“Come on, you guys,” Josh an­nounced, try­ing to get the rab­ble in or­der. “We're go­ing to miss the last train.”

We fol­lowed af­ter him, an un­steady mess of high heels and silk, un­but­toned shirts and lost jack­ets. Whit­tak­er, who seemed might­ily sober, kept his arm wrapped around me and I was grate­ful both for the warmth and the added sta­bil­ity. I could hear the girls' un­even foot­steps be­hind me and knew it would be a mir­acle if no one broke an an­kle.

245

“Did you at least have a good time?” he asked.

“Oh! The best!” I an­nounced. “Thank you so much for let­ting me be your plus-?one.”

“You're quite wel­come,” he said, squeez­ing me a bit clos­er to him. “So, I was think­ing, per­haps when the cold weath­er comes, we might take a trip out to my fam­ily's house in Tahoe. I'm sure my par­ents would love to meet you.”

I tripped on a seam in the side­walk and grabbed on­to him to steady my­self.

Par­ents. Meet­ing. Meet­ing the par­ents. No. Wrong. For a mo­ment the world spun, but then it all clicked back in­to place. I pushed away from Whit­tak­er slight­ly, stand­ing on my own two feet, and tipped my head back to look at him.

“Whit? Can I talk to you for a sec­ond?” I asked. “Alone.”

“O

f course,” he said. He looked at the oth­ers. 'You can go ahead. We'll be right be­hind you."

Noelle shot me a know­ing look, then walked off with the oth­ers in tow. I took a deep breath. Even in my tip­sy state I knew what I had to do. This had gone on long enough. Whit­tak­er de­served to know the truth.

“Whit­tak­er, I'm re­al­ly sor­ry, but I don't think we should see each oth­er any­more.”

“Ex­cuse me?” Whit­tak­er said.

“I'm sor­ry. I re­al­ly like you. You're a great guy,” I said. “But the truth is ... I'm just not at­tract­ed to you.”

“Oh,” Whit­tak­er said, look­ing at his shoes. “Well. That was blunt.”

246

“I'm sor­ry! I didn't mean it to be,” I said, my eyes swim­ming. “I just thought you'd ap­pre­ci­ate the truth.”

Whit­tak­er took a deep breath and nod­ded. “I do,” he said game­ly. “I can't say I'm not dis­ap­point­ed, but I'm glad you were hon­est.”

I tilt­ed my head. “Aw, Whit. You are so gonna make some girl very hap­py one day.”

Whit­tak­er laughed. “I hope so,” he said.

I teetered on my heels and he slipped his arm around my shoul­ders. I'd just bro­ken up with him and he was still look­ing out for me, steady­ing me. It made me think of Con­stance and how she'd tak­en my hand dur­ing ser­vices that morn­ing when they'd an­nounced Thomas's dis­ap­pear­ance. Sud­den­ly, sad­ly, I hoped more than any­thing that those two would some­how get to­geth­er. They were com­plete­ly per­fect for one an­oth­er.

'You will!“ I told him, my words slur­ring to­geth­er. ”In fact, I know some­one. You know her, too. You just have to go out with her once and you'll to­tal­ly fall in love with her."

Whit­tak­er smiled wist­ful­ly. “Maybe we should talk about this on the train,” he said, start­ing to walk and tak­ing me along.

“Okay,” I said, my eyes half-?clos­ing as we moved down the street.

The train, a soft seat, maybe a nap, sound­ed like a fab­ulous idea. But even as I looked for­ward to it, I couldn't be­lieve that it was over. The Lega­cy, my “re­la­tion­ship” with Whit, my first trip to

247

NYC--it was all done. And it had all passed in a blur, with no sign of Thomas.

In the end, he had nev­er shown. In the end, I hadn't even need­ed to be there. I took a deep breath and sighed grim­ly. Sud­den­ly all I could think about was get­ting back to Eas­ton and putting it all be­hind me.

248

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