Autoboyography
Page 70

“I flew to LA this morning.” He studied my reaction, before adding, “To find you.”
I remembered the day I found him outside my house, flayed by his parents’ silence. Panic crawled up my neck. It was my turn to ask, “Are you okay?”
“I mean, LAX is sort of a nightmare.”
I bit my lip, fighting a grin, fighting a sob. “I’m serious.”
He did a little side-to-side nod. “I’m getting there. I’m worlds better seeing you, though.” A pause. “I missed you.” He looked skyward, and then back at me. On their return trip, his eyes were glassy and tight. “I missed you a lot. I have a lot of forgiveness to earn. If you’ll let me.”
Words were a jumbled mess in my head. “What happened?”
“Seeing you at the signing really threw me. It was like being shaken awake.” He squinted from the sun. “I went on my book tour. I read your book almost every day.”
“What?”
“It started to feel like a new holy book.” His laugh was sweetly self-deprecating. “That sounds crazy, but it did. It was a love letter. It reminded me every day who I am and how much I was loved.”
“Are loved.”
He inhaled sharply at this, and then added, voice quieter, “A few weeks after I came home from New York, my letter came—my mission call. Mom planned this huge party. There were probably fifty people coming to our house, more waiting to watch on Facebook.”
“Autumn told me. I think she watched it, but I wouldn’t let her tell me anything.”
He swallowed, shaking his head. “We didn’t do it in the end. I told my parents that night that I didn’t think I could go. I mean,” he amended, “I knew I could talk to people about the church, and my testimony, and what Heavenly Father wants for us.” He bent, pressing his mouth to my knuckles, eyes closed. It felt like worship. “But I didn’t think I could do it the way they wanted: tied off from you, and them, and trying to be someone I’m not.”
“So you’re not going?”
He shook his head, his lips brushing back and forth over the back of my hand. “I withdrew from BYU too. I’ll probably transfer somewhere else.”
This time, hope beat every other reaction to the punch: “Here?”
“We’ll see. The advance on my book is giving me some breathing room. I have some time to think.”
“What about your family?”
“It’s a mess right now. We’re working our way back to each other, but I don’t know what it will look like.” He tilted his face up, wincing. “I don’t know yet.”
I want this burden, I thought. And maybe that’s what just happened. Maybe I earned it. I want to be at least partly responsible for showing him that what he might lose is outweighed by owning his life, completely.
“I’m not afraid of having some work ahead of us.”
“I’m not either.” He smiled up at me, bared his teeth against my hand, and with his playful growl, blood rushed hot to the surface of my skin.
I took ten seconds, eyes closed, to calm down. Breathe in and out, and in and out, and in and out, and in and out.
And then I leaned forward, pouncing, tackling him. He fell backward in surprise, and I landed on top, staring down at his wide, sparkling lake-eyes. My heart pounded against my breastbone, pounded against his, banging on the door to be let in.
“You’re here,” I said.
“I’m here.” He looked around where we stretched out on the grass, instinctively hyperaware. Not a single person was paying any attention.
So he let me kiss him, just once. I made it a good one, though, offering up my bottom lip.
“You’re here,” he said. I felt his arms slide around my waist, hands linking at my lower back.
“I’m here.”