Let Me List the Ways

by Sarah White

  Crossing the state line meant I’d be out of the care of my endocrinologist. I would need to bring anything I’d need along with me because it would not be like I could just have my doctor call in something I’d forgotten since he would not be a doctor practicing in that state. My relationship and history with my doctors was built over time. Other kids might need stitches if they were out of town and any doctor or hospital would do. Being diabetic meant that my options when sick in another state would be limited, especially if it was the weekend.

  Not all doctors knew the nuances of the disease, and they certainly didn’t have a detailed history of my highs and lows like my doctor at home had in my chart. Many of my supplies and medications needed approval through my insurance company, which was a long process that involved multiple steps and ended in them being mailed to my home in bulk. It wasn’t like I could just walk into a pharmacy and walk out with a few days’ worth.

  Friday night I packed my bags and watched as my mom fussed about how much of each medical supply I would need. The plan was to leave early Saturday morning and stay there for the weekend, returning home on Monday. We had two nights of freedom roughly five hours away from home. I made sure to pack for the hot weather and for the time we’d be spending at the lake.

  Choosing where to stay had been a little difficult. We’d never been there, so picturing where exactly each place was in relation to the bridge was difficult, but thankfully the internet helped narrow everything down. My mother had found a condo on the lake that could be rented for a few days at a time and the pictures showed the bridge in the background. It was perfect.

  Mr. and Mrs. Walker booked it under their name since we weren’t so sure how the owners would feel about teens renting their beautiful vacation home. They lived in Phoenix and wouldn’t be around at all, so the key was to be left in a lock box and we were to use a code to open it. Nolan and I offered to pay for the rental, but our parents split it, calling the whole thing our graduation gifts. Some other seniors from school were going on a senior trip to Mexico the same week, and I think our parents were just grateful that was of no interest to us. I never did see the fun in naked bungee jumping.

  I was so excited Friday night after we packed up the car that I could barely sleep. I thought of how great it was going to be to have two full days of time with Nolan, and of course the long drive there made it feel like we were finally adults, able to take care of ourselves. While I was thrilled our plan had been given the green light, a part of me was also sad that going on this trip would only leave one thing on the napkin list. I wasn’t ready then, but maybe the trip would help get me there.

  I was up an hour before my alarm was going to wake me. I took a shower and put on a comfy outfit for the ride. I tested myself and ate my breakfast while I waited for Nolan to come get me. My mom was trying not to hover over me in the kitchen, but I could tell the whole trip was really causing her a lot of stress.

  “I promise I’ll be okay,” I assured her as she sat down with her coffee at the kitchen table. I took another bite of my bagel and cream cheese.

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine. If anything happens, Nolan knows how to take care of you.” She smiled, but it fell quickly and she tried to cover it by taking another sip of her coffee.

  “I’m not going to be that far away. I’ll call you every day.” I reached out and put my hand on top of hers. She just nodded.

  Sitting across from my mom at that table, I really looked at her. I saw the years of worry in the small lines by her eyes and the dark circles from years of never being able to sleep completely peacefully. I appreciated her so much it felt like the emotion would spill right out of me. Instead, I leaned forward and kissed her cheek before wrapping my arms around her and pulling us together for a tight hug.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too.”

  The kitchen door opened and Nolan stepped inside. He put his hands up in surrender. “No knife today?” He stepped cautiously past her and over to the counter where the bagels were kept.

  “Not yet,” she answered with a smile.

  “My brothers wiped out all of our breakfast foods so unless I wanted mac and cheese for breakfast, I have to steal a bagel.” He twirled open the bag and grabbed a plain bagel from inside.

  “Help yourself,” my mom said as she stood up. “I’m going to go get dressed so I can embarrass you by running after your truck when you guys leave.” She said it so seriously that I was afraid to laugh in case she meant it. She squeezed my shoulder as she walked by, and Nolan grabbed the cream cheese from the fridge and moved to sit down next to me.

  “Are you almost ready?” he asked before taking a big bite.

  “Just finished my breakfast. I’m ready when you are.” I crumpled up the paper towel I’d had my breakfast on and tossed it in the trash.

  “I looked up our options for how to get there and I think we should make it there in about five hours if we follow most of the traffic laws.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and set it on the table. I unfolded it and found a printout of the route he’d picked. I loved the way our path twisted and turned like an uncoordinated snake out of town and into the California desert before crossing the state line over the thin blue squiggly line that represented the Colorado River.

  “Are we going to stop anywhere?” I asked him as he chewed his breakfast. I reached up and wiped a dab of cream cheese off his lip and wiped it on his paper towel.

  “Probably stop for lunch if we get hungry. I thought we could drive until something looked good. Just bring a few snacks in case there is a long stretch without food and you get low.” I stood up and grabbed a grocery bag, stuffing it full of my favorite snacks as he finished eating.

  “Well,” he said with a big smile as he stood up and tossed the paper towel in the trash. “I guess it’s time.” My stomach flipped and then fluttered as my heart pounded in my chest. I was so excited for the trip and might have let out a small squeal. Nolan chuckled and grabbed the snack bag from my hand. “Go tell your parents good-bye. If your mom was serious about chasing down the truck, let her know to get her shoes on.”

  My mom had been kidding, of course, but all of our parents did stand at the end of the driveway after delaying our trip a half hour reminding us to call and then giving tips and a year’s worth of car knowledge in two minutes. Nolan’s dad was the greatest offender in that area, showing us twice how to check the oil even though Nolan had been changing his own oil for two years.

  When we finally turned at the end of our block, our parents no longer visible in the rearview mirror, we both laughed. I’m not sure if it was from the relief of the stress we were feeling radiating off the adults or if it was because we felt like we had gotten away with something. It didn’t matter, really; we laughed because we loved to laugh and because we were about to cross the state line on a road trip that had to be epic simply because it would be our first and most likely our last alone together.

  We listened to music for the first two hours of the drive. I had my feet up on the dashboard by the time we hit what appeared to be the first expanse of desert. It was weird to me how the city gave way to open land, and the houses that were literally built on the edge of the freeway seemed to run toward the large, rocky mountains as we crossed city lines. Small cars filled with families running weekend errands grew less and less frequent, while large Mack trucks grew in number, sharing the highway with us. I tried to look at everything. I wanted to remember it all, but I found myself watching him a lot too.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, turning down the music, which was more static than tune at that point.

  “Yes. I probably should eat.” I sat up in my seat and slipped on my flip-flops.

  “It looks like there is an In-N-Out up there if that works for you?” He pointed up the road to a shopping center in the desert.

  “That sounds good.”

  “Okay.” He turned the music back up and hit scan to find a local channel. We exit
ed the freeway and made a big loop until we were dropped on the road that led to our destination. The parking lot was completely full so we had to park in the back where the tour buses were all lined up. Groups of Japanese tourists were stretching their legs and carrying around various bags from the shopping center and food places nearby. It felt like a different world already even though we were only about halfway there.

  The heat was dry and when the wind blew by, it felt like a blow-dryer directed right at my exposed skin. Usually I complained about the rise in temperature, but because we had wanted this trip so bad, the weather that day seemed like an adventure instead of a burden. We walked toward the door and Nolan’s hand slipped into mine so casually it was clearly a product of our years of practice. I couldn’t help swinging our hands between us and bouncing a little with the thrill of the day ahead of us. When we were kids we hated being stuck in the car for a long time, but now that this trip was born from our own imaginations, I finally understood how my mom had gazed out the window and was always talking about how beautiful everything was along the road. As a kid I wondered how brown dirt could be beautiful, but walking with Nolan miles from home made everything seem so much more vivid and alive. It was all beautiful.

  We had to eat our lunch in his truck since there were no tables left inside. The shopping center was also on the way to Las Vegas, so bus after bus of tourists and retired people stopped and grabbed a bite to eat there. Other families stopped to let their dogs out or to use the restroom. We watched it all from inside the truck like it was a movie playing out right in front of us.

  Nolan’s truck thermometer said it was one hundred and twelve degrees when we crossed over the Colorado River and into the state of Arizona. A large white bridge stretched across what had once been only a thin blue line on Nolan’s map. It was beautiful, a deep blue-green flowing between rocky shores, and I couldn’t wait to stick my feet into the water. We still had about an hour left of our drive and the water disappeared again until we reached Lake Havasu City. Pulling into town was surreal as the lake stretched out before us, larger than I had even imagined.

  We had decided we would eat out for most of our meals but we still wanted to stop in town at a grocery store and buy some more snacks and drinks. Nolan had brought a small ice chest and we knew we’d need to fill it with ice and weren’t sure if there was a place to do that in the condo building. We stopped at the Walmart right on the edge of town.

  “Do you think you could ever live here?” I asked as he grabbed a hot cart that had been sitting in the parking lot.

  “Right now I think yes, but a few days of this heat and I might change my mind.” We were almost blown off our feet when the air-conditioning met us at the sliding doors. It was such a relief. We both took off our sunglasses and wiped the sweat from our cheeks before going any farther. It was fun shopping with him. We’d run errands for our parents and even for ourselves before, but being in a different state, on our own, made it feel like the first time. Even though we only needed a few things, we went up and down the aisles and had a little fun. I grabbed some new sunscreen and he tried on a few hats. Just when our bodies had adjusted to the cooler temperature, it was time to get back into the heat.

  There was one main road into Lake Havasu from the direction we’d come and the farther we drove along it, the more the landscape around us seemed to develop until finally we found ourselves in the middle of the city. I was so impatient to see the bridge I practically bounced in my seat. The first time we missed the street we were supposed to be on and ended up going underneath where we wanted to be. The second time we made it and Nolan drove me over the bridge I’d had my heart set on seeing in person since that vacation so long ago. It didn’t disappoint. Old gray blocks rose up ahead of us, the street on top lined with flags that were waving in the wind. Beneath, the channel flowed on both sides and I twisted my neck to take in everything I could all at once. It was over too quickly so we turned around in a shopping center parking lot and rode over it again.

  Now that I’d seen the bridge from the top, I couldn’t wait to stand beneath it or put my feet in the refreshing water I could see flowing below. We found the condo and retrieved the key before making a few trips to the truck to bring in everything. Our condo was on the first floor and was incredible. It had a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. I immediately opened the big glass sliding door that opened from the living room and stepped out onto the patio where I could see the lake. A large gate separated the condo from the beach, but I could see the London Bridge in all her glory from our patio behind the black iron gate.

  Nolan stepped out onto the patio with me, and I loved how big and infectious his smile was. I’d always thought I wanted to see the bridge and doing so would make me the happiest I could imagine. I had never really thought about seeing it with another person. Standing there in the heat of the desert with the most independence I’d ever been given, I realized I would have cheated myself if I didn’t see the bridge with him. Experiencing things for myself was wonderful, but sharing that experience with someone I loved was really what made my world go round.

  Thirty

  THE TWO OF us sat side by side in the lounge chairs the condo had in the front closet. Our feet were in the water that slowly lapped at the shore if a boat drove by, and since it was a weekend, there were lots of boats. I had wanted to walk to the bridge and see it up close, but it was so hot outside we figured it might be better to do after the sun went down. I was lying on my stomach to tan my back and was watching Nolan as he drifted off to sleep.

  I could hear the light whoosh of the water as it crashed in the smallest wave and then receded back into the lake. There was not a cloud in the sky, and while we could hear music playing, it was as if the two of us were stranded on an island in paradise alone. Nolan picked his head up when he heard a boat grumble by and then he turned and gave me a smile before closing his eyes and resting again.

  I wondered if he missed Erin. He hadn’t talked about her since that day in his truck after Sasha had interviewed him, and I didn’t want to bring it up if it was going to hurt him somehow. Erin and Nolan weren’t talking anymore, but I wasn’t sure if he had ended it or if she had. He didn’t ask me about Jude either. In the days that had followed our secret coming out, it seemed like we both preferred to let our friendship fall back into the comfortable pattern it had been in before we ever let any lines be crossed. The only problem was that no matter how hard we might have wished we could, there was no undoing what had happened between us that night in the Jacuzzi.

  Nolan cracked an eye open and turned toward me. “Why are you looking at me? Do you want to go in or something?” He sat up a little and rubbed his chest as he looked out at the boats slowly traversing the channel. I hadn’t realized I’d been looking at him while in thought. “We should probably swim now if we’re going to. Then later we can get out and walk down to the bridge to get some dinner.”

  I pushed myself up off the chair. We slowly stepped into the water, and once we were waist deep, we dropped low and let it cover our hot shoulders and backs. “Is it what you thought it would be?” he asked as we crouched in the refreshing water and stared down the channel to the London Bridge.

  “It’s pretty spectacular,” I answered, moving my arms slowly to steer my body.

  “When are you going to cross it off the list?” He turned to face me and we floated close together as the water moved around us in small swells.

  “I almost don’t want to,” I answered honestly.

  “Me either,” he said, and then turned around again and watched a huge boat drive past us, its engine roaring and echoing through the shadows the bridge cast on the water. “We’ll only have one thing left.”

  We stayed in the water until it was dark, reserved at first, just a couple of adults on a nice, mature vacation. Then we slipped back over that line we’d been walking and fell right into our childhoods, splashing around and laughing out loud, maybe even tryin
g to drown each other. I never wanted to let go of that world with him. I decided as simply as the thought had crossed my mind that I’d be sure not to.

  Once we dragged ourselves out of the lake and dried off, we realized just how hungry we were. We’d munched on some chips and drank water all day, but the sun seemed to zap all our energy and make us starving teens again during the night. We both took our showers and then decided to make the walk I’d been waiting for down to the bridge so I could see it up close and even touch it. He locked the door behind us and we took the pathway down to the sidewalk that wound with the channel and dipped under the bridge.

  Nolan held my hand as we watched the sparrows building nests beneath the bridge. When we finally reached the big stone blocks, I ran my hand along them, wondering how many hands had touched that place before mine. Maybe even in London. We took a selfie and sent it to our parents and then walked beneath the huge arches and out the other side. Now when I played London Bridge with my children, I’d know what it really felt like to be near it.

  On the other side of the bridge we found a pizza place. It was easy to do since the smell of freshly baked pizzas wafted down around us. We climbed up the steep hill that brought us to the top of the bridge where the pizza place was tucked near a fountain. We ordered our pizza and then moved out to the balcony that overlooked the bridge and the boats below it.

  Nolan sat next to me and I propped my feet up on the iron fence that ran around the balcony. Even with all the heat around us, I could still feel him beside me. I wondered if I would always know exactly where he was when he was near and if his scent would be familiar to me even after we were no longer neighbors. Being Nolan’s friend had been easy. Falling for him had been effortless. Maybe that kind of attraction would be fleeting, but as I sat there with him at my side, I knew that loving him was eternal.