Track 22 #3
“Hey, how do you have money right now?” I ask. “Did you, like, get a job in jail or something?”
“No,” he laughs. “I had a bunch saved before I went away, remember? For the move and everything,” he says, crouching at the box at his feet.
I nod agreeably as he tapes it shut. I guess I never realized Parker had a bank account, considering the way he earned money wasn’t necessarily on the books.
“Alright, last one.” He drums a beat against the box.
“You actually had a lot of stuff in here.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve lived here for two years. Things kind of accumulated, I guess.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hums. His eyes flick past me and toward the hallway. “Like a guy’s sweatshirt hanging in your closet?”
I turn to him, annoyance sharp and immediate. “That’s… We’re not discussing that.”
His brows hike, lips twisting into a knowing smirk. “I was just being observant.”
“Well, observe other things,” I warn. “Regular things.”
“Fine,” he says with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, pushing himself up from the box. “I’ll drop it.”
“Thank you,” I breathe, relief loosening the knot in my chest.
Silence stretches a bit too long.
“I just figured,” he adds casually, “you’d wanna tell me about the boy who’s so in love with you.”
My head snaps up. “Who said anyone’s in love with me?”
He pauses, arms crossed over his chest as he leans back against the counter, studying me like he’s deciding how much truth I can handle.
“He did,” he says calmly. My brows knit together in confusion, and he adds, “Jake, that is.”
I swear my heart stops.
The whole world stills around me.
My ears begin to ring, and a coldness coats my palms like I’ve just stepped off the edge of something I didn’t know I was standing on.
Parker clears his throat. “I got a letter from him last month. That’s how I knew when your graduation was. Where it would be.”
It doesn’t even register at first. I never gave it any thought—how Parker just showed up out of nowhere, knowing exactly where to be. I was too in shock to question it.
“How?” is all I manage. It's barely a whisper.
“I guess he looked me up in the system, public records and all that.” He shifts from one foot to the other. “He, uh…” His voice falters. “He thanked me for taking care of you. Said that meeting you was a gift. That…if he had the chance, he’d choose you all over again.”
I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. Parker’s words settle heavy and slow, like dust after a collapse. Every syllable lands in my bones with a crushing weight.
He crosses the room, stopping just in front of me, but my eyes don’t register him there. They’re too blurred by tears spilling freely down my cheeks.
“He loves you, Alana,” he says quietly. “Undoubtedly. And I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you love him, too.”
I close my eyes, sucking my lips between trembling teeth. “Yeah,” I breathe.
Parker nods. “What do you want, Alana?” he asks.
“Do you want to go back home? Or were you just going because you had to? Because if that’s what you thought, I’m here to tell you, you don’t.
Not if it costs you everything. Not if it means walking away from something that’s too big to bury.
I know that kind of love, Alana, and I’m telling you—it’s worth everything.
So if you’re keeping yourself from it, don’t.
You don’t need to sacrifice anymore. That’s my job now. ”
“P,” I sob, my voice shaky and broken. “You’ve already sacrificed so much. You’re whole life—”
“I’ll get it back, Lana. But I don’t want any of it if it means you have to give up yours. That wasn’t the point of all this. The point was so that you could have a life. You deserve to be happy, Alana. Whatever that looks like.”
My head shakes. “I can’t leave you now.”
Parker’s face softens, something achingly familiar settling into his expression—the same look he used to give me when I was little and scared and didn’t know how to be brave on my own. “It’s not leaving, it’s living. And that’s the only thing I ever wanted you to do.”
My pulse stutters. “Seattle is so far,” I whisper.
“So was Austin,” he says quietly. “And we survived that. We always planned to.”
My lips quiver. “I’m scared, Parker. What if I mess it up? What if—”
He smiles. “Then you mess it up. You learn. You keep going. That’s what living a life looks like, Lana. It’s full of mistakes and twists and turns. But you’re not gonna mess it up. I know it.” His thumb wipes a tear from my cheek.
“But what if it doesn’t work out?”
“I’ll still be right here,” he says without hesitation.
“I’ll always be your brother. That part doesn’t change just because you’re following your heart.
” He pauses and his eyes take me in, as if he’s memorizing my face for the next part of this journey.
He gives me a small nod. “Go to Seattle, Lana.”
I swallow hard, disbelief and elation mixing into one. “You’re really okay with this?”
“I’m more than okay with it,” he says. “I didn’t give up years of my life so you could stay stuck somewhere out of guilt. I did it so you could stand in that airport, scared as hell, and still get on the plane.”
He pulls a folded paper from his back pocket and hands it to me. My eyes scan over the words carefully. United Airlines flight 5208. Austin, Texas to Seattle, Washington.
“I stopped at the library on my way back from Barton Creek. Great mall, by the way.” He points to the paper. “Your flight leaves in a couple days. So, sorry, but you’ve got a little more packing to do.”
His lips tilt to one side, his eyes full of light and wonder.
My breath breaks. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” he says, his voice roughening just a little, emotion coating his eyes. “I love you right back, kid. Now go pack so we can grab some dinner. You’ve got me working on an empty stomach here, and I’m a growing boy.”
I huff out a laugh. “You’re twenty-seven, sir. You stopped growing a decade ago.”
“Tell that to the biceps,” he says, lifting his arm to show off the muscle before falling back onto his couch bed.
I roll my eyes and head to my bedroom, turning around just before the door.
“Hey…what about you? Where are you going from here?”
“Me?” He stretches his arms above his head, linking his hands behind it. “I gotta go see about a girl.”
My heart flutters as his sweet smile breaks through.
“Everyone gets a happy ending, Lana,” he says with a wink.
And I’ve never believed him more.