Epilogue
I won the Keystone Rural Youth Mathematician scholarship on the second day of our road trip.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt pure relief.
When I got into college, I had to figure out which choice would disappoint my parents the least. Once I broke up with Murray, every conversation afterward felt like a never-ending sad song trying to define what we were.
After I enrolled at the University of Tennessee, I had to wait for financial aid, unsure if I could even afford to go.
There was always something else to do, another hurdle to moving on.
But not with the scholarship. The money was mine. No conditions. The weight was gone.
As the fall semester in Tennessee wrapped up, my anticipation turned toward the day I could drive back down Main Street again with Xander and Whitley by my side. It was like waiting for the leaves to change color: knowing it was coming, but unable to do anything to make it happen faster.
Now, I pull into the hardware store’s parking lot as the first snow of December begins to fall, soft and steady, from the night sky.
I left Penango when the trees were green and lush from the summer heat, and now I’ve returned to find them brittle and dead, stripped bare by the cold.
And yet, here I am, after so much life has happened.
I’m home from Tennessee a day early. My favorite person doesn’t finish their shift until eight p.m., but I don’t have the patience to wait a few more hours just to hug them.
Inside, I’m greeted by inflatable snowmen, glowing plastic reindeer, and the sharp scent of sawdust and metal. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” plays from the speakers. A quick scan of the registers doesn’t reveal who I’m looking for. Neither does the paint area.
The long aisles and towering shelves remind me of the endless days I spent searching the woods of the Gregor Preserve last summer.
Then the garden center doors slide open, sending a swirl of flurries around my head.
And there they are.
Even with their back to me, I spot them instantly by the Christmas trees, donned with an orange apron and a black-and-white Pittsburgh Penguins hat pulled over their hair.
My pace quickens. Wet snow lands on my warm cheeks.
People move all around me, but I don’t count them anymore. I’ve left the small numbers behind. I’ve crossed state lines and seen how big the world is. It’s more comforting to think of myself as one of eight billion than to feel like one of only six.
They’re mid-conversation with a customer, some guy who has no idea how lucky he is just to be speaking with them, shaking their hand. He has no clue that I’ve waited months for this moment.
He’ll have to pardon my interruption.
I tap their shoulder. “Excuse me,” I say. “I need help finding a six-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree.”
Whitley Wyomen turns, brows pressed. “Give me one second. I am—”
Her eyes soften the second she sees me.
“Stetson!” she shrieks.
The man beside her stumbles backward, startled, as she throws herself into my arms. We crash into the stack of Christmas trees, laughing as pine needles rain down on us.
“What are you doing here? What day is it?” she asks, breathless.
“I’m early,” I answer, grinning.
“I’m sorry,” the man interrupts. “Should I find someone else to help me with my tree?”
Whitley spins, already untying her apron. “Yeah. I’m clocking out. Nathan can help you.” She points to another worker one aisle over. The man hesitates, then trudges away.
“I can’t believe it,” she says.
“Believe what?”
“That we’re back together. We have so much to catch up on. I need to tell you how I fought off an alligator in the Everglades a couple weeks ago.”
My earbuds are packed deep in my duffel bag, far out of reach, so I can hear every word she speaks.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says. “Are you hungry? I haven’t been to the Bean since I got home.”
“Starving.”
In the parking lot, I snap a selfie with the mountains behind me, the familiar rolling peaks standing tall against the early evening sky. Guess who’s back a day early? I caption the photo before sending it to Xander.
Even though we’ve talked nearly every day since I left for school in August, distance has a way of hiding life’s little details.
I wonder how time has shaped him since the curse was broken.
Have the lines around his mouth deepened from more frequent smiles?
Has the skin under his eyes darkened from sleepless nights?
How has time carved its mark?
His response comes immediately with a selfie of his own. His golden-orange eyes burn bright. They’re the perfect color to keep me warm through the break.
Then I notice he’s holding something in his hand. I pinch the screen and zoom in with my fingers. My breath catches. It’s two tickets to Pittsburgh’s pop radio station’s holiday ball—our first concert.
I squeal.
I don’t even know who’s playing this year, but it doesn’t matter.
There’re always a dozen artists, enough live music to scream until my throat burns and to dance like the whole arena is my stage.
I’m sure people will look at me funny, but that’s my dream—to be a dot in the crowd, among the thousands who wanted to be a part of something bigger.
I lower my phone and glance past the garden center fence, taking in the town I once dreamed of escaping. But now everything beyond it feels new again, like entering the woods after the snow has melted.
Murray is out there somewhere. I hope that he’s better, doing okay.
Whitley grabs my hand, grounding me before I can float too far into my thoughts. She tugs me toward Main Street, beneath the glow of old streetlights with brighter bulbs, laughing as flurries catch in her hair.
I always thought leaving Penango would be the greatest feeling in the world. But coming back, after promising myself I never would, hits just as hard.
Turns out, life isn’t simple math. Two things can be true at once.
County lines are meant to be crossed, in both directions.
Hometowns are places we outgrow yet somehow always belong to.
And there’s no spot more magical to fall in love—or have my heart broken—than beneath the Penango sky.