Chapter 19
I held the phone against my ear, listening to it ring. What if I finally got up the courage to call her—and it went right to voicemail? I had just resigned myself to this when Gillian picked up, sounding out of breath.
“Hello? Darcy?”
“Hi.” I hated that tears had sprung to my eyes at the very sound of her voice, and I blinked them back impatiently.
“Is everything okay? Did something happen?” I could hear she sounded worried, which was understandable—I never called her up just to chat.
“No, everything’s fine.” I swallowed hard. “I just, um…” I looked out at the cars flying past, everyone heading somewhere. For a second I got overwhelmed by it all—all the stories contained in all of them, all the loves and losses and heartbreaks.
Focus, I reminded myself, since I didn’t want to rely on Didi and Katy to do this anymore.
“I changed a tire.”
“You—what?” Gillian sounded utterly thrown by this, and I didn’t blame her.
“I’m on a drive with a—a friend, and the tire went flat and we changed it. You showed me how. Remember? In Oregon?”
“I do,” Gillian said slowly, like she was also pulling this memory, over a decade old, from the recesses of her mind.
“But that’s not really why I called. I…” I pressed my lips together and made myself say it. “I wanted to apologize for last night. I shouldn’t… have said those things to you. And I’m sorry.”
“Wow. Okay,” Gillian said. It was like I could practically feel her regrouping over the phone. “That’s not what I was expecting. Um… thank you.”
“I guess,” I said, making myself go on, knowing that if I stopped to think about what I was doing, I wouldn’t get through it. This was walking on a balance beam, or doing a backflip off a diving board. If you thought too hard about how impossible the thing you were doing was, you’d never accomplish it. “I’ve been… really mad at you. For a while now. And I probably should have just talked to you about it, but—” I shook my head. I was now regretting not figuring out what I was going to say before I started this, but that ship had sailed, and here we were. There was no way out but through.
“I was mad that you left, that I didn’t get to see you, like, ever, and then you started a whole new family with someone else and forgot all about me. And then it seemed—it seemed—” My voice was hitching in my throat, and hot tears had started to snake down my cheeks. I took a shaky breath. “It seemed like you wanted me to just forget about it all when I said I’d go to Stanwich, like that made up for everything. Like you were trying to buy me off or something? Like—a bribe? And I just—” I swallowed hard and lifted my sunglasses up to wipe my face.
“Darcy. I never forgot about you. Never ever.” Her voice was fierce, and it sounded like maybe there were tears on her end as well. “You’re my daughter, and not a day goes by that I don’t wish… that I would have done some things differently.” I heard her take a hitching breath on the other end of the phone, three thousand miles away from me. “I was so happy when I heard you got into Stanwich. And so proud. And I thought that maybe it could be a fresh start for you and me.”
“I was talking to…” The words Wylie Sanders floated through my mind, but I didn’t want to derail this conversation by bringing a rock star into it. “… to someone this morning, and they said that as a parent, you just want to do what you can to help your kids. And I hadn’t thought of it like that until now.”
“Oh, Darcy.” Gillian sighed. “I never meant for you to see it as a bribe. It was just…”
There was a pause, and for a second I wished I knew what she looked like right now, where she was. At work? In her kitchen, in her house in Connecticut? I couldn’t even picture it—but maybe soon, I would be able to. I’d been so dismissive of her, so angry that she didn’t know anything about my life—not factoring in, until now, that this went both ways. That I also didn’t know nearly enough about hers.
After a moment, she went on, a slight tremble in her voice. “There’s so much I wasn’t there for. So much I didn’t give you. And I just thought that this was finally something I could do for you.”
I looked out at the traffic as the warm breeze lifted my hair—the hair I’d inherited from her—and blew it all around me. “I didn’t understand just how young you and Dad were—when you had me. And I know I probably got in the way of things you wanted to do—”
“No.” Gillian’s voice was firm. “You were the best thing I ever did, Darcy. And I might regret what I did—and how I handled things—but I never regretted you. Not once.”
My eyes filled with fresh tears, like the ones I was already crying weren’t quite enough.
I heard her take a halting breath, and then continue. “And I know I probably don’t deserve one—but if you could see your way to giving me a second chance, that would make me… really happy.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes. It felt like all the things I’d so firmly believed were breaking up and floating away. Suddenly, it was like I could see everything from a new angle. What if being around Gillian this year wasn’t going to be the worst thing in the world, some kind of punishment? What if it could actually be an opportunity to finally get to know my mother? Because this was all I’d wanted when I was younger—more time with my mom. To actually be in the same place that she was. It suddenly seemed beyond petty that I was turning my back on this because it wasn’t happening in the timeline I’d wanted.
“I think I’d like that too.” I pushed my sunglasses on top of my head, wiped under my eyes, and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure what that looks like, though.”
“Me either,” Gillian said immediately, and I laughed—and heard, through the phone, that she was laughing too. “But maybe we can figure it out? We don’t have to do everything all at once.”
I nodded, feeling this hit me somewhere deep in my chest. “That sounds good.”
“Well. Okay.”
“Okay,” I echoed. There was a beat of comfortable silence, and I just took a moment to note how nice even that was—a conversation with Gillian that wasn’t fraught and testy, me snapping and angry and resenting her for everything I wanted from her but wasn’t getting.
“So now that that’s out of the way,” she said, clearing her throat, “maybe you want to tell me why Wylie Sanders’s lawyer was calling me last night?”
“Oh.” I glanced back at Russell, who was standing by the car. He gave me a look that even from a distance I could tell meant Everything okay? I nodded and pointed to my phone, and he nodded as well. “Well…”
“Did you meet him?” Gillian’s voice was high and fangirly.
“Wait—you’re a Nighthawks fan?”
“What!” She sounded affronted by this. “Of course I’m a—who do you think got your father into them in the first place?”
“Wait, what?”
“I gave him a mix tape in college! He’d never even heard them before; he was refusing to let ska go, and listening to all these bands with saxophones, and it was like, no.”
“Dad is a Nighthawks fan because of you?”
“Why do you think you’re named Darcy?”
“I thought—it was on the playlist when I was born.…”
“Yes! My playlist.”
“Oh.” I shook my head, just trying to get my mind around this truly world-shaking news. Whenever I’d listened to their songs or played albums on a loop, there had been a connection between me and my mother—I just hadn’t known about it until this minute. “Well—in that case, do I have a story to tell you.” Maybe it wasn’t only my dad who was going to get to hear about my adventure. Because it seemed like Gillian—my mom—would appreciate it too.
She laughed. “It sounds like it. I have to get to a meeting, but you’ll be on campus tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. My plane lands in the morning.”
“Unless…” She hesitated, and when she spoke again, it was all in a rush. “I mean, the offer still stands if you want a ride from the airport. It’s no trouble.”
“Oh. Um…”
“But if you’d rather come on your own, I understand.”
“No, that would be… really nice, actually.”
“Wow. Okay.” I could hear in her voice how surprised—but pleased—she was. “Great. So—just text me your flight information.”
“Okay. Will do. Um… thank you.”
“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow, Darcy.”
“See you…” For just a second, I thought about trying Mom but rejected it immediately. “Gillian.”
She hung up and I just stood with the phone in my hand for a moment. I thought of what Russell had said to me when we were fighting—what Katy and Didi were always saying—and what my dad was always trying to get me to change. That I saw things in black and white. That everything was always all or nothing.
And maybe—just maybe—it didn’t have to be that way.
Maybe I could dislike the way I’d ended up at my college but still be able to see some good things about it. Maybe Wylie could be a rock star but also have a sprawling, loving, close-knit family.
Maybe I didn’t have to solve my relationship with my mother immediately, or even know what it would look like. Maybe we could figure it out—together.
Maybe Russell could be a good guy who’d made a mistake. Maybe it didn’t have to be either love at first sight or just friends—maybe there was something in between the two.
I stood there for a moment longer, watching the cars on the highway pass me by. I knew that nothing had changed with the view—it was the same one I’d seen minutes ago. But I couldn’t help thinking it looked different now. Like everything did. Like I was now in a world where impossible things could happen.
Russell drove the rest of the way back to LA. The mechanic had tightened some of the lug nuts but declared it a good job otherwise, which I’d felt a rush of pride upon hearing. He told us not to drive too fast on the spare, and to get a real tire on the Bronco as soon as possible. Russell filled up the car with gas, and after hitting the mini-mart for some snacks and sodas—it turned out Russell liked pretzels and Coke Zero—we were back on the road.
I took over the DJ duties—occasionally going back to throw in one of the musical songs I particularly liked (Russell always smiled when this happened, even though he was clearly trying to be nonchalant about it). But the closer we got to home, the more it seemed like every song I picked was about saying goodbye, people missing each other, letting each other go. It was like I was only just now fully realizing how many songs are about painful separations, even the upbeat ones.
“You okay?” Russell asked, glancing over at me when we had half an hour left before we hit Union Station. I’d just zipped through six songs, not letting any of them play for more than a few seconds, once I really realized what they were about.
“Yep,” I said, desperately searching my Spotify for something that wasn’t about saying goodbye forever to someone. “Um—want to hear a podcast about the history of fonts?”
“Go to Helvetica? Already heard it.”
“Of course you have.”
“I have to get my fun facts from somewhere, after all. But—happy to listen to it if you want.”
“No, it’s okay.” I pulled up the newest AJR album, figuring that this was one of the safer bands I could go with, and pressed play.
“Nice,” Russell said with a smile as I rested my phone on the seat between us.
I glanced out the window—traffic was starting to creep back up, and it seemed to be getting worse the closer we got to Los Angeles. As soon as I’d gotten back to the car at the gas station, I’d told Russell what had happened with Gillian—and I realized, as I was taking him through the conversation, that he was the person I wanted to tell.
He’d been surprised to hear about the revelation that she was actually the original Nighthawks fan in the family. And as I was telling Russell about this, I thought about the sweatshirt—the one my dad had had forever. Had it first been my mom’s? It was somehow easier to picture her buying a sweatshirt with a shirtless Wylie Sanders on it than my dad, now that I really thought about it. But it didn’t have to be a complete mystery—I could ask my mother tomorrow. When I saw her.
Now, I looked across the car at Russell, at his excellent posture and careful driving and the way he kept checking in with me. Was I really going to say goodbye to him in less than an hour? Possibly forever?
He was so close to me, really. I could have taken off my lap belt and slid across the seat and rested my head on his shoulder. I could have threaded my fingers through his. I could have rested my hand on his leg and kept time to the music, played drums on his knee.
I was no longer even trying to pretend to myself that I only wanted to be his friend—and from the way he kept glancing over at me, I was pretty sure he felt the same way.
But was there any point? We’d be at Union Station before this album was over. And then… that would probably be it.
So even though I really, really wanted to reach out and touch him—even though I wanted to kiss him again—I clasped my hands in my lap and looked out the window. I hadn’t even known this person twenty-four hours ago. So would it really be that hard to say goodbye to him, let this day fade into memory, the details and specifics getting fuzzy?
Even without my inner Didi and Katy to point it out, I knew I was kidding myself.
The second we got into LA proper, traffic slowed to practically a crawl, but in contrast to this, time seemed to be moving faster. And before I’d really prepared for it, we were taking the exit for Union Station.
Russell pulled around the front circle to drop me off. “I’ll just get my car and meet you here,” I said, shouldering my canvas bag. “And then I can get my stuff from you and load it into my car.” That was also when we’d have to say goodbye—which suddenly seemed like it had arrived a lot faster than I’d been prepared for it to.
Russell nodded, shifted the car into park, and turned his hazards on. “Sounds good.”
I walked fast through the parking garage, trying to remember where I’d left my car. I was having trouble getting my head around the fact that on Friday, three nights ago, I’d parked here, not knowing anything that was about to happen. Then, I’d been excited to go to Silverspun, while dreading the future that was barreling toward me. And while it was still coming—it felt now like I was getting to choose it. Like I was barreling along with it.
I found my car, got in, and just sat there for a moment. It seemed somehow like it should be different. So much had happened—it didn’t make any sense that my car was exactly the same, maybe a little dustier. I glanced at myself quickly in the rearview mirror—I’d never had bangs, but if Chloe thought they were a good idea, I was certainly going to take that into consideration—and started the car. I’d just shifted into drive when my phone rang.
Russellwas flashing on the screen and I felt a little thrill as I answered it—somehow, this would be the first time we’d talked on the phone. “Hi,” I said.
“Hey, Darcy,” Russell said, speaking fast. “So they’re telling me I have to move my car. I can’t stay here.”
“Keep it moving!” I heard the unmistakable voice of a parking attendant, blowing a whistle that made me wince.
“Oh,” I said, trying to think fast. “Okay—I’m coming.” I pulled forward, driving toward the exit—and then slammed on my brakes. There was a line to pay at least five cars deep. “It might take me a minute to get out of here.”
“They’re definitely not going to let me stay,” Russell said, and I could hear the stress in his voice. “Maybe I could meet you somewhere?”
“Do you want to just meet at my house?” I asked, after trying and failing to think of a place near the station. “It’s just ten minutes away.”
“Great,” Russell said, and I could hear the relief in his voice, now that we had a plan. “Just text me the address.”
I did, and I had plenty of time to do it as I crawled forward, trying to get to the payment kiosk. When I finally made it, I paid using the cash I’d been keeping folded in my pocket, feeling my shoulders relax when the attendant nodded at me and the gate rose up. I no longer had to be quite so worried about money—at home, I would be reunited with my debit card and my in-case-of-emergency credit card and the three hundred-dollar bills in my sock drawer. I no longer had to be living in a state of counting my cash and trying to do parking-lot math. It was a burden I could finally put down. I pulled out of the Union Station garage and headed for home, feeling a lot lighter.
I turned onto Raven Rock’s main drag, and then I took the familiar streets to my house, the neighborhood I knew like the back of my hand. My last day here flashed into my head as I waved at our two-doors-down neighbor, who was out walking her beagle. But I didn’t want to go there quite yet. I’d spent so long thinking about tomorrow, and the next few months, what they would or would not look like. For a little while longer, while I still could, I just wanted it to be now.
I pulled up into our driveway and saw Russell standing by the Bronco, which he’d parked on the side of the street. As I got out of the car, I looked at our craftsman, with its slightly overgrown lawn and the sign that had been there since May—RAVEN ROCK HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE ___DARCY____ IS ON TO GREAT THINGS! For just a second, I wondered if I should be embarrassed for Russell to see my house, now that I’d seen his dad’s mansion, with its helipad and its pool and its guesthouses. But that only lasted a second as affection for it rose up in me, trumping all of that. It was home. Familiar and comfortable and mine.
I looked over to see Russell leaning against the vintage Bronco, sunglasses on, and so handsome it took my breath away. There was a piece of me that was still getting my head around the fact that this guy was waiting for me. That when he smiled it was because I’d come into view, and even though I hadn’t been gone long, he was happy to see me again. Was I honestly looking for more than that? Wasn’t this what it was about, at the most elemental level?
Russell came to meet me on the driveway, holding the Merediths’ tent and my duffel bag. “This is home?”
I smiled at him as I took my stuff from him. “This is home.”
We stood there for a moment, a few feet apart. I was acutely aware that I didn’t have a script for anything that happened next. As I looked at him, standing in the sun, it was as though he was coming into focus, like when you look through the lenses in the optometrist’s office, when you don’t realize how blurry things have been until the right ones fit into place. And suddenly everything is clear, and you can read the line of letters with confidence.
And I knew I didn’t want to say goodbye—not yet.
I took a step closer to him, closer than we’d been since Jesse, just hoping he wasn’t ready for this to be the end either. I took one more step and then I was right there, in front of him, with my heart on my sleeve and nothing left to lose. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said, looking down at me, happiness and surprise mingling on his face. We weren’t touching—not yet—but it felt like we were just a beat away from it.
“I didn’t know if you wanted to—come inside? It’s a long drive back to Brentwood.”
“It is a long drive,” Russell said, taking a step closer to me, his eyes on mine.
“I thought we could hang out in my house for a bit.”
A smile was pulling at the corners of his mouth, like a boat straining against its ropes. “You mean the house where your dad isn’t home?”
“The very same.”
“I thought you said—you just wanted to be friends.”
“I did say that.” I nodded, then looked up at him and smiled, my heart beating hard. He reached out and touched my cheek, so softly. “And yet…”
And then I moved toward him and he moved toward me and caught me up in his arms, and we were kissing.