Wherever You Go (12 page)

Exactly.
Jason's mind vibrated with the word, but he kept his mouth shut. Getting in the way was exactly how he saw the real or imagined ghost of Rob right now. Rob was keeping Holly tied to the past, and he had too much of Jason's present. "So, how do you let go?"

Holly leaned back against the hard bench of the
Lucky Lucy
. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe I can't."

"Or maybe you're just not ready." Jason's voice trailed off into the wind, but he knew from Holly's nod that she'd heard him.

***

"Where were you?" Mom popped up from the bench in front of the building as we piled out of Jason's car. She was dressed in her grocery store uniform of a green polo and khakis, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She smelled like cigarette smoke, so I figured she'd been down there waiting. She never smoked in the house or around us. In fact, she claimed she was trying to quit.

I tried a calm smile. "Hey, Mom."

"It's nearly seven."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "I told you we might go somewhere this afternoon." Jason's dad had never shown, but the time on the boat was great. Grandpa was still smiling. It had been totally worth it. I turned to my sister, who was shifting impatiently on the sidewalk like she needed to pee. "Hey, why don't you take Grandpa inside?"

Lena took my keys, and she and Grandpa started off down the path.

Mom's mouth was set in a hard line. "Holiday, there was no note and your phone was off."
S of as we p

I nodded, stinging from Mom using my full name and conscious of Jason standing next to me. Mom knew that I almost never had the phone on, since our minutes were only for emergencies. "I didn't expect you home before us," I said, keeping my tone even. "You always go straight to the store after the dealership on Tuesdays."

"I traded for a later shift so we could all have dinner together tonight. I was going to make homemade macaroni and cheese." She leaned in closer. "You know, since I screwed up Lena's b-day."

I took a breath. "You could still make it. We didn't really have dinner," I said.

"Um, should I go?" Jason was still standing beside the car, his keys in his hand.

"Sorry—Mom, this is Jason Markham. He was, um ... friends with Rob, remember?"

She shook his hand but gave him a hard look. "You were driving the girls around?"

"Just home from the marina," Jason said.

"Marina? What marina?" Mom crossed her arms against her chest. "What were you out doing?"

I tried to remain calm. I couldn't believe Mom was suddenly going to play the all-American mother and be overprotective. It'd been years since I checked in with her about anything to do with me or Lena. "Mom, Jason's family has a boat. He was going to take us out with Grandpa."

"And you didn't think it was important to let me know? Lena doesn't even know how to swim."

"Mom, we were fine. We didn't even move from the dock, all right?"

"That's true," said Jason. "My dad was supposed to sail with us, but he didn't show, so we didn't leave the slip."

Mom reached out to give me an awkward hug. "You girls are the world to me," she whispered. She didn't make apologies, so I knew that was about as much as she was going to offer.

I pulled away, very aware that Mom was making a huge scene and Jason was watching it all. I smoothed the upturned cuff of her polo shirt's sleeve. "So, are you going to make some mac and cheese? Lena would love that."

Mom's lower lip quivered. "We're out of cheddar cheese and the minimart's closed. The car's acting up, so I was going to take a bus down to Price Chopper, but now I don't think there's time."

I glanced over my shoulder at Jason. "Jason, can you run me to the store?"

"Yeah, of course." I grabbed Mom's handbag from the bench and fished out a ten-dollar bill. "We need anything else?" I asked, handing the purse to her.

"Not for the macaroni." Mom gave Jason a grateful look. "Be quick," she said to me.

"Yeah. You start boiling the pasta."

My mother headed into the building, and I climbed back into Jason's car. I must have been shivering, because he turned on the heat full blast as we pulled away.

"Sorry," I said, sinking deep into the leather seat.

"About what?"

"About that whole thing with my mom. She gets kind of weird sometimes."

Jason paused, then he glanced over at me with a small smile. "Seemed pretty normal to me. She was worried about you guys."

"Yeah."

"She really seems to depend on you."

I was glad that he didn't elaborate. Depending on someone was one thing, but what about when that dependence got old? I mean, seriously. Was it like she couldn't trust me to make a decision now? After all this time of me running things, she was going to pretend that she was the one in charge? The more I thought about her freak-out, the angrier I got.

Jason pulled up into a parking spot in front of the grocery store and cut the engine. I didn't ask him to come in with me, but he did, picking up one of the black plastic baskets and following me to the dairy case. He didn't say anything. He just stood beside me, watching me hesitate and then finally choose the big block of cheese that was on sale. He held out the basket, and I plopped the cheddar into it. Then I selected another quart of milk, since I knew that the minute she started making the sauce, Mom would discover that we were almost out.

At the checkout, I found a ninety-nine-cent pack of butterscotch candies for Grandpa and threw them onto the conveyor belt with the cheese. The man handed me the change while Jason scooped up the bag of groceries. He set the sack in the back seat, and then we drove off toward my place.

And it was all about the most perfect thing Jason could do—just to be with me and help me handle things.

"Thanks for doing this."

"It's no big deal," he replied.

I closed my eyes.

"You tired?" he asked.

"I think I was born tired." I sat up straighter in my seat. "But no, I'm fine."

"There you go again," Jason said, turning on his blinker for the right turn onto my street.

"There I go what?"

"It's okay to be tired. It's okay to be however you are," he said. "Don't pretend on my account."

I bit my lower lip. "I'm not p Sp. t prretending," I said.

"You know what I mean."

I studied him in the wash of the streetlights as he drove. Noticing his strong chin, his full lips, his eyes fully concentrating on the road ahead. "Why do you keep saying that stuff, Jason? You talk like you see through some kind of act I'm putting on or something."

"That's because I do." Jason pulled up in front of my building and cut the engine. "And something about you makes me want to tell you that I do."

"Something about me," I repeated. My skin prickled with little goose bumps. It wasn't fear—it was nervousness.

"I see you working so hard to be strong. So hard to keep everything together. To not fall apart. But that's not your job."

My throat tightened. "I have to keep things together," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. If I didn't keep things together, nobody would. That was the truth I didn't want to tell him. "I have to."

"Not around me," Jason said. "You don't have to be strong around me."

I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear what he was saying. But then I felt his hand on my cheek, holding the side of my face. I opened my eyes to find him gazing at me, his eyes so sincere. My breathing quickened, and suddenly I felt very warm, like I needed some air. Maybe I was having some kind of a panic attack. Almost everything in me wanted to run. My fingers reached for the door handle, but I didn't pull it open.

His strong hand still cradled my cheek. I felt my body fighting to relax into it. But I knew that if I let myself fall into him, if I let myself move even a fraction of an inch toward him, I was going to let him hold me. I couldn't let him do that.

He looked down at my left hand, which was gripping the edge of the seat so tightly, my knuckles were white. I forced my fingers to release their grasp on the seat, and the others on the door handle. He rubbed his thumb across my chin and then moved his hand away.

My eyes felt wet. "I should get this stuff upstairs," I said, my voice all cloggy. And then I did something that surprised me—and probably Jason. I leaned across the seat and kissed him very gently on the lips.

When I pulled away, I couldn't look over at him again. I just reached back and grabbed the grocery sack and got out of the car as fast as I could. I tripped my way up the path and punched the apartment number on the call box so my mother could buzz me in.

I didn't glance back, but I know he waited until he saw me get inside, because I heard the car drive off down the street. Huddled against the row of mailboxes in the lobby, I waited for the stupid, broken-down elevator to hurry up and come. Wiping my tears away on the sleeves of my hoodie. Trying to breathe. I didn't want to be a mess when I got upstairs with the cheese.

I didn't want anyone to know what I'd done. Or what I'd felt.