Wow. She remembers what I said months ago. Suddenly I’m recalling why I found her so unusual. She’s outwardly focused, in a way few people in this business are. Including me. I smile. “Maybe the critical acclaim is more important to me than I let on.” Total lie, of course.
“Huh,” she says, and then for some reason she blushes.
Chapter 8
Graham
Me: Touching down now. I’d call but i’m afraid of the flight attendant.
Emma: Lol why?
Me: She has a mustache. And sideburns. And perpetual anger.
Emma: Be careful…
Me: I’m taking my life in my hands to text that i’m only a few hundred miles from you
Emma: Wish I was there now
Me: I want to see you so bad it hurts
The second I hit send, I’m rethinking—too late—that last text. Because how desperate can I seem? It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way. No. I’ve never felt this way. I was lovesick over Zoe, but I didn’t rearrange my life in my head to make room for her everywhere. In a matter of what—less than two weeks?—Emma has gone from the girl who got away to the girl I see in every moment of my future. I’m starting to enter panic mode and second-think everything when my phone plays its text tone.
Emma: Me too
And just like that—relief. Muscle-flooding, breath-releasing, mind-calming relief. Laughing to myself, I stare out at LA as we taxi up to the terminal. I was sixteen the last time I felt so jerked around by my own desires. I’m out of practice.
I won’t see Emma until tomorrow, when she checks into the hotel in LA, and I’m already craving the sight of her like I used to crave the feel of a cigarette between my fingers, between my lips, inhaling, exhaling, the nicotine flooding my system and making everything right with the world, thirty seconds in.
I definitely shouldn’t tell her that thinking of her makes me wish for a cigarette to take the edge off, for the first time in months. Not that I’m sure it would even work.
Me: Heads up, seeing you will not be enough.
Emma: Consider me warned and ready
Emma: OMG *blushing*
Me: :)
***
My next text is to Cassie, to let her know I’ve landed, to ask how Cara’s doing. Most of the time she’s fine when dropped at her aunt’s, but sometimes not. My sister reports that currently, Cara is dancing in front of Caleb’s battery-powered swing and eating Cheerios from a cup.
My family has been supportive from day one as far as Cara goes, day one being the day I brought her home. Before that, they were divided—Mom and Brynn on one side and Dad and Cassie on the other. Mom and Brynn were not in favor of me taking custody of Cara. We’d had a family meeting to make the decision, and even though my sisters were both in college and no longer lived at home, they were both given a vote. Mom was tight-lipped, but Brynn was livid.
“Why would you do this to yourself?” Her hand smacked the pine-planked kitchen table where we all sat, me at the head like the accused. “She told you she’s absolutely not keeping it, thank God, so you’re off the hook for eighteen years of child support. Let her take care of it in whatever way she sees fit and go live your life! You’re sixteen for f**k’s sake!”
No one said anything. I don’t think Dad and Cassie disagreed with her. They just thought I should be given the choice, and I’d made it.
I stared at my hands, splayed on the table. They weren’t as big as my dad’s yet. They weren’t the hands of a man. They were the hands of a boy. I knew in that moment that I could reclaim my adolescence and walk away from this with my family’s full support.
My voice was low, but sure. “It’s my baby. I can’t just let her give it away—”
“Graham, honey, we can all appreciate your sense of responsibility.” Mom’s placating tone annoyed me even more than Brynn’s anger had. “But Zoe is accountable for not protecting herself, too—”
“We didn’t know antibiotics would screw up her pill.”
“And you weren’t using condoms?” Brynn yelled. “What the hell were you thinking?”
My face flamed. I was sitting in the kitchen while my entire family discussed my sex life and stared at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet. Unquestionably the most awkward moment of my life.
Dad cleared his throat, and everyone waited for his tie-breaking assessment. My father is a man of few words—a trait I inherited. His eyes met those of Mom, Cassie and Brynn, one by one. “I think Graham’s made his decision, and if Zoe agrees with this, we’ll have another member of the family, and we’ll all adjust accordingly.” He turned to me. “Graham, I want your word that you’ll handle this like a man. No running away when it gets hard. No changing your mind later.”
I nodded. “I know, Dad.”
He returned the nod, as though I was an equal, and I sat up straighter.
“Talk to Zoe. Keep us informed. This will all work out.” He offered a half-grin to my mother, who sat stoically across from him. “It’s not like all three of you were planned, after all.” Mom smirked back at him. That was the end of the family meeting.
Zoe was convinced she was going to be “just like Juno.” We told her parents our decision, and since they’d given Zoe everything she wanted since the day she was born, it was easy enough to convince them to go along. There were moments during the next few months when she was pissed and blaming me for talking her into having the baby. Like the weeks she spent part of second period in the bathroom, throwing up, every day. Or when she got a new stretch mark. Or when she realized she’d gained forty pounds and the baby wouldn’t weigh more than eight.