Chapter 14

“I was going home,” he says. “You know, when we talked about it a couple weeks ago. Stuff just, I don’t know…changed, in between.”

“So what if I tell you this?” I venture.

“What?”

“How you were like, but aren’t your parents on a cruise?…”

“Yeah?”

“They totally are.”

“What?”

“South America. They’re gone til like the middle of January.”

“So…”

“I wasn’t going home for Christmas, you were right. But then you sort of said it was no ride that was keeping you from going home, and I was like, I don’t know…” I lean on his phrasing. Acknowledge this choice with a bashful grin. “I kind of saw my chance. I didn’t really have anything else to do, and I was like, Spend the day thinking about George, or spend the day next to him…?”

“Thinking about George?”