He hugs you. It’s clumsy. His chin digs into your shoulder. He smells like gasoline and laundry detergent and something else—something that’s just him . You close your eyes and memorize it. The way his heart beats against your ribs. The way his fingers press into the small of your back.
The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
“You better.”
Later, you go up to your room. You have a blue portable CD player, and you put on the mix CD he made you last summer. Track four is “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Track seven is “Since U Been Gone.” You lie on your bed and hold the folded paper over your heart. Stay -2005-
He gets in the Jeep. The engine coughs to life. For a second, he just sits there, hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead. You think maybe—maybe—he’ll cut the ignition. Maybe he’ll get out. Maybe he’ll say You’re right. Stay.
You look at the house. At the dented mailbox. At the porch light that’s been flickering since you were both twelve. Stay , you want to say. Just stay. We can figure it out. We can sleep in my basement. We can get jobs at the mall. We can—
But the words get stuck behind the lump in your throat. He hugs you
“Yeah. That’s the point.” He kicks a loose pebble. It skitters under the U-Haul. “No memories there.”
“Phoenix is a desert,” you say, like it’s an accusation.
You type back with your thumbs, slow and careful: you too. don’t forget me. He smells like gasoline and laundry detergent and
miss you already. stay who you are.
You flip it open.
“I’ll call,” he says.