Page 112 of Take Me Home

The latter came on New Year’s Eve, just as she, Sylvia, and Dave were finishing dinner.

Ms. Elliot,

I’ve reviewed your request to transfer your assistantship to Dr. Tate. As she has indicated a willingness to take on the extra load, I see no reason to block the transfer, though I will admit I had higher hopes for our illustrious Benning Scholar to rise to the standards of my lab. I’ve removed you from the listserv and revoked your access to our digital spaces. A final word in my role as your advisor: The PhD isn’t for everyone. If you are, in fact, questioning this path, do yourself, your colleagues, and Dr. Tate the courtesy of honest reflection before you return and waste anyone else’s time.

—R.S.

Hazel let go of the breath she’d sucked in at the sight of his name in her inbox, and out with it came a laugh. His response was exactly as harsh as she’d expected it to be, but instead of falling into a spiral of doubt and worry, Hazel felt pure relief. Sure, she would still see him on campus. She’d know he thought of her as someone who couldn’t hack it, who had taken the easy way out. But what did that matter when she’d gotten what she wanted—research she cared about and an advisor who was eager to hear her ideas? For the first time since school had started in the fall, Hazel feltexcited.

And the person she most wanted to tell was Ash.

But Sylvia was more than up to the task of celebrating her good news since it bolstered her argument for ringing in the New Year dancing in Midtown. She dragged Hazel from the table all the way into her closet. “Shave your legs and put this on,” she said, thrusting a shimmery red number at Hazel. “Chop chop.”

Hazel did her best to enjoy the evening, but when the clock struck midnight, and Sylvia smacked a kiss on her cheek before pulling Dave in for the real thing, it hit Hazel like a gut punch. No matter the distance or passage of time, she would always have a place with Sylvia, but right now, this wasn’t where she was supposed to be.

She pulled out her phone, desperate for a missed call, a text, anything from Ash, but her screen was blank. She felt like one big blank herself, empty through and through.

“Okay. We did the thing,” Sylvia announced over partygoers drunkenly singing “Auld Lang Syne.” She tossed her party glasses and cardboard top hat onto a table. “Let’s go and cry over street tacos.”

“I’m not going to cry,” Hazel said right as the first tear fell.

Two blocks away, under a gas-powered outdoor heater, with tacos in their laps and their shoes discarded, Dave asked, “So, that’s it, right? He didn’t text on New Year’s, and now we’re moving on?”

Sylvia slugged his arm. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Hey! I’m just saying, if he was thinking of her, he would have texted.” He squeezed Hazel’s ankle in an awkward consoling gesture. “Sorry.”

“No.” Sylvia fixed Hazel with a stern eyebrow. “No. We asked for space, so we’re not reading into him not texting.”

“He didn’t want to ride home with me,” Hazel pointed out. Every time she mustered the courage to reach out to him, this was what stopped her.

“We asked for space,” Sylvia repeated. “We don’t get to hold it against him when he understands the assignment.”

“When did this become a ‘we’ situation?” Hazel asked.

Dave clutched his chest. “I’m deeply invested, personally.”

“And you know I’m staying on you like white on rice after the last few months.” Sylvia scooped up Hazel’s unwanted jalapeños and popped them into her mouth. “So, what are we going to do now?”

Hazel could text him. If he’d truly missed her the way she’d missed him but was giving her space, as she’d requested, then the only person who could break their silence washer. She could send a simpleHappy New Yearand see what he said back.

Except a text wasn’t good enough. She’d left him, gone dark, despite him begging her to stay and work things out.

She stood abruptly. “Shit. I have to go home.”

Sylvia jumped up, too, and they both stumbled, still tipsy. “We’re ready? We love him?”

“This ‘we’ thing is getting weird. But yes,” she said on a laugh-sob. “We love him.”

—

Sylvia made her wait to leave until the following morning when she was sober and somewhat rested. But now, at midmorning on January first—another fresh start, she hoped—Hazel pulled into the café parking lot. She was a little hungover, her back hurt from driving, but she was here. She was here for him.

Her spirits deflated at the glaring absence of Ash’s car in the lot. But it had been in the shop. Maybe it still was.

The bell chimed above her head. There was movement in the kitchen. She waited. Finally, a college-aged woman Hazel didn’t recognize emerged, stuttered her step when she saw Hazel, and said breathlessly, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t hear you. I’m a little—” She looked over her shoulder like she was expecting someone else to come out and rescue her. “I’m new. The other girl is on her break. I’m not usually the only one.” She tugged at her name tag nervously. It saidJADE. “What can I get you? Oh, but the espresso machine is down, so…”

Hazel would have smiled if she weren’t recalculating her carefully rehearsed steps. She hadn’t accounted for Ash not being here. He was always here.

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