“I know. I did like it. I just don’t have a lot of room for philosophy these days. I’m still doing the breathe in/breathe out thing.”
“Did you talk to Tucker yet?” she asks.
The girl sure knows how to spoil a good time.
“No.”
“Well, you’re about to,” she says, staring off over my shoulder. “I’ll catch you later.” Then she’s gone, lost in a sea of black and white gowns. I turn around to see Tucker standing right behind me. He looks uncomfortable.
“Hi, Carrots,” he says.
“Hi.”
“Some crazy thing, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Graduation.” He gestures around us. “Finally blowing this Popsicle stand.”
“Oh. Yes. Crazy.”
His eyes narrow on my face. “Can we go outside for a minute and talk?” I follow him out the back, into the grassy area behind the school. It’s quieter here, but we can still hear the buzz of conversation from the gym. Tucker stuffs his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry. I was a jerk that day. I don’t know, I was surprised, and then I saw . . .” He stops, takes a deep breath. “I think a caveman took over my body. I’m sorry,” he says again.
I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t involve me bursting into tears.
Tucker clears his throat. “How are you doing?”
“Right now? I’ve been better.”
“No I mean—” He sighs. “God, I’d forgotten how frustrating you can be.” It’s an insult, but it comes with a begrudging smile, the admiration in his eyes that sends me back to those days when we used to drive each other crazy.
“And I’d forgotten what a rude hick you can be,” I throw in for good measure.
“Ouch.” He shows his dimples this time. My heart aches, wanting to make everything better between us again. It must show on my face because his expression suddenly sobers. He steps closer to me, puts his hand on my arm.
“So I take it you’re still going to Stanford this fall?”
“Yep,” I say without enthusiasm. “Go Cardinals.”
“But you’re going to be around this summer, right?”
The look on his face is suddenly hopeful, and the summer we could have together unrolls itself in my mind, something like that magical time last summer when I was falling for Tucker hard, falling for Wyoming and all its wonders. I wish we could live it all over again, those lazy days fishing on the lake, hiking up into the mountains to pick huckleberries, swimming the Hoback River, rafting the Snake, marking each place with a kiss or a touch, making it ours. But this time I know it’s not meant to be. Because we can never go back.
I glance down at our feet, my strappy white sandals, Tucker’s boots. “No. Billy thought it would be a good idea if I got away this summer, you know, away from all the sad stuff.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” he says quietly.
“So I’m going to Italy with Angela.”
“When?”
“Monday.” As in, the day after tomorrow. I’ve already packed.
He nods like it’s something he should have expected. “Well. Maybe that’s for the best.” Silence.
“I’ll be back for a couple weeks right before school starts. You’ll be here then, right?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Okay.”
He looks up at me, his blue eyes so mournful it makes my heart feel like it’s being squeezed.
“How about tomorrow? Are you free?”
Sometimes the word free can have so many meanings.
“Um, sure.”
“Then pick me up tomorrow morning,” he says. “We’ll go out one last time.” Even now, I can’t say no to that.
Tucker decided it would be nice to take me to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, not so grand as the real Grand Canyon, he said, but close. There’s a place where you can stand on the brink of a waterfall that he said I would love. (I did.) On the way home from the Lazy Dog, after dropping Tucker off, I have to stop and pull over. I want to go back, I want the afternoon to last forever, but all I have is the memory and already it’s fading. So I sit in my car on the side of the road and I remember him looking at me as we stood against the railing on the edge of the waterfall, the water casting rainbows in the air around us, and him saying, “Oh man, I want to kiss you,” and me saying, “Okay.”
Then he looked deep into my eyes, and put his lips on mine. It was the sweetest kind of kiss in the world, intense but undemanding, gentle. But it sent a roar of feeling through me louder than the torrent of water dropping away under our feet.
I opened my heart to his. I felt what he felt coursing through me. He loves me so much that this was killing him, the way this kiss felt like good-bye. He never wanted to let me go. He wanted to fight for me. Every part of him was telling him to fight, but he didn’t know how. He thought maybe the purest form of love is letting me go.
My own heart soared, feeling that, knowing that he still loves me, in spite of everything that’s happened. I struggled to hold the glory at bay, because it wanted to fill me, wanted to shine out with all that I was feeling in that moment.
Then, too soon, much too soon, he pulled away. Stepped back.
Wait, I wanted to tell him as he turned and walked back up the trail. Come back here.
And I could’ve convinced him, I think, not to let this be good-bye. I could’ve told him that I wanted him to fight for me. That I love him too. But something inside me was whispering that he was right, when yesterday he said this is for the best. Tucker deserves something better than I can give him. He deserves a regular human girl, one like Allison Lowell. He deserves happiness.
So I let him head off, and we drove back to his house in silence, trying to convince ourselves that we’re doing the right thing, for both of us.
Dad’s waiting for me on the front porch when I get home. He stands up as I pull into the driveway.
“Don’t get out,” he says. “There’s somewhere I’d like to go with you.” I slide back into my seat and unlock the door for him. He gets in on the passenger’s side and fastens his seat belt. I get this weird sensation like I’m back in Driver’s Ed, nervous, because I don’t know what he wants. All this mixed with his own special cocktail of joy.
“Okay, where to?” I ask.
“Let’s go toward town.”
“Okay.” I drive. I don’t know what to say to him. The last time I saw him was at graduation, but he didn’t stick around after. We didn’t get the chance to talk. And before that it was him sitting on Mom’s bed as she died. I have so many things swirling in my brain right now, questions, mostly, but it feels weird to ask.