My instinct was to tell him no, but then the reality of it slipped in. If I hadn’t gone back with him, I would have been up all night worried about his safety.
These days, it’s harder to be away from him than ever.
And the idea of a vacation from my daily life sounds vitally necessary, right now.
I first notice something different aboutOliver when we’re halfway through the road trip, then confirm it once we arrive.
“We’re close,” he says, looking out through the front windshield.
His neighborhood is beautiful. A wealthy suburban residential neighborhood with manicured streets, sprawling two-story homes, and curving roads.
“This is absolutely nothing like what I grew up in,” I tell Oliver.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Very good. When my mom got enough hush money from my dad, she bought a modern glass-and-steel thing that looked more like a cold museum than a home. The front yard was covered in concrete pavers and only small, designated portions of grass.”
“Not exactly cozy vibes.”
“Zero cozy vibes. My mom hates anything that requires any maintenance or care. Grass, plants, animals, her own son.”
“Christ, Niko.”
“This seems like a beautiful place to grow up,” I tell Oliver, looking around and changing the subject away from my childhood. “I can picture kids riding bikes around here, playing hide-and-seek, actually being loved by their parents.”
He puffs out a nervous laugh. “Sprinkle in alotof social awkwardness on my part, but… yeah. Otherwise, I definitely did do all of that in my childhood. Guilty as charged.”
I reach over and squeeze his thigh.
We pull up outside a house that’s white with navy blue trim on the window shutters.
The front landscaping is lush, with beautiful Japanese maple trees out front and a dusting of snow on the lawn.
We get out of the car and start to walk toward the house, and Oliver nervously tugs at his clothes. He’s in a pale green sweater that fits him tight and makes his eyes look like two goddamn jewels, and as the neckline moves I catch a glimmer of gold around his neck.
“You’re wearing the necklace I got you,” I tell him.
I bring my fingertips to the fine gold chain, so thin it’s barely there. I pull out the small dragonfly charm, running my thumb over it.
“Oh. Yeah,” he says, reaching up to touch it, too. “I put it on this morning.”
He’s fidgety.
He’s actually completely nervous to be bringing me back here.
Earlier, he tried to ask me about what happened when I got hurt a couple of months ago, and again, I managed to push him off of the topic.
I’m just… not ready yet.
Not ready for him to know how empty I was, in that moment.
Why I jumped.
And why I didn’t care if I survived the fall, even if I wasn’t trying to hurt myself.
We made the road trip over here this morning in my car, and for the whole drive over, Oliver got more antsy and talkative the closer we got.
Now he seems practically ready to leap out of his skin.