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“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll be there Ana. Nothing will keep me away.”
“And will you visit me in California?”
“If you aren’t too busy, yeah, of course.” I say it casually, although if it was up to me, she wouldn’t leave for California at all.
To scold myself for that thought, I tell the biggest lie of the day. “Don’t let anything hold you back. Especially a guy like me.”
“I guess that goes for you too. Why would you hold back waiting for me, after all.”
That makes me laugh because she is so far from the mark.
“What?”
“I’m not waiting for you; I’m making myself worthy of you. That isn’t a sacrifice, Ana. It’s an honor.”
He isn’t here.
It’s nearly midnight and I’m tired of being congratulated and praised and hugged. I graduated from high school; I didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize. Try telling my brother that.
He hired an event planner, caterers, mixologists (which is what you call people who serve extra-fancy non-alcoholic drinks), and a DJ. The backyard is completely transformed into an early summer festival.
My brother went all out, opening the house to friends from my new school and flying in a couple of girlfriends from Connecticut I’ve kept in touch with. There are even a handful of his teammates from the Mavericks and folks from Maeve’s garage. And of course, my father and the MacElroy clan. Except Bryce, who is apparently delayed at work.
He isn’t here.
There’s a swirling sensation in my stomach that won’t settle. It might be the cloyingly sweet virgin margaritas, or the lack of food, or the aftermath of hosting and dancing for hours causing my discomfort.
Even as I list all the reasons I could be feeling off, the lies fall flat. I’m not hungry or tired.
What I’m experiencing is the churning disappointment that has lodged itself somewhere between my lungs and abdomen. Whenever I speak, my cheer sounds fake and my chest is weighted.
He isn’t here.
What did I expect? That he would drop his obligations in D.C. to keep a silly promise?
Declan says the intense training for his job limits Bryce’s access to the outside world. He occasionally video calls during Sunday dinner. We’ve texted a handful of times in the last two months.
He’ll eventually send me a congratulations text, I’m sure of it. It’s a text I’ll promptly delete because damn him, he isn’t here.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell Shawna, who is flirting with the DJ.
“OK. But come right back. He’s about to play our song, bitch!”
She sounds drunk, although she didn’t touch alcohol. Freedom from high school drudgery is a heady drug all by itself.
After some vague promises to return, I walk away like I’m heading to the house. However, I take a right turn toward the detached garage where my Viper sits.
The dance music falls away when I shut the side entrance to the garage. Motion control lighting blinks before I turn it off manually. A lamp beside Maeve’s workstation is more than enough light for me to navigate the space I’ve come to know so well.
I don’t know when I started doing it regularly, but sitting in the Viper has become a sort of meditative experience.
The car is a cocoon I built for myself. It’s the embodiment of the sort of choices I want to make: unique, maybe even risky, but relevant somehow. There’s history built into this car. The model represents a moment in manufacturing when the purest form of speed was at the forefront, without the bells of flashy dashboards and the whistles of luxury leather.
God, I love my Viper. It’s a concrete example of what my hands can do. What I can bring to the world when I employ labor and love to a vision.
