Page 77 of Split Decision

"Phoenix morning," he says, handing me one.

"Yeah."

He stands beside me and we look at the mountains together for a minute. This is one of the things about Travis that has grown familiar over nearly five months—he doesn't require conversation. He simply occupies space beside you without demanding anything.

"You're thinking about going," he says.

"I'm thinking about a lot of things."

"You've been thinking about a lot of things for three days. It's starting to look like a decision."

I turn the coffee cup in my hands. "His fight is tomorrow night."

"I know."

"If I go?—"

"I know that too." Travis drinks his coffee. He just lets me get to it.

I look at the mountains.

"If I go," I say, "I need it to be for the right reason. Not because I'm hurt and I want to see him before I've decided anything. Not because I'm afraid that if I don't go,something will break that can't be fixed." I pause. "And not because it's easier to show up than to keep sitting with the question."

"What's the right reason?"

I think about that. Actually doing it. Separating what I want from what I'm afraid of, from what I actually believe is true.

"Because I love him," I say. "And because I want to be in the room when something important happens to him, regardless of where we are. Because that's who we are to each other, even when everything else is complicated."

I pause.

"And because I think the version of me who stays on the bus to avoid the risk of a hard conversation is not the version of me I want to be."

Travis nods slowly.

"That sounds like a right reason," he says.

"It might also be the same as the wrong reason dressed differently."

"Yeah." He finishes the coffee. "That's usually how it works."

We stand in the Phoenix morning, and I make the decision the way you make the ones that matter—not when youhave all the information, but when you've run out of ways to avoid knowing what you already know.

"I'm going," I say.

"Okay." He doesn't make it larger than it is. "I'll come with you. You shouldn't drive out there alone at night."

"Travis—"

"I know the territory," he says. "And I have a motorcycle I've been wanting to take out on that desert highway." He looks at me sideways. "It's fine, Andi. That's what friends do."

I look at the mountains in the sharp Phoenix light.

"Okay," I say.

He teachesme three chords on his acoustic guitar that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the tour bus with the desert heat pressing against the windows. Not because I ask—just because he picks up the guitar and starts playing and eventually turns it toward me and says, "Your turn."

I'm terrible.