“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” asks my mom when I don’t say anything for quite some time.
Crap. I’m already starting this off wrong. “Sorry. I’m just …” I clear my throat. “I’m trying to, um … find the words. I swear I had them,” I add, like a little joke, desperate to lighten everything up. “Must’ve misplaced them. Like, in my head. Or something. Okay. I found them. I’m ready.” I take a breath—then grab Austin’s hand. “We’re pregnant. It’s a boy.” I sigh. “S-Sorry, I’m … losing my mind and making jokes instead of just—Is it hot in here, by the way? Did someone flip off the AC?”
Austin’s thumb rubs gently over mine, our hands still held.
I peer at our hands, once again grounded by his magic touch.
It was absolutely the right call, to ask him to be here with me. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do this without him. Or to say the right words. I’d probably just talk myself in circles until finally deciding I brought them here to share a funny story about Samuel and the dogs he was trying to get my mom to adopt.
I let out a shaky breath.
It’s the last shaky breath I’ll let out.
I look up at my parents.
Really look at them.
My mom and her concerned eyes, leaning forward, listening. My dad and his quiet, contemplative way of studying me, his thin mouth locked tight, allowing me the space to gather myself while also retaining a bit of guardedness, unsure what’s coming or how he’ll choose to react to it. He literally didn’t budge at the pregnant joke thing. Not that I expected him to. Neither did Mom, to be fair.
It’s time. “I had planned a road trip with my bestie AJ.”
That feels like a good place to start, right?
They don’t react at first. Then my mom looks at my dad with a delayed turn of her head, squinting. “AJ …?” My dad shakes his head, at a loss.
I wasn’t kidding. They know next to nothing about my college life. Even the name of my alleged best friend.
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut in, bringing their faces back to mine. “He’s … maybe not the best bestie. My point isn’t so much about … about him. It’s the road trip. I … I had planned a road trip. A big one. I’d actually still be on it right now … had my plans not fallen through.” I still have their attention. They aren’t asking anything. “Some version of me … in a … a parallel universe …” I peer at my dad, wondering if my weird sci-fi metaphor will land. “… went on the road trip. And he’s in California by now with his bestie AJ on a beach. He would have already seen the most beautiful lava caverns in New Mexico and taken a zillion pictures. He’d have walked the streets of Las Vegas and picked up M&M and Lego socks, called them his new lucky pairs, and been having the time of his life. And that version of me … still sitting out there on that California beach with AJ getting burnt to a crisp in the sun …” I glance to my side, to the man whose hand I hold. “He’d never have met Austin.”
I see his eyes brighten. Encouraging me. Listening.
I find my parents continuing to hang on to my every word. They don’t dare interrupt. They want to hear everything.
I never do this. I never open up.
This is new for them, too.
And maybe a little scary.
“I’m only now coming to realize … that my big road trip … it was a cry for help. I wanted to see the world outside of Texas. The world outside of my life. The world beyond anything I’ve touched before. All I could see was my own life … closing in. It had never occurred to me—like, ever—that I could experience anything else. That my future could be something … different. That I might know anything outside of Spruce … and … andtractors…”
“Sweetheart …”
“Please let me finish,” I beg my mom. She’s already got tears in her eyes, but she quickly nods and presses a few fingers to her own lips, drawing quiet. “I don’t want you to blame Austin for my newfound perspective. He supports me no matter what I do. This existed long beforewedid. Every summer. Every time I returned to campus … to pursue a degree with only half my heart. There’s a world out there, a big world full of possibilities … and I want to see it, Mom. I want to see it, Dad. Just to be sure.”
“To be sure?” squeaks my mom, then lifts a hand in apology and goes back to pressing her fingers to her lips, silencing herself.
“Yeah.” I nod confidently. “I want to see the world first before I decide what I’m doing with my future.”
A moment of silence passes.
Maybe it literally is a moment of silence. Like we’re mourning the death of TJ the boy. Listening to the words of TJ the man, who my mom and dad may not truly have met before. The TJ outside of this house.
I lift my wrist.
My parents’ eyes fall upon my grandfather’s wristwatch, his last gift to me before he passed.
“When granddad was alive,” I tell them, “he gave me this, and he said …” I squirm. “I’m probably going to mess up his words. It was kind of a metaphor thing. But he talked a lot about having so many dreams of his own that he never got to see. He always said he’ll do it later. Do it next time. Then he ran out of time.” I smile at the wristwatch fondly. “He told me … and, um, I’m quoting here … ‘You’d better learn how to get up off that bony ass someday, boy, and make the most outta the little time you got, ‘cause you’re still a young chicken, and that world is mighty, mighty big, so don’t go closin’ your eyes for the last time before you’ve seen it all.’”