Page 56 of Wish Lists and Road Trips

“My husband and I are on our way home to New York. I’m trying to decide if I’m annoyed or thankful for the holdup.”

“I definitely get that.”

“Chocolate?” She offered me some M&Ms from a sandwich bag she was carrying.Girl after my own heart.

“Thanks.” I liked her, I decided. We were both in pajamas eating candy, like some weird destination slumber party and I started to get the urge to spill my guts. I twirled the end of my ponytail around my thumb, staring out at the white, and decided to go full Brit Donovan.

“Do you believe in fate, Annie?”

Her eyebrows jumped, then she laughed lightly. “That’s a deep question, but I suppose if there was ever a time to contemplate that, it would be when you’re stuck on a broken train staring into the snowy abyss.”

“You read my mind.”

She pulled her knees underneath her and turned to me. “I like to think it’s real. But I also think it can be a crutch.”

“How do you mean?”

“Most things worth their salt are hard, right? So if you tell yourself it wasn’t meant to be when the road starts getting tough, you’ll miss out on what you could have had if you had just worked a little harder.”

“Right.” I couldn’t help but think of my parents. How they’d always accused me of giving up on things, things they’d chosen for me. “It’s just hard to know when the tough is trying to tell you something.”

“I think you just have to listen to your heart. It has a way of speaking louder than your brain.” She smiled. “Not every detour is a disaster. Sometimes they keep you from running into a tree.”

I laughed but she was right. All I could do was listen to my heart, and at least in the immediate moment, my heart was telling me that whatever force had me stuck on this train, I shouldn’t waste the time I had left with Nick.

I paced the three steps that made up our room, stressed and missing Brit. When she left me here to go exploring, I lost the soothing distraction of her company, and the excuse not to look at my phone.

The conductor told us we might lose service here and there, but if we had, I wouldn’t have noticed. I hadn’t touched it since we boarded, too busy playing cards and eating candy. Cuddling with her.

I checked my email first, the bile in my stomach churning. Note after note popped up on deals I knew my father was stuck dealing with because I wasn’t there. I went through each one, answering as many as I could without access to my computer. Tom was right, he could handle it, but it was my job. I forwarded only what I couldn’t answer, giving him as much instruction as I could. Then I moved on to the voicemail.

The first one was from Willow and my spine straightened like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t. It wasn’t far from the truth. I’d been avoiding her since last night, and she was catching on.

“Hey, Nick. I haven’t heard from you in a bit. I know you’re working your way home and I’m sorry this has been such a mess for you.” She blew out a breath like she was feeling guilty and I made a mental note to try to sugarcoat my travel updates. I didn’t need to put anything else on her plate.

“Please check in. Your mom’s worried. I’m a little worried too. Listen, I put something together with the pictures you’ve been sending. Check your email. I think you’ll like it. Thank you for doing this, Nick. I know the weather and all of these disruptions weren’t part of the plan, but what you’re doing means more than you know. Look at what I sent you. I’ll see you soon.”

I sat on the bed and clicked open my personal email account, scrolling through a bunch of subscriptions and spam until I saw one from her. I didn’t bother reading the text, I just clicked the attachment and waited while it loaded on the bogged-down network.

And my heart dropped into my stomach. A picture came into focus. The living room at Willow and Alex’s house. She’d moved the couch aside and there were ten frames stacked against the wall, different sizes overlapping but spread out enough so I could see some of each one.

I recognized the view from the willow tree first. I was propped against the cold metal wall of the train, but I could feel the mugginess of last night on my skin, the way the hair on my neck had stood up at the coincidence of finding that tree.

The other frames were filled with shots from different stops on the trip. All of the places where I’d left Alex’s ashes—the top of the volcano in Nicaragua, the zip line in Costa Rica. The one in the front was empty. It was rectangular, horizontal. It was meant for a panoramic photo. The last one. My brain filled it in with a snapshot of what it would have looked like. A white ship railing in the foreground, bluish-green water, pink and orange sunset. That was the plan. But now what?

I hadn’t called Willow because I didn’t want to lie to her. There was no way I was going to complete Alex’s list, and I’d been actively ignoring that fact since I started enjoying little parts of this trip, or at least one part of it.

I was getting tired of this mission, the constant stress. Worrying about Alex had gotten me stranded in a foreign country, stuck in an airport, stuck on a train. It was why I left Brit in that bed last night when all I really wanted was to dive as deep into her as I could. I really didn’t give a fuck if I finished this list anymore.

At least that was how I felt sixty percent of the time. The other forty was a mixture of guilt and failure. I owed him this. Was I really going to let him down? Let all of them down? Alex wasn’t the only one counting on me. Willow, my mother—they needed this the most. It didn’t matter what I wanted and I knew I should stop pretending it did.

I dropped my head in my hands, squeezing my temples. I had a headache that wouldn’t let up and now my throat was stuck shut with something viscous and bitter. My outward breath choked on it, and I felt my chest tighten around an emotion I didn’t want.

But that was the other thing I’d learned from my father—how to cut that shit off at the knees.

I launched myself off of the mattress and gripped the back of my neck.

“Shake it off, Nick. You’ll figure it out.” Maybe I would, but I was still pissed at Alex for setting me up like this in the first place.

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