“Tell me one random thing you did this year,” she says. I smile as an idea comes to mind.
I look over at her. “I called the Humane Society last summer to check in on Boba.”
Her eyebrows fly up when I mention the dog that we volunteered to take on walks the summer we met. “You did?”
I nod. “I was going to offer to walk him when I was visiting my parents, if he was still around.”
“What did they say?” she asks, her voice rising, her eyes widening.
“They said, ‘“Boba isn’t with us anymore.”’
Dylan gasps and slaps a hand over her mouth. I pry it away and she squeezes my fingers.
“No—” she says and I interrupt her before I see tears.
“He got adopted,” I say and let her hand go.
“He did?” Dylan exclaims and I nod.
“An older couple adopted him. They wanted a very mellow dog,” I say.
“Perfect,” she says.
“They said Boba really perked up after we took him out. We gave him a second chance.”
I can see her eyes widen in the darkness. “I can’t think of a more wonderful bedtime story,” Dylan says. “We need to do that again sometime,” she insists and I just look up at the ceiling. I don’t nod, but I don’t disagree.
Dylan’s quiet and her breathing turns long and repetitive and I know she faded off to sleep. And I’m still nowhere near it. I hear the wooden clock chime and remind me of quarter hours, half hours, full hours slipping by and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m wasting time, lying here. I listen to Dylan breathe between the claps of thunder. Visions of the last three years play in my head, and I’m remembering all the good times, all the reasons why I loved her, why I still love this girl. I want my brain to remember the times that she left me, the times she made me wait, made me doubt, broke my heart. But my mind refuses to acknowledge those memories.
The clock’s ticking starts to sound angry. It’s an impatient tapping.
I roll over onto my stomach and rest on my elbows so I can look out the window behind the headboard. I watch the way the early dawn slowly reveals things outside: a roof on a shed, a white clothes line, a chicken coop, a white fence bordering a garden. I’ve gotten used to watching the sun rise and it’s becoming my favorite time of the day. There’s always a sense of starting over. Erasing mistakes. The air is at its calmest in the morning. It’s like even the sky is meditating, staying still, keeping a clear head and focusing on the moment before it’s forced to stretch and wake up. I like to think my mind can be the same way.
I look over at Dylan and her face is inches away from mine. I openly stare at her, at the angle of her nose, slightly turned up, at the long brown and black lashes feathering her eyes.
I lay down on the pillow and I can already feel the heat of the morning sun stretching into the sky.
Dylan
I walk out to the screened-in porch where Sue Anne set our shoes out to dry. I reach down to grab mine and my arm freezes inches from the wood-beamed floor. The laces of my shoes are tangled together, in the shape of a heart. I crouch down and look at the heart, solid yet so delicate. If I lightly poked the laces, I would distort the whole image. There’s only one way to make it permanent.
I pull my camera out of my backpack and snap a picture. As my camera clicks, a piece of knowledge slips into place. I look between my shoes and the heart. It took all this traveling, all this time, to understand that my journey has never been about getting to a particular place. It was always a road leading to Gray. The star on my map, in my heart. My greatest tether, always letting me go but pulling me back. I’ve traveled 2,000 miles this summer, but that’s nothing compared to the mileage I’ve made in my head. Thoughts are your heart’s footprints, and mine always lead back to him.
I put my camera away and stare down at the heart. Wisdom is a strange teacher. She likes to show up after you make a mistake so she can point out where you went wrong, but it’s too late to go back and correct it. Maybe she wants you to screw up so you’re smart enough to start listening. Or, maybe Wisdom is a like a map. She always has a plan if you follow her directions.
I slip on my shoes and tie the laces and walk outside. Rays of sunshine spill through thick, gray clouds breaking up across the sky. Everything is shining with the polish of rain. The wet ground gleams in the light. The air smells like earth and wet gravel and wood. I inhale a deep breath and feel a wish taking root in my heart. I wish everything could start new with Gray.
I walk around the farmyard and I like the emptiness of this place. The puddles on the gravel are as still as mirrors. In the daylight it’s clear the old farmhouse is past its prime. Its light yellow paint is blistered and chipped, and the red barn is missing patches of shingles on the roof. It’s obviously been out of commission for a long time, but I can see why they never left. It must be nice to wake up every day under so much uninterrupted expanse of sky. There is something wonderfully calming about being at the center of nothing. I could live out here. I would spend every day in tank tops and jeans and sunshine. I’d take baths in a water barrel. I’d learn how to bake and garden and can vegetables. I’d sleep on the porch at night.