Page 49 of Home in Nevada

Lucy: I'm at your place.

Jeff: Are you fucking kidding me? What are you doing????

Lucy: I'm helping. I'm going to help you, dude...

Jeff: You need to leave there NOW Lucy. Leave him the fuck alone!

Lucy: It's OK he's just packing his stuff. I'm going to give him a ride to the airport soon.

Tears well up in my eyes again, and I grit my teeth. Damn it, I can’t cry anymore.

Lucy: Hey...

Lucy: He found something of yours.

Lucy: Some diary or journal or something...

Damn... No.

I used to have a journal back in high school. Not a diary—a journal. Though, honestly, it was kind of a diary.

My thoughts race. What the hell was in there? Oh God, probably everything. Teenage nonsense, for sure. A few pages definitely filled with graphic ramblings about all the things I wanted to do with Jamie. And then there were probably a few others where I tried to sort out my feelings in a way that wouldn’t make sense to anyone reading them.

Most of it was about football games and the girls I’d been with, though.

I remember then that there’s an old picture of me and Jamie in there too, one I’d used as a bookmark. It’s from a football game we’d won together—Jamie’s arm slung around my shoulders, both of us sweaty and grinning like idiots. His short blonde hair’s a mess, there’s dirt streaked across his cheek, and I’ve got this stupid, cocky grin I thought was cool back then. I cringe just thinking about it.

I haven’t opened that journal in years. It’s probably full of embarrassing shit.

Maybe Jamie hadn’t opened it. Maybe he’d just come across it while packing. God, I could only hope…

Lucy: He said he read it all.

Fuck.

Lucy: He says he's sorry, that he read it... He says he knows you're probably pissed.

Lucy:He says he wants to say goodbye before he leaves for Nevada.

I stare at my screen, my fingers hovering over the keyboard before I finally start typing.

Jeff:It's better if I don't see him.Trust me.

Lucy: Dude, he wants to see you...

Jeff:Iwant to see him too. It's not that. It's just better if I don't see him.

Tears well up again as I think about our argument in my apartment—what if that was the last time I ever see Jamie?

I know he was offering to see me formysake, not because it was what he really wanted. Jamie was just trying to make sure I was okay before he left.

But I’m done with that.

This isn’t about me. I refuse to be the burden in Jamie’s life. He doesn’t have to do this for me.

Jeff:Tell him I said he can go.

Jeff:It doesn't matter.

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