I’m in the car driving back to Spruce, wet as a dog, with the biggest smile stretched over my face.
I got him back. Austin. Chase. It doesn’t matter his name. It’s the person behind the name. Aren’t we all in so many ways just people living behind names? Why should I be so ashamed of mine? Why should he resent his? I’ll call him Austin, call him Chase, call him Love, whatever tugs on his heart, whatever grounds him.
And he can call me TJ.
And I won’t be the boy I used to associate with that name, too clueless about the world to know right from wrong.
The sky flashes and the booms roll over the countryside and the clouds dump dirty rainwater all over my windshield as I drive down this long, dark stretch of highway, and I can’t feel more free.
What an amazing turn this whole day has taken. From despair and abandonment to Austin on a stage serenading me. Then the adventure of his drummer seeking me out after the show with a finger to his lips, dragging me through the doorinto the backstage area, and depositing me in his dressing room where he said, and I quote, “Seriously, if you can flip Chase’s mood around, that’d be great, because the poor guy’s been a miserable bag of dirt all day.”
He didn’t want to leave me in the hotel.
He felt like hehadto.
And now that I’ve got the full picture—or at least a bigger one than I was clinging to before—I can understand him.
He doesn’t have to deny himself anymore.
And neither do I.
Just thinking that fact has me giddy. Totally and utterly giddy to the point that I could laugh at the terrifying thunderstorm I’m in the center of tonight. It’s possibly the most beautiful storm I’ve ever seen. Better than the one at the Horseshoe when I thought Austin was just a fan unlucky enough to find me in a hallway.
That was Chase Holt I was dumping my life onto. Even back then. Chase Holt, just before his show, taking the time to listen to someone he didn’t even know, to comfort me however he could. What a gentleman.
And then to follow up by finding me in my hometown?
I almost cringe, thinking of how awful I was that first time we met and he bonked his head on the lamppost. I laugh again just thinking of it, overwhelmed with the feelings bursting inside me as I realize how much patience he must’ve exercised to stay with me while I bandaged him up at T&S’s.
Of course I fascinated him.
He’d never been talked to like that before.
But what he didn’t seem to realize at the time was how much he fascinated me, too. And he continues to do so, showing himself to me in so many broken, incomplete facets. I want to learn more. I want to know everything about him. I want to understand him.
The real Chase Holt.
The real Austin Love.
Yeah, I still think he bullshitted his last name. There’s no way on this planet that that’s his real name. Come on, now.
It’s still storming by the time my house comes into view. I pull into my driveway and snake under the covered part with the side door into the kitchen. I don’t know of anything important going on tomorrow, so I leave my car parked here, kick my shoes off on the mat outside, and head in.
I didn’t expect to find my mom right there at the counter with her phone. “TJ!” she shouts, out of breath.
I stop short. “Mom, hey! I didn’t expect—”
“It’s coming down like dogs and cats out there!” she cries—she always gets the saying backwards. “I have been calling you nonstop for hours! It’s well after midnight! Where’ve you been??”
The music must still be playing in my ears, Austin’s soulful voice, guitar, swimming lights and colors … I find myself floating over the kitchen tiles, immune to my mom’s outburst, as I come up to her. “Smooth sailing down the highway,” I answer her, a disarming contrast to her harsh tone of voice, and then I hug her. “Thankfully notliteralsailing, considering how much it rained,” I add with a chuckle. Then I pull back. “I had the best time, Mom.”
She’s mystified. “Doing what?”
I grin. “Living.” Then I waltz to the fridge, pull it open, and help myself to a beverage I haven’t had in ages: a strawberry soda. I have no idea what brand it is or where my mom gets it from, but she always keeps it stocked, probably because I fell in love with it when I was nine and she remembers everything, and the second I crack it open and sip its sugary sweetness, I’m grounded at once. “Freakin’lovethis stuff,” I moan after letting out a long, satisfying, slightly obnoxious exhale.
Thunder booms outside, right on cue. A new wave of heavy rain dumps over the house and slaps the windows in gusts.
Then it hits me. “Oh, I forgot, my phone died!” I pull it out and give it a mournful sigh, then frown at my mom. “I’m so sorry. Ofcourseyou were worried. I didn’t mean to do that to you. And you stayed up all this time waiting to hear back from me, and with this crazy storm …” I collapse against the counter with a frown. “I’m so sorry for putting you through that. How horribly irresponsible of me. I thought it was charging in the car, but I guess it wasn’t, and I didn’t realize it untilwaytoo late, and …”