Punk 57

“Stop,” she says. “It’s not forever. You have to go. Just follow this and see where it leads.”

Right now, I couldn’t want anything less. The idea of leaving her makes me really fucking unhappy.

“You and I have had a long distance relationship for seven years,” she goes on. “I think we’ve withstood the test of time and distance. No one has ever come close to meaning to me in person what you mean to me in your letters. And now that we’ve met, and I love you,” she says, climbing into my lap and wrapping her legs around me. “I don’t doubt this. You need to go.”

“I just got you.”

“And I don’t want you holding back because of me.”

I slide my hands up the back of her shirt, savoring her warm, smooth skin.

“We’re going to have everything we want,” she tells me, laying down the law. “That’s the only way I want this with you. If you go, and you don’t like it, come home. If you do like it, I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

I can feel my nerves firing, and I don’t know how to deal with this. I’d rather not think about it today at all.

Would I like to drive around in an old rented bus and play some music this summer? Maybe. That was the plan up until February.

But now I have Ryen, and I can’t imagine not seeing her every day. I don’t see the goddamn point of wasting a minute without her in it. I won’t be happier just because I have the music.

But she’s right. She’s going off to college, and although I can, too, it won’t be the same school. I could go with her, but…I can’t follow her. We both need our own work someday, a way to be fulfilled.

“If you don’t try,” she says, “you’ll wonder later if you should’ve. Don’t put that guilt on me.”

I give a weak laugh. Geez, punch me in the nuts, why don’t you?

“If I do this, I have a condition of my own,” I tell her, looking up into her eyes. “I want you to write a letter.”

She breaks out in a gigantic smile. “A letter? I’ll write you more than one while you’re gone.”

“Not to me.” I shake my head. “Delilah.”

Her face instantly falls. I can tell the prospect of facing that demon unnerves her.

“She left Falcon’s Well in sixth grade. I wouldn’t even know where she is now.”

“I’m sure she’s just a Google search away.” Which she knows. She’s just looking for an excuse to not face it.

She turns her head away, biding time, but I nudge her chin back to me again.

“What if she doesn’t even remember me?” she asks. “What if it was no big deal to her, and she thinks I’m an idiot for still dwelling on it?”

I hood my eyes. “Any more excuses or are you done?”

“Okay,” she bursts out like a child. “I’ll do it. You’re right.”

“Good.” And I flip her over onto her back and pin her down again. “Now get undressed. I need to make up for lost time while I’m away.”

“What?” she argues as I pull her shirt over her head. “You make up for lost time when you get back!”

“Yeah. We can do that, too.”

Five Years Later…

“Ryen!” I hear my name being called. “Ryen, come on!”

I shake my head, amused as I step up onto the curb in front my apartment building. Delcour’s doorman is already poised with the door open for me to make my escape.

“No, Bill,” I say to the reporter from the Times as he and a few photographers rush up to me, cutting into my space.