Open Road Summer

I wasn’t going to, not directly. I thought it would be more fun to write it into a song, then perform it in a concert.”

I roll my eyes, tugging my arm away to give his shoulder a push. He pulls me closer, sliding his hand around my neck so that his thumb is right on my pulse. We stand there for a few moments, just looking at each other

I’ve been arguing on the side of a dirt road with a petulant singer who’s wearing a guitar on his back. This entire scene is a mess, and maybe we’re a mess, too. But it’s still him and still me, and there’s still that feeling of possibility—the one that sparks like a Roman candle inside me as his lips touch mine. And it’s a start

Sometimes he’ll try to shut down, and I’ll climb in and hot-wire him if I have to. We’ll fight with each other—I know that, too—but we’ll also fight for each other. That’s the difference, the one that keeps me standing here with his hand in mine.

He adjusts the guitar against his back, and we start down the path back home. Matt pulls his hand away, but only to sling his arm around my shoulder. I wrap one arm around his waist so that we’re moving forward but hanging on at the same time.

I slide my healed arm up so that my fingers lace between his. I know my mistakes like the back of my hand, but I can chart my future by the underside of my wrist. The henna constellation marks my skin, a reminder to guide me. After all, the night sky is a mess of stars—a million fireflies crammed into infinity. But the mess becomes a map once you know how to use it.

Hanging on to someone’s hand—it’s such a simple act, but it’s harder than it looks. I keep my eyes on his, not even blinking, and all I can think to say is, “Okay.”

“Okay,” he says, smiling, and this is our deal—a quiet understanding after a summer’s worth of slow learning.

you might hurt me.”

“Maybe.” He keeps his eyes on mine, but his hand finds my still-scrawny wrist. He lifts it up gently, exposing the pale underside and the hand-drawn stars. “But never like this.”

It’s hard to think straight when I feel his skin on mine. “I know that.”

“I would like to know you for a while,” he says. “And if that means we’re just friends, so you have some time to work things out . . . I can do that.”

He’s defrosting me, and he knows it. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I might hurt you,” I blurt out.

My eyes meet his, that steely color not backing down. And the thing is: it’s not a rhetorical question. I want him to give me a reason—a reason worth risking it for. When he opens his mouth to reply, his voice is quiet but determined.

“Because I’ve recently learned, in a very painful way, that life is short. And I don’t want to waste my time with anyone who would make me feel . . . happy enough.” He pauses, searching my face. “I’d rather duke it out with someone who makes me feel everything.”

So I’m going to keep showing up here until you can say to my face that you want me out of your life,” he says. “Not because you’re protecting yourself from getting hurt, but because you really don’t want me.”

Maybe I want you out of my life because you betrayed me. But the thought is a lie, top to bottom. I don’t want him out of my life, and I don’t even really believe he betrayed me. I know now that he was in the wrong place, and I walked in at the wrong time.

But what happens when you meet another girl you’d rather be with?”

He looks at me hard. “What happens if you meet some guy you want to date? Or get sick of me or sick of being in a relationship? We talk, we fight, maybe we break up. I can only tell you that I’ll end it like a man—no cheating or getting mean and distant.”