“Wait, can I guess?”
“You can try.”
“Donut Gems.”
“No, but I have those too.” He pulled out powdered Donut Gems and set them next to our Sno Balls.
I pulled crumb Donut Gems from my bag and set them down. “Ha! Smart minds think alike. But what’s this delicacy you speak of? Did you get one of those rotisserie hot dogs?”
“No.” His face was serious.
“Giant pickle?”
“Come on, Em, you’re disappointing me. This is so easy.”
“Slim Jim?”
“Finally. I thought it would take you forever.” He set the Slim Jim next to our stuff. “Whaddya got?”
“Ta-dah!” I held up a package of Fun Dip.
He stared at the Fun Dip. I thought he was going to cry, but he laughed instead. “We’re gonna have stomachaches.”
“Let’s just taste everything. What else you got?”
“Hot Cheetos and M&M’s, you?”
“Doritos and a Honey Bun,” I said, throwing it all out on the bed. “We’re also gonna have really nice breath.”
“Who cares?” he said as he tore open the Slim Jim and took a bite. “Not as good as I remember.” He held it out to me.
We took off our shoes. I put on my flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt while Jase found a movie to watch. We propped ourselves up on pillows against the headboard and proceeded to devour our score.
“Donut Gem?”
I took a powdered donut from Jase’s hand. “What is this movie?”
“My Girl. You’ve never seen it?”
“No. I didn’t have cable, remember?”
“That’s right.” He reached out and wiped powdered sugar from the side of my mouth.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
By the time Macaulay Culkin got stung by all the bees, I was hyperventilating. And when they found the mood ring, that was it for me. “This is the saddest movie I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” I cried. Jase laughed. “It’s not funny.”
He rubbed my back. “Ah, Em, I’m sorry. This was probably a bad choice.”
I looked up at him, at his sincere expression, as I took a huge bite of Honey Bun. “When did you cut your hair?” I asked him with a full mouth of food.
“A long time ago.”
“How come?” Jase’s hair was about to his shoulders when I left Ohio, and now he wore it short on the sides and longer and messy on top. He also had a few days’ growth on his face, and it was hard for me not to imagine rubbing my cheek against it. His look was effortless; it always had been, but now it was effortless in a sexy-man way.
“Remember, I was trying to grow it out for California?”
I laughed. “Yeah, such a dork.” I stopped chewing when I realized he wasn’t smiling. I swallowed. “What did I say?”
“Nothing. It’s just, after you left, I got pretty bummed out, so I cut it all off. Kinda lost hope in California.”
“Oh.” My voice was low. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, it wasn’t your fault,” he said.
I reached up and ran my hand over his jaw. He closed his eyes. “Jason Dean Colbertson, how’d you get so great?”
There was silence. He kept his eyes closed and said, “You made me this way, Em.”
I should have taken the compliment, but it was such a big statement. “I don’t think so at all. I was a mess. Do you know how much therapy I needed?”
Staring at my mouth, he ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “You’re not a mess now.”
“How did you deal with everything after I left?”
“Like I told you, I wrote the book. It got me through.” He leaned in slightly, our bodies just centimeters apart. It looked like he was going to kiss me.
“And all the women?” I said.
“Yeah, there was that.” His lips turned up into a tight smile. “I’m not proud of it. I was always looking for you in those women.”
“I’m one of a kind.” I laughed.
“Tell me about it.” He was serious.
“I have to figure things out with Trevor,” I said.
“I know.” He looked down at his hands.
“I shouldn’t be with you, even right now,” I said.
“Is that what you really think, Em?”
“Out of respect for him. He’s a good person.”
“Okay, fine. I understand.” He started to move, but I pulled him back.
“But it’s weird, I don’t really feel like I’m betraying him when I’m with you.”
“We’re friends and you haven’t done anything wrong, so why would you?”
“We kissed,” I said.
“I kissed you.” He was staring at my mouth.
It was hard for me to find the right words. My emotions were all over the place. “The thing is . . . you see, when I’m with him . . . it’s weird, but it feels like I’m betraying you.” He searched my eyes and then grabbed my hand and held it. “I felt that way before you even came back into my life. That’s what you did to me,” I told him.
Jase had planted himself inside of my heart so deeply that when we parted he kept growing there. We weren’t together, but he was always there, like a part of my soul. I tried desperately to deny it and to forget, but no number of therapy sessions could take him out of me. We were a part of each other.
“God, I want to kiss you right now.”
“I smell like Doritos, and I told you no more kissing.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and then his lips were on mine. We kissed and kissed and then sank down onto the bed and fell asleep as the closing credits of My Girl ran. I instinctively curled up into his side and felt more content than I had in over a decade.
15. What About Us?
In the morning, I heard Jase shuffling around. I knew he was gathering his things. I wasn’t ready to go back to reality yet, so I kept my eyes shut for a while. It’s easy to look from the outside and say, This is a no-brainer; what is she thinking? But I still loved Trevor in some way. I wanted them both. I wanted Trevor because he wasn’t a reminder of anything. I was Emi with him—he didn’t associate me with thoughts of pain or abuse. I knew it wasn’t fair to either of them, but that’s how I felt.
Jase had been wearing a persona too. I saw glimpses of the vulnerable, sweet boy I once knew, but he was also this fancy author, a cocky, brilliant ladies’ man. He was as familiar to me as myself, yet we’d spent over a decade apart, changing in subtle ways. I’d seen Jase several times now, but we weren’t in the context of our normal lives. Where did he live? What did he do during a normal day? What did he eat for breakfast? I didn’t know any of the basic details of his life.
When he came toward me, I closed my eyes and feigned sleep.
Don’t go. Don’t go.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hands up and down my arms a few times. “I know you’re awake, faker.”
I started laughing with my eyes closed. “No, I’m sound asleep.”
“Your breath smells really nice.”
I opened my eyes, covered my mouth, and mumbled through my fingers, “Jerk! Move so I can go brush my teeth.”
“I have to go, Em.”
“Not yet.” Tears sprouted from my eyes. I just shook my head as I felt my throat tighten.
“I have to catch a flight and get to my next event. Emiline, will you promise me something? Two things, actually?”
“Okay,” I said, my voice raspy.
“Whatever you decide, wherever life takes you, promise me you’ll finish the book and promise me that you and I will not let this much time go by without seeing each other again.” He wiped tears from my cheeks.
“I promise. You’re still my best friend,” I said.
He smiled. “Swear on your life?”
“I swear on your life,” I told him.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, our faces serious. “I have some things to figure out, but we definitely need to s
ee each other more,” I said.
“Naked, I think,” he added.
I pushed his arm. “Go, get outta here, Romeo.”
He bent and kissed me on the cheek. “Call me. I’ll be in New Orleans tonight.”
“Okay.”
My eyes followed him as he left the room. I went to the window and watched him walk out to the parking lot. Before he got in his car, he looked up at me, kissed his hand, and waved. I did the same, and then he was gone.
I was rushing around my hotel, trying to get my things together before my one p.m. flight that I had booked yesterday, when I finally checked my phone and saw that Trevor had called me three times the night before.
“Shit!” I hit CALL BACK immediately.
He answered on the first ring. “What the fuck, Emi?”
“Trevor, I’m sorry, I fell asleep early and . . .” First lie.
“Are you with him right now?”
“No.”
He took a deep breath. “When does your plane get in?”
“Eight.”
“I’ll pick you up,” he said flatly.
“Okay,” I said, and then he hung up.
I GOT TO the airport early to return my car. In the airport bookstore, there was a display of All the Roads Between. I stared at it until an elderly woman approached me and said, “Sad book.”
“So I shouldn’t read it?”
“Not unless you like being depressed.”
“What’s it about?” I said.
“It’s about two people who fight fate and lose. You’re always gonna lose when you go against the big guy.” She pursed her lips.
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I believe.”
I used to kind of ignore old people. It’s terrible, really, but then I learned that they can offer some really priceless life hacks if you’re willing to listen.
“Yeah, but what if those two people weren’t sure what their fate was, or what exactly they were supposed to do?”
“Oh, they knew, trust me.”
“So God has a plan? And we all know what it is?”
“God, Buddha, the universe, whatever you want to call it. I’m a forward thinker, missy. I don’t know if it’s that black-and-white. I kinda think it’s like magnets. Put them close enough and they’ll come together, but turn them around and they’ll repel each other. When you feel the pull, you gotta give in to it. These two . . .” She pointed to the cover of the book.
“Don’t tell me! Please, I have a copy. I haven’t finished it yet.”
“Okay, well, when you’re done with it, look up the author’s photo. He’s a handsome one, my goodness.” She gave me a little wave.
I couldn’t wait to tell Jase the story.
WHEN I GOT to the bottom of the escalator at the San Diego airport, Trevor was there waiting for me. It was hard not to feel nervous around him. I kept thinking he knew everything that had happened while I was away, though of course, he didn’t. I used to be annoyed that he took everything at face value and didn’t ask questions, but this was one instance where it worked in my favor.
“How was your trip?” he asked as we walked to the parking lot.
I told him about meeting my dad and my mom, and he nodded along beside me.
When we got to his truck, my nose had started running, so I opened the center console to look for a tissue.
“No!” He slammed it back down.
“What’s in there?”
“Nothing. My medication.” He was pulling out of the parking lot, trying to focus on the road, his right hand still holding the lid closed.
“Let me see.” I brushed his hand aside as he made a turn and forced the console open to reveal several bottles of prescription pills. “What are all these for, Trevor?”
He looked straight ahead as we merged onto the interstate. “They’re just painkillers and anti-inflammatories. Nothing unusual.”
I reached in and started taking the bottles out, and Trevor shook his head. The first two were Vicodin and ibuprofen. I pulled out another bottle that was a muscle relaxer, and then some kind of steroid, and then OxyContin. “How much of this are you taking at any given time?”
“Just what they prescribe.”
“They don’t prescribe all of these together, Trevor. Be honest with me.”
“Goddammit!” He slammed the steering wheel and pulled onto the shoulder, killed the engine, and turned toward me. “What the hell do you want to know?”
“I want to know if you’re addicted to all of this shit.”
“Well, I want to know if you saw and fucked that writer guy in Ohio.”
I stared at him evenly. “I did see him, but I didn’t have sex with him. I kissed him. I lost my virginity to him when we were fifteen, and we have a really complicated history.” It shocked me that I hadn’t told Trevor that. “He was the only person I had when I was growing up. We took care of each other. I made a mistake kissing him, and I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“I love him, but I love you too. I’m trying to figure everything out.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed. The truck was silent except for the sound of Trevor breathing fast and deep through his nose. “I can’t get off the pills.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t understand how Trevor had been able to keep all of this hidden from me. I wondered if maybe I was the one who wasn’t being present in our relationship. I guess it’s hard to be present when you’re busy denying who you are and shutting out the world. All this time, he was falling deeper and deeper into his addiction to pain meds. It explained a lot about his behavior—his mood swings, his air of indifference.
As I sat there in his truck, I realized I had an easy way out. The decision was made for me. I could leave Trevor because he was a drug addict. But when I looked into his pleading eyes, I realized I cared too much for him. I couldn’t leave him like that.
“You need help; you can’t do it by yourself. Your parents will help. I know they will.”
“I can’t tell them,” he said.
“You have to.”
He lowered his head into his hands, so I reached over and rubbed his back. “Trevor, you were an amazing athlete, but that’s not all you are, and you certainly aren’t a drug addict. Don’t let this become your identity, please.”
He started to cry. Trevor never cried. Not once in our entire relationship.
“Let me drive,” I told him. “We’ll call your parents when we get to my apartment.”
When he looked up into my eyes, I thought I was going to cry too. He looked helpless and lost. “You’re not gonna leave me over this, are you? You won’t leave me for him?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ll stick by you.”
AT MY APARTMENT that night, Trevor called his parents and told them. They were completely supportive, insisting that they pay all the costs for rehab. His mother got on the internet and found a place that would take him in a week. He stayed the night and slept in my bed, but we only just kissed each other good night.
I spent the next several days helping Trevor get ready to leave for the month he’d be in rehab. He was distant, but I think it was the drugs and his looming fear of the struggle ahead of him.
I talked to Jase every night after I’d leave Trevor’s. We basically just laughed at all of his book tour adventures and the growing number of women who were trying to throw themselves at him on a daily basis. I told him Trevor was going to rehab, and instead of reminding me of the parallels to his book, he just said, “Well, at least he’s getting it taken care of.”
My copy of All the Roads Between sat on my dresser and taunted me all those days. I promised myself that I would wait to read it until Trevor left, when I would be all alone to think about the book and my life and what I wanted to do. I also knew I owed Professor James ten thousand words before I could show my face at work.
I drove Trevor to the rehab facility, which was
n’t too far from my apartment, and sat with him until he was all checked in. When it was time for him to go, he kissed me on the cheek. “I hope that we’re both thinking more clearly by the time I get out,” he said.
“Me too.”
“I love you, Emi.” It was the first time he had said it while looking me in the eye.
“I love you too.” There are so many ways to love. My foster family, my aunts, Cara, Trevor, and Jase had all taught me that.
I went home and opened All the Roads Between.
From All the Roads Between
“Emerson, can you wipe down tables one last time before you leave?”
“Sure,” I said to Cathy, the night manager at the diner where I worked. I had been working graveyard shifts there for over a month, so I had gotten used to the weird hours. Twenty-four-hour diners can attract some interesting people in the wee hours of the morning, but I didn’t mind—it was a job.
I’d leave the diner around six a.m., when the sun was coming up beyond the cornfield horizon. Sometimes I’d stand there, watching the sun rise, thinking about Neeble. I hadn’t driven out there since I had returned to New Clayton. I just couldn’t bring myself to go back. But that morning, as I stood there in the parking lot, I realized it was my birthday.
After finding Jackson’s book a month ago, I had thought about our adventures on the old dirt road. I’d thought about all the pain Jackson had endured too, losing his brother and losing me. I hadn’t celebrated my birthday in years, but that morning, as I pulled onto the highway headed toward Neeble, I made a pact with myself that I would face my fears. And if I saw Cal Junior, I’d run him over with my car, even though he was probably almost eighty years old by now.
I pulled onto El Monte Road as the sun crept higher in the sky. Each time I passed a mile marker, I called the number out loud. Right where old Carter’s egg ranch used to be was a pile of wood scraps next to the skeletal remains of the big chicken house. Beyond that were just miles of dirt and weeds until I got to the five-point-five-mile marker.
I gasped when I saw that there was still a mailbox there. I thought, Who in their right mind would want to live here? I pulled onto the dirt road, which had bumps in almost the same exact places it did thirty years before. When I got to the end and saw that the house Jax grew up in was still there, I almost peed my pants. There were two cars parked in front. I pulled off to the side, still about a hundred yards from the house. After turning the engine off and rolling down my window, I sat back and listened. I could hear the trickling sound of the creek, the loud buzzing of cicadas, and nothing else.