Page 45 of The Significance of Moving On

Getting the okay to go, I dress quickly and get the hell out of there. Tally drives us home.

“We going to do this now or do you want to wait until we’re out of the car?” she asks, backing out of her parking spot, she stops and shifts in to drive. We have to loop around the whole lot to get back to the exit where she turns onto left onto the street and we rest at a stoplight.

“Are you scared of me?” I ask.

“Scared of what?” The stoplight turns green and she eases us back into the flow of traffic. Tally turns off the radio.

“Of me. Because of what I told you. I’m a monster.”

“That guilt is going to eat away your insides like a cancer. You didn’t kill Luke any more than I killed Tom.

“I think you’re wrong, but for the sake of argument let’s say you’re right. Where does that leave us?”

Tally clicks on her blinker and pulls over to the side of the road. She turns her whole body to face me. “Where do you want it to leave us?”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“I’ve been on a few dates, but no. I’m not seeing anyone. I’ve not kept it a secret that I want to be with you.”

“Why haven’t you tried harder to move on?” I ask next and she visibly flinches. Maybe that was the wrong question to ask.

“Because Daniel says you’re a complicated man and D told me not to give up on you.”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Daniel?”

“He spends a lot of time at D’s place, and besides, he’s my friend. Case, he’s not the same guy he was seven years ago, either.”

“I don’t like you spending time with him.”

“Duly noted. But I don’t like being told who I’m allowed to be friends with.”

“It hurts sometimes to be with you because I thought I’d gotten past Luke’s death. I guess I didn’t.” I rub at my face. This is coming out all wrong.

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be together—”

“Please let me finish.”

Tally shakes her head yes slowly.

“It hurts worse to not be with you at all.” There. She wants honesty, she’s going to get honesty. “Part of me is like, she knows you better than anyone, Case. But then we’ve hardly spent any time together in the past few months so then, how have we changed in that time?”

“Well, what do you want to do about it?”

“I want to try. For you to move home because I miss you being there, but I think we should go slow.”

“And you’re serious?”

“Absolutely.”

She shifts back around to face forward in her seat, clicks on her blinker and merges back onto the road but doesn’t answer me for a few minutes. The farther we get from the hospital without an answer, the more worried I become. Again, she clicks on her blinker, this time to turn into the parking lot of a local greasy spoon diner. “Wait here,” she says and hops out of the car.

I guess she forgot to eat dinner.

A man and woman stop at the door, the man pulls open the door and Tally is there filling the space. She smiles at the couple, continuing on to the car carrying three Styrofoam to-go boxes stacked one on top of the next. I reach across the seat to pop her door.

“Thanks,” she says. “Here.” And she hands off the containers to me.

“What’s next?” I ask her.

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