Page 39 of Road Trip

Living in the double-wide with Mom and Zeke.

Community college in Melfa.

Seeing the exact same faces everywhere I went—except the one I wanted to see.

I’d been desperate to get out of Cape Charles for years now, and it wasn’t like Jacob would be there most of the time anyhow. I’d barely see him when college started, once he had classes and new friends and a job, so why not barely see him when I wasn’t also being a loser in Cape Charles?

I’d miss him, but that was true whether I was in Cape Charles or San Diego.

Jacob had said we could do the long-distance thing, so I just had to believe him, right? He was usually right about stuff, even though I’d never admit it out loud.

He scrunched up his sandwich bag and shoved it in his pocket. “Ocean or mountain?”

“What?”

“You know those online quiz questions. Personality tests or whatever, where you pick your ideal vacation place or place to buy a house or whatever. Would you pick ocean or mountain?”

“Ocean,” I said.

“Even now?” he asked, nodding at the canyon.

“It’s a stupid question,” I said. “It’s not really mountains, is it?”

“Okay, ocean or canyon?”

It was a harder question this time but not by much. I shoved the rest of my sandwich in my mouth, chewed on it for a bit, and said, “Still ocean.”

Some of my earliest memories were of beaches. This trip was the farthest I’d ever been away from the coast. The air didn’t taste like salt here.

“Yeah, same.” He gave me a smile. “I bet the beaches in California are incredible.”

“Yeah, I bet.” My stomach twisted.

“What are you going to do there?” he asked me. “Like, have you looked into college or anything?”

“I’m going to get a job,” I said. “Save some money for a year, then figure out what I’m going to do.”

“You’ll do great,” he said. “I’ll come visit and I’ll be jealous of how great you’re doing.”

If anyone else had said that, I would have thought they were being sarcastic, but this was Jacob. I fiddled with my sandwich wrapper. “Yeah.”

And itwouldbe great. I’d get to spend time with my dad and his family, and I’d find a job, and I’d be out and proud. And being Matt from the East Coast would automatically make me edgy and interesting, right? Wouldn’t it be cooler to be Jacob’s long-distance boyfriend from California instead of his loser boyfriend back home who’d never even made it out of town?

When I looked up, Jacob was staring down into the canyon. “Look at that,” he said, his voice hushed. He was closer to the edge than I was comfortable with, but I fought the urge to grab the back of his hoodie and drag him to safety and instead inched forward to join him and see what had him so impressed. When I glanced down, I saw what he was looking at. Below us, the Colorado River was nothing more than a tiny ribbon of blue, dwarfed by the vastness of its surroundings as it snaked throughthe landscape of vivid red rocks. It was an incredible sight—but no more incredible than the fact that somehow, against all odds, me and Jacob were a thing.

I reached out and grabbed Jacob’s hand and squeezed it.

“I’m glad we did this,” I said, and I wasn’t just talking about the canyon. The warm smile he gave me in return told me he’d heard what I wasn't saying.

We walked along the trail for a while, taking our time. As we came up on a flat rocky outcrop, the people in front of us slowed to a stop and a small crowd formed. I craned my neck to see what was going on. There was a guy on one knee, and the girl he was with had her hands clasped in front of her face. Even from here I could see her eyes shining as he pulled a ring box out of his back pocket.

“Aww,” Jacob said, resting one hand on my shoulder. “That’s so sweet!”

The girl in question let out a squeal and clapped her hands together, and everyone watching applauded as the guy slid the ring onto her finger while another guy took a video, and it was objectively romantic as fuck—but it wasn’t my thing. “Ten out of ten to that guy for effort,” I said, “but if anyone ever proposed to me in public on the edge of a cliff, that would be like, a thousand red flags.”

“I know. You don’t like heights, and you don’t like being the center of attention,” Jacob said with a grin. “But she obviously loved it.”

The bride-to-be was beaming as a bunch of strangers congratulated her, so Jacob was probably right. We joined in, shaking the guy’s hand, and the way he looked at his new fiancée—like he couldn’t believe his luck—made my insides melt because I was pretty sure I’d seen the same expression on Jacob's face when he looked atme.

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