You and me both, I think.
I’m not quite sure how it happens, but a second later I’m on the other side of the counter with my arms wrapped around him in a hug like I haven’t given in a long time, my tears – happy tears, now, for the first time in what feels like forever – soaking into his shirt. If I was going for the whole leaky-eye look, I probably should have done it before he took off his apron, but whatever; he doesn’t seem to mind, anyway.
‘Hey, there,’ he says, patting my head gently with his big, beefy hands. He smells of fryer-fat and cheeseburgers and the bleach he uses to clean down the kitchen, but I don’t care. It’s just nice to be held again, to feel the same way I did when I was a little girl and everything made sense. ‘You feeling OK, kiddo?’
I nod silently into his barrel-chest.
‘How about we have a movie night tonight?’ he says. ‘Like old times. Just you and me and as many snacks as the Stop ‘n’ Shop will sell us. Sound good?’
‘Yeah,’ I say as I finally let him go. ‘That sounds great.’
And somehow, at least for one glorious calming moment, I feel as though I might just be alright.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It’s been a busy twenty-four hours.
I didn’t think much would come from the leaflets, but after Mom left I couldn’t stop thinking about them. I mean, it wasn’t like they were just going to accept me into nursing school, right? Obviously something would go wrong. It couldn’t be as easy as all that. Anyway, I figured I’d call a few to check – no harm, no foul, right? The worst that would happen is that they’d tell me it was a ridiculous pipe dream and I was too old, then I could go back to… well, back to my life at the diner. I could live with that. At least I’d know I’d tried.
Except when I called, the woman on the other end of the line didn’t have any answers to any of my questions. She just assumed I was a prospective student asking for information about their Open Day: a time when people from all over the state – from all over the country, even – would be headed to town to see if the school was a good fit for them. People in the same situation I should have been ten or so years ago, all planning out their futures. ‘It’ll all be fine,’ the receptionist on the phone told me. ‘Any questions you have about late admission, you can ask them tomorrow. We’ll let you know everything you need then.’
Tomorrow.
As in, twenty hours away.
I mean, obviously I couldn’t just put everything off to trek across the state just to be told that I wasn’t qualified and that I’d wasted all my time. That would be crazy. And even if I did decide to do that, how would I even get there?
Well, I thought, Pete does have his truck. I could make it to Austin in about five hours or so. Sure, it would be a long trip and an early start, but…
But I was no stranger to early starts. I’d be up around that time anyway.
But it’s ridiculous.
Oh, absolutely. But so what? Maybe a little bit of ridiculous wasn’t the worst thing in the world. So what if I got there and I was the oldest person in the class by half a decade? So what if I got there and they turned around and said no? Maybe there were worse things than giving up before you’d started. I’d spent too long talking myself out of things.
So I’d asked Pete if I could borrow his truck, one last time. Twenty minutes later, it was sitting outside my apartment with a full tank of gas, with my mother and Pete beaming out at me from the front seats like twin headlights. ‘Knock ‘em dead, kiddo,’ he had said as he handed over the keys. ‘I’m sure you’ll do great.’
‘It’s not an interview,’ I said. ‘Just a chance to look around, that’s all. Probably nothing.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, knock ‘em dead anyway. They’d be lucky to have you.’
Oh, Pete, I thought. If I do wind up going, I’m pretty sure I’m going to miss you most of all.
He headed back to my mother’s side and put a hesitant arm around her. I could see him watching me, trying to gauge my reaction for the first time. I gave him a little nod, and he smiled. Whatever makes you happy, I tried to tell him with my eyes. You deserve it.
My mother came up to me next. ‘I’m proud of you, Carrie,’ she said as she pulled me in for a hug; apparently that was a thing we did now, not that I was complaining. It was sort of nice to be close to her, even if it had only happened when I was finally ready to leave. ‘I really mean it. And if he were here, your dad would be too.’
Well, that settled it. After my mother had seen me crying hot, ugly tears for the first time since I was a teenager, I pretty much had to go.
~~~
Don’t think about it.
That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s easier that way. When I’m packing my bag and start to worry if Pete’s truck will get me all the way to Austin. Don’t think about it. When I’m in the shower, washing my hair so I can get an early start in the morning and wondering about how I could possibly afford to go back to school. Don’t think about it. When I climb into bed and set an alarm, and imagine myself surrounded by eighteen year olds – children, really – all laughing and wondering about the old lady who wasted a decade waiting tables. Don’t think about it.
It’s easier said than done.
In the dark stillness of my bedroom, with only the steady hum of the air conditioner for company, it’s hard not to let the doubts creep in. When I eventually manage to fall asleep, it’s a jumble of confusion that doesn’t seem to have any end. I catch snippets of sleep over the course of hours, minutes and seconds snatched wherever I can get them; no matter how I position myself, no matter what I do, my body is restless and my mind even more so. Eventually, just as I hear the chirping of birds outside my window – the official wake-up call for anyone who’s ever had to get up to open a restaurant for the breakfast shift – I give up on sleep entirely. I head to the bathroom, and then pull on the clothes I laid out so painstakingly for myself the night before – anything to make the trip easier. By the time I’m all buttoned up and ready to go, it’s still only three o’clock.
Don’t worry about it, I tell myself. People do this every day. You’re smart, and you’re capable, and you’ll get through it, just like they do. Besides, it’s just an Open Day. It doesn’t mean anything. You’re still a long way off getting accepted.
Somehow, that doesn’t help as much as I might have hoped. I try not to think about that either. Instead I just pull a book down off my shelf and flick through the pages, hoping for something – anything – to keep me occupied until I can justify going downstairs and starting my journey. I start with an old book, one I haven’t read in a long time: a dog-eared copy of an old Raymond Chandler detective novel, once owned by my dad. When I was little, we used to watch movies like that together – me on one end of the sofa, him on the other, with an enormous bowl of freshly-made popcorn sitting between us, so rich and salty and buttery that it would leave grease stains on your fingers for days afterwards. Philip Marlowe – Bogart, always Bogart in my mind – is bouncing around from pillar to post in search of a murderer, always with the right line for the situation. Easy as that, I think. If only real life were as simple as having someone behind you, picking out just what you should say to make sure the plot kept on merrily ticking along. If only you could be sure by the end of it all that the bad guys would end up in jail and the hero gets to ride off in the sunset with this week’s love of his life. Dad always used to hate stories like that: he’d say they were unrealistic, that life didn’t always come with a happy ending. Then again, he married Mom and spent a lot of blissful years with her… well, until he got sick, anyway. As endings go, that one must have felt a little bittersweet.
Oh well, I tell myself. Dad wouldn’t have wanted me lingering on that, not today of all days. There’s no point in worrying about it. All you can do is try and enjoy the story while it’s happening, and hope for the best.
Maybe he really would be proud of me for heading off to do my own thin
g. Maybe getting out of Eden really is my happy ending after all. Maybe –
I’m so lost in my thoughts and the book that it takes me a little while to register the noise: a sound I haven’t heard in years.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
Stones, tapping against my window frame. Little beads of granite calling for my attention, one after the other.
Beckoning me outside.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m dreaming, I think to myself. It’s just one of those dreams, the kind where the least likely thing in the world happens but it all seems strangely normal – like when you wake up in a cold sweat, panicked because you’ve got to give a book report in a class you passed years earlier. It’s not real. It can’t be.
That’s the only explanation. I’m not really down here. I’m still safe and warm in my bed, waiting for just the right moment to spring awake and start another day slinging burgers. Just five more minutes, Mom. That’s all I need.
But there he is, in the flesh – and there I am, next to him.
The last time Hale was here with me, we were wrapped in each other’s arms, hidden away under my bedsheets, safe from the world, just about ready to head out to Willie’s and… well, and everything that followed. It had been a nice moment, a simple moment, and with Hale around simple moments were in short supply. If that had been the last time I’d seen him, I could have lived with that – a final happy memory to focus on instead of his fight and our argument at the trailer and the sight of him driving away into the night. A line could be drawn under it, the ending sad but complete. We were done, Hale and I. Over. Kaput. The second he had got on that bike of his, I had known I wouldn’t be waiting for him.
And yet, like a recurring dream, like a ghost in the night, here he is again.
‘It’s 5am, Hale.’ I lean against the body of Pete’s truck, but he doesn’t join me even though he looks for all the world like he needs the rest. In the dim streetlight, I can see just how tired he looks – tired from the inside out, not just physically but mentally too, as though he’s spent a week or so tossing and turning in restless contemplation. Join the club, I think. The last twenty-four hours feel like they’ve been the longest month of my life.
‘I know.’
‘So why are you here?’ Why are you here at all? Why, when I’d finally made my mind up to leave? Why, when I was just about to move on?
‘I needed to talk to you.’
‘You said plenty before you left.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry for that, I really am – but I’m not done.’
‘At five o’clock in the morning? Really?’
He shrugs. ‘I wasn’t going to, but then I saw your light was on. I figured you were up and getting ready for work, and if I waited…’ What, Hale? If you waited, what? You’d change your mind? You’d get right back on your bike and ride off, again? ‘Should I go?’
‘No,’ I sigh. The whole situation is crazy. If I’d been told a week earlier that I’d ever be in a situation where Hale was the last person I wanted to see, I would have thought they were nuts. I wonder how the cuts beneath his shirt are holding up, and then try to remind myself not to care. Hale has made his choice. So have I. Austin is waiting for me.
That’s right, I tell myself. Just keep that in mind. Austin is waiting for you. Austin is waiting. Austin is waiting. Austin, Austin, Austin. It doesn’t matter that Hale left, because I’m leaving too – if not to Austin, then to Dallas, or to Houston, or to God-knows-where, but I am going. I know that now. I’m going. I have to.
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see something churning inside of him: the tell-tale signs, impossible to ignore. The tight clench of his fist. The furrow in his brow. The way he refuses to keep his ice-blue eyes on mine, scared that they’ll give something away before he’s quite ready.
All the same tricks I came to recognise when we were young.
‘Please,’ I ask. ‘If you came here to say something, spit it out. Just say whatever it is you –’
‘You were right,’ he says. Three little words: short, heartfelt, simple. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed. ‘You were right. About Eden. About me. This is your life, and I had no right to drop in out of nowhere and try and change that. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK,’ I start, ‘I –’ He holds up a hand to stop me.
‘Please. I’m not done. If I stop…’ He pauses, but the meaning is clear: if he stops, he’ll never get started again. Feelings aren’t easy for Hale without a guitar in his hand. I give him a nod, and he continues. ‘You were right about me, too. The whole time I was riding back to New York, I knew I’d made a stupid mistake. I knew it before I even got to Hogarth, but my damn stupid pride wouldn’t let me turn around until it was too late. You knew it before I did. You figured me out, Carrie – about me running away, about me always, always running. Well, I’m tired of running away from things. The only running I want to do is towards you now. Somewhere safe. Somewhere I feel like I belong. I’ve never had that before. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I’m still not sure I do… but I want to try. More than anything, I want to try. I love you, Carrie. I have since we were kids. I don’t want to spend another ten years without you near me, wherever that is.’
‘Even if that’s in Eden?’
‘If that’s where you are, sure. It’s not Eden, or New York, or anywhere else. It’s you, Carrie. It’s always been you. And I don’t want to lose you again. If that means I spend every spare minute I have travelling back and forth between here and the city, I don’t care.’
‘Anywhere I am?’
‘Wherever you feel like home – because that’s where I feel like home. That’s where I need to be. Not in the city. Not away from my past. Just with you. That’s all.’
Austin is waiting for you. Austin is waiting. Austin, Austin, Austin.
‘This is a whole lot of stuff you’re putting on me, Hale.’
‘I know.’
‘I need a little time. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now. I can’t just say yes and ride off into the sunset with you.’
He nods, slowly. ‘But it’s not a no?’
‘It’s not a no.’
‘Then that’s enough. Whatever it takes, Carrie. If I’ve still got a shot after the way everything went down, I’m taking it. No hesitation. If that means spending a while longer in Eden –’
‘Austin,’ I say; the word spills out of me faster than I’d anticipated, catching me by surprise. ‘Well, maybe.’
He raises a quizzical eyebrow, and I tell him everything that’s changed over the last twenty-four hours. My new plans. The life I had started sketching out without him, away from here.
‘And that’s what you want?’ he asks once I’m done. ‘You’re sure.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not even a little bit, if I’m honest with you. It’s a big deal, and even the idea of it is kind of terrifying, but it feels…’ How do I explain it? Then again, I’m talking to Hale: if there’s one person who’ll understand the call of a clean break, it’s him. ‘It feels right, I guess. Like it’s just the next stage. I’m ready for a change. I’m ready to try something new. Maybe that means giving up on my old life, and maybe it doesn’t. I just don’t know yet – but I’m OK with not knowing. For now.’
‘For now,’ he repeats, chewing the words over.
‘And until I do, it wouldn’t be fair for me to say yes – for either of us. Do you understand that?’
‘Yeah, I understand. Whatever makes you happy. That’s all that matters to me.’
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’
He nods and smiles. ‘I really do.’
And perhaps, a week earlier – another life away – that would have been enough for me. Perhaps if he’d told me that the first time he walked into the diner, everything that followed would have played out differently. I might even have been OK with that, if I hadn’t known better – for a while, at least.
But
this… this is something new. Something special. I can feel it.
We don’t part immediately: there’s no need for a grand goodbye. It’s enough to just be together for a few minutes longer, sharing each other’s company, waiting for the sun to rise and the time when we both know I need to leave.
He doesn’t try and kiss me, although he could – and I’d let him. When the moment finally comes for me to head off, he squeezes me tight. ‘Good luck,’ he says. ‘I mean that. You can do it.’
I nod. ‘Thank you,’ I say – and I mean it too. Thank you, Hale. Thank you for everything.
It won’t be the last time I’m with him, I know that. It won’t be the last time I feel his arms wrapped around me; the kiss he leaves on my cheek has no air of finality about it. It’s a bookmark, a temporary break in a story that isn’t quite – may never be – finished.
But for now, Austin is waiting for me.
Hale watches from his bike as I settle my bag in the seat next to me, buckle up my belt and prepare myself. Deep breath, Carrie, I tell myself as I rest my fingers on the key. You can do this. No big deal. It’s just the rest of your life, that’s all. One big adventure. One last goodbye.
But it’s time.
I smile as I turn the key and start the truck, but it doesn’t last; as soon as I do, there’s a crack that echoes down the street, loud as a gunshot, and a plume of black smoke pours out of the exhaust pipe behind me.
No, no, no…
Not now. You heap of shit, please not now… Don’t do this to me…
There’s no use in begging. Pete’s truck shudders and whines as I turn the key in the ignition again, but no matter how many times I try the engine refuses to start up. The truck is dead.
And without it, any hopes I had of making it to Austin might as well be dead too.
It’s OK, I tell myself. There are other schools. Hell, even if I don’t go this year, I can always go next year. I mean, what’s another twelve months when you’re already going to be the oldest person in class, right? Right? Ri—?
Reckless: A Bad Boy Musicians Romance Page 27