When Nate turned around, I could tell I’d startled him. His face was surprised, only relaxing slightly when he saw it was me. By then, I’d already noticed the marks on his cheek and chin, red turning to blue. There comes a point when things are undeniable and can’t be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.
“Ruby,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I opened my mouth to say something in response to this. Anything, just a word, even if it wasn’t the perfect one. But as nothing came, I looked at the landscape spread out behind him, wide and vast on either side. It wasn’t empty, not at all, but maybe this could inspire you as well, because right then, I knew just what to say, or at least a good place to start, even if only because it was what Cora had said to me back when all this began.
“It’s cold,” I said, holding out my hand to him. “You should come inside.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nate did come in. Getting him to come back with me, though, was harder.
In fact, we’d sat on the couch in that apartment for more than two hours, going over everything that had happened, before he finally agreed to at least talk to someone. This part, at least, I didn’t even have to think about. I’d picked up his phone and dialed a number, and by the time we got back to my house, Cora was already waiting.
They sat at the kitchen table, me hanging back against the island, as Nate told her everything. About how when he’d first moved back, living with his dad had been okay— occasionally, he had money problems and issues with creditors, but when he took out his stress on Nate it was infrequent. Since the fall, though, when Rest Assured began to struggle, things had been getting worse, culminating in the months since Christmas, when a bunch of loans had come due. Nate said he had always planned to stick it out, but after a particularly bad fight a few nights earlier—the end result of which were the bruises on his face—he’d had enough.
Cora was amazing that day. She did everything—from just listening, her face serious, to asking careful questions, to calling up her contacts at the social-services division to answer Nate’s questions about what his options were. In the end, it was she who dialed his mom in Arizona, her voice calm and professional as she explained the situation, then nodded supportively as she handed the receiver over to Nate to do the rest.
By that night, a plane ticket was booked, a temporary living arrangement set. Nate would spend the rest of the school year in Arizona, followed by working the swim-camp job in Pennsylvania he’d already set up through the summer. Come fall, he’d head off to the U, where he’d recently gotten in early admission, albeit without his scholarship due to quitting swim team midyear. Still, it was his hope that the coach might be open to letting him try for alternate, or at least participate in practices. It wasn’t exactly what he’d planned, but it was something.
Mr. Cross was not happy when he found out about all this. In fact, at first he insisted that Nate return home, threatening to get the police involved if he didn’t. It wasn’t until Cora informed him that Nate had more than enough cause to press charges against him that he acquiesced, although even then he made his displeasure known with repeated phone calls, as well as making it as difficult as he could for Nate to collect his stuff and move in with us for the few days before he left town.
I did my best to distract Nate from all this, dragging him to movies at the Vista 10 (where we got free popcorn and admission, thanks to Olivia), hanging out with Roscoe, and taking extended coffee trips to Jump Java. He didn’t go back to Perkins, as Cora had arranged for him to finish the little bit of work he had left via correspondence or online, and every afternoon as I came up the front walk, I was nervous, calling out to him the minute I stepped in the door. I finally understood what Jamie and Cora had gone through with me those first few weeks, if only from the relief I felt every time I heard his voice responding.
All the while, though, I knew he soon wouldn’t be there. But I never talked to him about this. He had enough to worry about, and what mattered most was that I was just there for him, however he needed me to be. Still, the morning of his flight, when I came downstairs to find him in the foyer, his bags at his feet, I felt that same twist in my stomach.
I wasn’t the only one upset. Cora sniffled through the entire good-bye, hugging him repeatedly, a tissue clutched in her hand. “Now, I’ll call you tonight, just to make sure you’re getting settled in,” she told him. “And don’t worry about things on this end. It’s all handled.”
“Okay,” Nate said. “Thanks again. For everything.”
“Don’t be a stranger, all right?” Jamie told him, giving him a bear hug and a back slap. “You’re family now.”
Family, I thought as we pulled out of the driveway. The neighborhood was still asleep, houses dark as we drove out past those big stone pillars, and I remembered how I’d felt, coming in all those months ago, with everything so new and different.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Nate as we pulled out onto the main road.
“Not really,” he replied, sitting back. “It’s all kind of surreal, actually.”
“It’ll hit you eventually,” I told him. “Probably at the exact moment it’s too late to come back.”
He smiled. “But I am coming back,” he said. “I just have to survive Arizona and my mother first.”
“You think it’ll be that bad?”