Chapter Four
Alex
“Oh, I just can’t get over it. I’m so stinking proud of you.”
My mom pulls me in for yet another hug—probably the fifth or so since she and my grandparents found me out on the football field where the ceremony was held. I hug her back, smiling into her dark hair as I rest my chin on top of her head.
I want to thank her for everything, again.
I mentioned her in my speech, but even that seems like it’s not enough.
She’s been the best mom—infinitely supportive of me for, well, ever, really, even when I sort of broke her heart with the news that I wanted to go to California for college.
She just took a few minutes to compose herself and then asked me what I needed to make that happen.
And then, after I got accepted to Stanford on a full-ride scholarship, she added a line to her budget for travel expenses, telling me, “Don’t even argue.
There’s no way I’m going to go months without seeing you.
Thankfully, there are plenty of inexpensive flights from Omaha. ”
I pull back and look down at her, and I chuckle and shake my head at the tears in her eyes. She just swats at my shoulder.
“Don’t laugh at me, I only cry so much—”
“—because you care,” I cut in, finishing her statement for her. She smiles up at me while wiping a tear from her cheek.
“Darn you, thinking you’re all cute.”
“I am cute. You tell me that all the time,” I tease, but then I hug her again. “I love you, Mom.”
When she pulls back this time, she stares at me for another half second, and damn, her eyes are so filled with pride and love that it’s almost overwhelming.
She pats me on the arm and then turns to my grandparents, and they start discussing our plans for the evening.
We’re supposed to head to Omaha for reservations they made at some Japanese steakhouse, and I guess we have to leave pretty soon.
With a wave of unease, I realize I hadn’t found Nico after the ceremony, and I look up and start scanning the field.
It’s crowded, though. Parents and family and students are all milling about everywhere, talking and congratulating and hugging.
And it’s maybe a bit loud and chaotic, despite the feelings of excitement and hope everyone seems to have.
I can’t see Nico or his mom anywhere, and actually, as I look again, searching the edges of the crowd for any sign of my best friend, I remember that he’d mentioned last week he wasn’t even sure his mom would be coming. Something about her having to work and not being able to get the afternoon off.
That immediately makes my stomach drop.
“So, we should get going, yeah?” My mom touches my arm to get my attention, almost as though she knows I’m elsewhere at the moment.
I shuffle my feet a bit as I turn back to her. “Um, yeah, just . . .” I shake my head and look back toward where the crowd is starting to migrate to the parking lot.
There are so many people.
He would have hated this. I find myself hoping he actually is already gone, so he escaped before the crowd got bad.
But then what kind of friend does that make me?
I swallow hard and nod as I resist the urge to pull my phone out of my pocket. “Yeah, yeah, we can go.”
I’ll just have to check in with him later.
My mom and grandparents start off toward the parking lot, following the slow shuffle of the crowd, as the sun begins to drop lower in the sky to the west. I walk alongside my mom, and she’s rambling on and on about how wonderful the ceremony was or something.
“The speech by the blue-haired boy might have been the best part!” my grandpa pipes in jokingly, and that gets them all going again.
My mom, who’s been listening to me practice my speech for weeks now, starts pulling out random lines and reciting them, including the couple of dumb jokes I managed to slip in, and everyone’s happy and laughing as we make it to our cars. Except me.
My stupid hand is in my stupid pocket holding my stupid phone, and as soon as I’m in the truck with my seat belt on, I unlock my screen and open up my messenger app.
Nothing.
I frown, ignoring my mom as she climbs into the driver’s seat.
Alex (5:43 p.m.): hey
Nothing.
“Everything okay?” Mom asks, and I nod.
“Yeah, it’s fine, I just missed saying bye to Nico,” I explain. I’m still frowning, staring at my phone screen, waiting for him to text back.
“Oh.” My mom starts driving, navigating carefully through the busy parking lot.
She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes until we’re on the main highway heading out of the small town of Redland, Nebraska, where I’ve lived my whole life.
Omaha is north about thirty minutes or so.
“He’s probably celebrating with his family tonight. Right?”
I close my eyes, and the knot in my stomach tightens. Her question is sort of a question and sort of not, like she already knows the truth but is hoping she’s wrong.
“Um, no. I think his mom’s working. His aunt was maybe going to be driving in, but he wasn’t sure.”
Mom doesn’t answer this time, and after another few minutes of staring at my phone, I can’t stand it anymore. I tap to bring up his number and then tap again to call. It rings five times before going to voicemail.
Holding back a curse, I close my eyes again and listen to his voice on the short recording.
“Hey, you’ve reached Nico. I’m not available right now, so leave me a message, and I’ll call you back!”
There’s a beep, and I hesitate, not sure what to say.
I’m sorry. Are you okay? Call me, please. I’m worried about you. I’m an ass.
All of that is true, and yet it’s not anywhere near telling him what I’m really feeling.
“Hey, uh, it’s me. Just checking in since I missed you after the ceremony. Call me?”
Dammit.
I pull the phone away from my ear and hit the red button to end the call. Then I look back up and ahead of us. The highway stretches on and on, and I let myself get distracted.
“Backfire,” I say.
There’s a quiet chuckle from my left, and the next time a car passes us going the other direction, my mom chimes in.
“Periwinkle.”
“Greenbelt.”
“Asteroid.”
“Guzzle.”
We toss words back and forth for a while, sometimes laughing at the absurdity of whatever comes.
It’s a game we’ve played for as long as I can remember—we take turns coming up with a word that starts with the first letter in the license plate of the oncoming car.
And it’s just distracting enough that I manage to loosen my grip on my phone slightly.
After a long stretch of no oncoming cars, however, my mom clears her throat, and I almost flinch. It’s her tell—she wants to talk about something serious.
And I’m sure it’s related to Nico.
“So, I’ve actually been meaning to ask,” she says slowly, “because you never told me. What does Nico think about you taking off to California in September?”
It’s like she’s going right for the jugular with that question. I turn my head and look out the window as we pass over a narrow river. “He’s fine.”
“Alex.”
“Mom.”
I don’t want to talk about it, and part of the reason is the heavy guilt in my chest.
Nico’s not going to college. At least, he’s repeatedly told me he’s not planning to.
He can’t afford it, he can’t ask his mom for help with student loans because she can’t afford it and probably wouldn’t really even want to try, and despite working his ass off to do the best he could in his classes, he didn’t have stellar grades to get any scholarships like I did.
Of course, he’s also repeatedly insisted I should do what’s going to make me happy—what I’ve been wanting to for years. And what I’ve been wanting to do for years is to get out of Nebraska. I want to study astrophysics, and I want to do that somewhere near a beach, somewhere out on the West Coast.
We actually argued about it more than once after my acceptance letters started pouring in—Stanford on a full tuition-paid scholarship plus housing and food; UCLA with tuition covered; University of Washington, also a full ride; and a handful of others.
I tried to convince him to come with me, and when he said there was no way that could work, I told him, fine, I’d stay.
Commute to Lincoln and go to the University of Nebraska.
I still remember him looking at me like I had two heads, staring at me for a good minute before he shut down and said there was no world in which I should stick around fucking Nowhere, Nebraska just for him.
And I wanted to tell him just how much I’d do for him and just how much he’s meant to me for so long. But I said nothing then, and I’ve said nothing more about it since.
Because how the hell could it work out anyway?
I ended up choosing Stanford—how could I not accept a free education at one of the best universities in the country?—but I still feel sick when I think about leaving him behind.
“Is he really fine, Alex?” Mom asks. Her voice is soft, and I’m sure she already knows the answer.
“He says he is.” I rest my elbow on the car door and turn to stare out the window.
We’re almost to Omaha, the rolling hills and agricultural fields giving way to suburbs and businesses.
The view isn’t interesting to me; I’ve watched out this same window on this same drive too many times now.
But I pretend to be distracted by it as I hear my mom let out a short breath.
“It’s going to be a big change for both of you,” she says after a moment. That’s not what she wants to say—I can hear that tone in her voice, too—and for a second, my stomach drops.
She probably knows.
We’ve never talked about anything much—dating, girls, boys, sex .
. . There’ve been a few reminders here and there to not get anyone pregnant on accident and that porn doesn’t necessarily depict reality.
But she’s never asked me specifically about my sexuality or hinted that she suspects I’m not straight.