Say You'll Remember Me(42)

We were really well matched. Even this early I could tell.

But I didn’t stay in Minnesota. And I was never going back.

If we were lucky, Mom had a decade. More. And I wasn’t missing a moment of it. I’d missed too much already.

She couldn’t make any more memories with me. But I could still make memories with her. I would be a witness to her life, even though she was done witnessing mine. And it sucked, because it meant this thing between Xavier and me had no future.

“Today was the perfect day,” I said, almost to myself. “Minus the dead mouse.”

He laughed softly. He held my hand between us. “When can I come back?” he asked.

I let a breath out through my nose and said the hard part out loud. “I don’t think you should.”

He stared at me a long moment. Then he sat up. “Why?”

I sat up too. “You don’t live here,” I said.

Silence.

“Can you honestly say that this makes sense?” I said.

“I like you, Samantha—”

“I like you too. I like you so much that I know if we keep doing this, I’m going to set myself up to be miserable. And you’ll be miserable too.”

He studied me. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. You didn’t. I just think we need to be smart—”

“I don’t think I want to.”

I licked my lips and looked him in the eye. “Xavier. What is it that you want?” I asked. “Like, in a relationship.”

“I want someone who knows what come on Eileen means.”

“You want a witness to your life. Right? You want a parallel timeline.” I gestured between us. “This, you living two thousand miles from here, is not a parallel timeline. You can’t witness a life that’s taking place in a whole different time zone.”

“People do long-distance,” he said.

“They do it when there’s an end in sight. They do it when it’s temporary, for school, or the military. They do it until they get to be together. It could be ten years before we get that. If we get that. I am never coming back to Minnesota. I will not leave my mom. And you can’t be here either, you have a business there. You just opened it, right?”

“Two years ago.”

“So it’s probably upside down still, you can’t sell it? You still owe too much money to the bank?”

He went quiet for a moment. “No, I can’t sell it.”

“When could you?” I asked. “In theory, if you wanted to move here, how long? Three years? Five? More?”

His silence confirmed more.

“I think I let you come partly because I was hoping it would give this closure,” I said.

“Me too,” he admitted, quietly.

“But it didn’t though. It made it worse. And it’s going to get harder every time. You can’t be here,” I said. “I can’t be there. And I know that’s all really down the line stuff, but I don’t want to start something that can only end badly. I’m not doing that to the Samantha of two years from now. She would be very mad at me.”

He looked hurt.

Xavier’s mask had come down, the blank slate had fallen away sometime over the last two days. I bet that would have been fun to see. Xavier, thawing. Getting warmer and warmer as time went on and we got to know each other better.

He was very worth knowing.

He deserved a proper witness.

I took his hand. “You need to forget about me. I’m serious. Go home, find a girl there. Don’t call me, don’t text me. It’ll only make it harder for both of us.”

He didn’t try to reason with me again. The facts were the facts. Even if we hated them.

Four hours later I dropped him off at the airport and kissed him goodbye.





19





XAVIER


SIX WEEKS. THAT’S how long I’d been back from California and how long it had been since I talked to Samantha.

It was September now, my favorite time of year. The leaves were starting to change. Cool enough to be comfortable, warm enough that the trails weren’t icy when I went for my runs. I’d gone for a few days to the cabin with my friends last month. I spent time with Jake from State Farm. Tina and Maggie decorated the front desk with autumn leaves and pumpkins, which I always liked. I should be happy.

I was in the worst mood of my life.

I could not stop thinking about her.

I hadn’t called or texted her because she had been clear in asking me not to. She was right. There was no point in pursuing a relationship. I’d taken a gamble going to California. I’d hoped it would make the longing better, but it had only made it worse. And now we just needed to stop before it got more complicated. Objectively I knew it was the right course. But I could not get my brain to cooperate.

I was in the office taking a lunch break. I wasn’t actually eating, just sitting there with the door closed. I could hear Maggie and Tina laughing at the break table. Normally I’d have the door open and they’d include me in whatever they were talking about, but lately I just didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like anything.

I still had sand in the shoes I wore to the beach.

Yesterday one of the shells that I found for her showed up in the pocket of the pants I wore.