that’s what you’d have done.
My dad wrote back right away. Sit tight. I wished he’d followed his text with some baffling emoji, a flamenco dancer or an octopus. It would’ve helped.
Nick was all over the place. Over the next hour, his mood went from giddy to despairing to furious and had settled on silently stunned. He couldn’t believe what he’d done. He checked his phone a few times and seemed more relieved than sad his parents still hadn’t contacted him.
When I heard my dad pull up outside, Nick and I were sitting side by side on the couch in the living room, silent, each of us lost in our own galaxy of problems. I didn’t know how long it’d been since either of us had spoken. “Oh, I texted my dad,” I said absently. “He knows.”
“Everything?”
“No. Just that you had a fight with your parents and are spending the night. He said it’s fine for you to stay here.”
“Oh,” Nick said.
“I mean, of course it’s fine.” I touched Nick’s knee. “He was glad.”
“Okay,” Nick answered from a million miles away.
Thank god for my dad. Predicaments, crises, problems, snags both minor and major: these were so his jam. In the movie where everyone’s gathered around some radar screen at NASA, watching the blip representing the imminent end of humanity at the hands of an alien army, he’s the guy who leans in very calmly and says something like: It’s now or never, Mr. President. When I saw the bag of groceries in his hand, I almost burst into tears. My dad was good in a crisis. But he was golden when things could be made even a little bit better by cooking something.
“Jeez,” he said when he saw the two of us sitting there. “Nick, I’m really sorry about all this. But listen, I need you to tell your folks you’re staying with Miranda and me for the night. You can give them my number if you need to. You can tell them you’re sleeping in the guest room. Which you are, by the way. But I need you to tell them you’re here.”
“Okay.” Nick picked up his phone. I was surprised he hadn’t resisted, even a little. But then again it was now or never, Mr. President time. “Okay,” Nick said again after he’d sent the text. He put his phone back on the table.
“Can you help with dinner?” my dad asked. Nick and I looked up, unsure which of us he was addressing. “Nick,” he said. “Miranda, can you go down and get the mail?”
“Yes.” I was relieved to have one simple action I could complete. And I was glad he’d asked Nick to help with dinner.
* * *
It was a beautiful evening, the light like a thick gold net. The sky was losing its blue, and a burst of clouds hung over the mesa, turning pink. As I made my way to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, I thought of Syd. I couldn’t help but feel she was more gone to me now than ever. I’d followed clues. I’d come to the end. All I’d found was that Syd was as much a mystery to me now as she ever had been. I knew, too, that for all her coolness and experience and bravado, there was no way she was prepared for whatever had gone down between her and Dr. Allison. Maybe she wasn’t as prepared for anything as she pretended to be. It was only after she was gone that I realized how worthy of escape Syd’s life had been. Before they’d come here, Ray had dragged her and Patience all over the desert southwest. He’d been a rodeo clown; he’d gone to jail. Then they came here and Patience gave up. She left Syd with Ray like an abandoned pet. Syd made her plan. She lived by it. But maybe she just couldn’t wait.
Maybe she had to escape, even before her escape.
For the first time, I considered the very real possibility that I might never see her again. Ever. In a month, high school would be over. I’d go away to college. Even my dad was thinking of moving. Why would Syd ever come back here?
And if I did find her on the internet like I dreamed I would in a year or two, living a new life with new friends, would I even have the courage to contact her? Would our friendship just die? Or had it already? It still felt like a small death. I knew if I never saw Syd again, I’d lose part of myself, too. Part of me would die without her.
I walked back into the house, carrying an armload of magazines and junk mail. In the kitchen I found Nick hunched over a cutting board, awkwardly peeling an onion while my father whacked away, tenderizing some unidentifiable piece of meat. I stood in the doorway and watched the two of them. Nick didn’t look up from his onion.
“Hey,” my dad said cheerfully while continuing to abuse the meat. He nodded to me without Nick seeing, as if to reassure me everything was going to be okay. I was unconvinced.
“I’m tired,” I said, inexplicably. I wasn’t tired. If anything, I felt like putting on my shoes and going for a long run, sweating in the dry evening air and watching the sun go down, thinking of exactly nothing but forcing my body to move forward.
“Go lie down.” My dad looked up momentarily. “Dinner in about an hour.”
“You sure?” I said.
“The men can handle it,” my dad said, giving Nick a look.
Nick’s attitude had lightened considerably in my father’s presence. He smiled at me and returned to wrestling the onion out of its skin. I’d never loved helping my dad in the kitchen, but I’d been forced into it over the years and I knew a few things. For instance, I
knew how to peel an onion. Whatever Nick was doing was not working. I watched him another few seconds, until I felt like screaming about his technique, then turned and walked into my room and closed the door. I pulled the curtains closed. I slipped off my shoes and got under the covers with all my clothes on. I stared at the ceiling and felt the weight of everything settle upon me. My whole room smelled like Nick.
I must’ve fallen asleep, because I woke up disoriented. It was dark and I was sweating. I sat up and reached over and opened the drawer in my bedside table and paused for a moment, not knowing whether to pull out Lives of the Saints or Syd’s phone, which I’d stashed in there after taking it out of the shoe box. But before I could choose, I heard voices rise in the kitchen. I felt a tremendous grief for Nick, and a tremendous gratitude for my dad. But then I heard music. Loud music. My father was suddenly shouting over R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” I flung the covers off and pushed the drawer closed. I opened my door and heard Nick. At first I thought he was crying. Maybe he’d broken down again. But when I walked into the room, he wasn’t crying. He was laughing.
“That’s what I mean!” my dad shouted. “It’s a perfect song!” I knew this was my dad’s favorite song. He’d played it for me a million times, explaining it was the most important song of his generation, the song that spoke most clearly to him. I’d never understood what was so great about it. It was just a stream of nonsense words over annoying music.
“It’s so loud,” I said. I sounded grumpy and was self-conscious about it. I hadn’t checked to see what I looked like in the mirror before stepping out of my room. Now I smoothed my palm against the back of my head. I wondered how long Nick would be staying with us. Would I have to start worrying about how I looked, getting showered and dressed before I saw him in the morning? Would we be giving each other kisses while we brushed our teeth? It started to feel suffocating, and he’d only been here a few hours. The music wasn’t helping. Neither were their chipper, buddy-buddy moods. Why the hell were they so chipper? It was the end as the world as I knew it. And they felt fine.
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