I don’t want to just drop her off and go back home.
No way.
I feel Lily holding on to me as I ride my bike, believing that this machine is maybe the best thing to have ever happened to me. I refuse to let her just go away into the night. I want to stay with her. I want to do things other kids our age are doing. I want to—finally—just give in and get it over with so I don’t have to be thinking about it all the time.
But when I get to the familiar bed-and-breakfast where Lily stays, I see a man waiting by a car. She curses. It seems like he’s waiting for her.
“What?”
“Nothing—I need to go.”
“No.”
She gets off the bike and stands, brushing back her hair. “Yes, Chris.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Well, you’re going to have to.”
“Who is that guy?”
“Nobody.”
But he definitely looks like somebody. Everything about her has changed.
“I’ll go ask him myself,” I say.
“Chris—that’s my father.”
I can barely make out the guy—he’s about my height, pretty solid build, still has his hair, which looks dark. The guy doesn’t seem that old.
“Please, Chris.”
I’m so tired of dropping her off and letting her go. So tired of seeing Lily and smelling Lily and then sending Lily home.
Half of me wants to go up to the man and introduce myself.
Hi, my name is Chris, and I want to marry your daughter.
But I realize that marriage isn’t the thing weighing on my mind right now.
I’m sorry, but my name is Chris and I just want your daughter.
Lily leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you, Chris.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
She glances at her father, who’s still just resting against the car. “No. But that’s okay.”
“I can wait.”
“No. I’ll—I’ll contact you later.”
Soon I’m back on the road, driving in darkness, the beam of light looking as lonely as I feel.
No, it’s not lonely. It’s hungry.
When I get home—
Do I even need to say it?
Repeat track “Home Alone” over and over again. It’s a long track on the album Cabin Fever.
I check the fridge but don’t see anything worth eating. I turn on the TV but don’t see anything worth watching. I keep checking my phone, even though it’s only been fifteen minutes—now twenty—now thirty—since I saw Lily.
I go upstairs feeling restless, just like always.
I really had some strange feeling that it might happen tonight.
And that’s weird because it’s not like I’ve ever done it. Not officially, technically, all that. Trish and I were a thing back in Illinois, going out then not going out, changing status on Facebook (well, she changed hers—I think it’s stupid even having a status to change). And the subject came up, but Trish was scared. She said she felt like it wasn’t right to do before marriage, and I remember laughing, wondering who even said stuff like that. Then she said most of all she was scared.
We got close. But that was it.
Then I moved.
Then came this dark-haired beauty named Jocelyn, and there was that one time—but that was different. Everything was different with Jocelyn.
Everything’s been different since coming to this hole in the world called Solitary.
I sigh, because I don’t want to think of Jocelyn. I don’t want to wonder if she’s up there in the clouds watching me wanting to have sex with Lily. I’m seventeen, eighteen soon enough, and I can’t really say I’m saving myself for marriage. Mom sure would like me to and Dad has told me that’s the right thing to do.
But they’re not here.
Then again, nobody else is here either.
I wait to hear from Lily.
And I keep waiting.
And I keep waiting.