Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Avery

MOM IS ALREADY crying. Abigail and Cora's eyes shine with tears they refuse to shed. Dad is keeping a calm exterior, but he's asked about our flight schedule and how long security is going to take about a dozen times.

"And you're sure you have everything?" he says. "You didn't forget your passport? You have enough clothes and toiletries? What about your toothbrush?"

"I'm pretty sure they have clothes and toothbrushes in London," I say. "And my passport is right here."

I hold it up to show him, but he starts rattling off other items I might have missed or forgotten until Mom sets a placating hand on his arm. She doesn't speak, just shakes her head, her lip trembling, a tear rolling down her cheek.

"Oh, Mom, don't cry," I say .

I leave my rolling suitcase with Diego and bundle her into a hug. She breaks against my shoulder, crying into my hoodie while Dad rubs her back.

"I'm not disappearing, Mom," I say. "I'm just going to school. Same as when I was at Montridge."

"I could drive to Montridge," she sobs. "I can't drive to London."

"No, but you can come visit. And by the time you do, I'll be like a local. I'll show you everything. It'll be incredible."

My mother's never been out of the country. The fact that I'm going to live across an entire ocean for at least the next couple years is hard on her, especially since Gabriel and Trent left a couple days ago to fly the opposite direction and start their lives in Seattle. Abigail and Cora are going to start college soon. All of her babies are scattering, her noisy, crazy, busy, loud home full of love and fights and holidays and chaos is going to become a lot quieter all of a sudden.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I say. "I'll visit as much as I can. And you come visit me, too, okay?"

"Okay," she says.

She drags herself away, scrubbing at her face and sniffling. And that's when I spot Dad red-eyed and wet-cheeked as well.

That's what finally breaks me.

I sniffle, wiping hard at my eyes, but it's all over. I've never seen my dad cry, and now he's breaking down in Newark International Airport in the middle of the day.

"Dad, please, not you too," I say.

He laughs, unashamed, and pulls me into a crushing hug. I hide my tears against his chest while he squeezes me tight.

"You be good, okay?" he says. "Study hard, but not too hard. See the place. Travel around. I hear you can take a train all the way to Italy."

He lets me go, and his gaze darts to the man beside me. Diego doesn't flinch, but I can tell it's a near thing.

"And you," Dad says. "You take care of them, okay? That was our deal."

I don't know what "deal" Dad could be talking about, but Diego nods. "I will, sir."

Dad smiles, seeming genuinely comforted by Diego's response. Did they talk about this behind my back or something? When the hell were these two making deals about Diego taking care of me?

Abigail and Cora are next. They practically tackle me to the floor in front of the check-in kiosks. Busy travelers swerve around us, casting annoyed glares our way, but I don't care. These are my baby sisters, and I'm going to say goodbye to them before I don't see them for months.

"I'll be back for the holidays," I say. There's a break in the class schedule at the end of December. It doesn't perfectly match up with Hanukkah this year, but it doesn't matter. I'm already planning to fly home to see them, and Diego will be doing the same with his family until we need to go back in January.

"I know," Cora says. "But that's a long time."

"It won't be so long," I say, petting her hair.

Abigail pulls away and starts digging through her bag. She produces a beat up paperback barely clinging to its pages. A tattered bookmark juts out.

"Here," she says. "It's my favorite and I know you've never read it. You'll need it for the plane."

I take the book gingerly. This isn't merely her favorite. Abi has read this book dozens of times. The pages are yellow. A map of a fantasy world almost falls out of the book when I clutch it. I hug the book to my chest, and fresh tears burn the backs of my eyes.

"Abi, are you sure?"

She nods, biting her lip to keep it from trembling.

I hug her tightly. "Thank you. I'll read it. I promise. I'll message you the second I finish it."

"You could message while you read," she suggests timidly. "If you think of anything."

"Then I'll do that."

She nods and seems just slightly less likely to burst into tears.

I can't say the same for myself. I endure one more round of hugs, then Diego softly reminds me that we have a plane to catch. And that's it. I turn away and roll my suitcase toward the TSA security lines, trying my hardest not to look back. By the time I give up and do it, my family has left the airport.

Diego rubs circles on my back. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm alright, I think." I swallow down the tears, saving them for later, but my breath is shuddery and I still haven't released the book Abigail handed me. The memory of her fingers carefully turning the pages over and over lingers on every page.

We shuffle through the security line, taking off shoes and hoodies and belts, dropping all our belongings into bins for scans that probably don't even do much more than make getting to your flight a hassle. We make it to the other side, redress, gather our belongings and search the departures board for our gate. International flights are a shuttle ride away, so it's a good twenty or thirty minutes before we finally reach a terminal that says "London" on it with a departure time that's less than an hour away.

Holy shit. This is real.

A giddy thrill races through me, clashing with the lingering sadness of saying goodbye to my family for the next several months. Diego asks if I want anything to eat or drink, but my stomach can't handle that. I sit with our bags while he heads to an airport coffee stand, returning with two coffees and some baked goods anyway.

"It's not exactly your Boyfriend Café, but if you need to talk, I'm here," he says as he sets the food and drinks on the table before us.

We're sitting on high stools facing the gate, watching the airline employees deal with fussy travelers, observing the people we're about to spend eight or so hours with during a trans-Atlantic flight. Are any of them already as homesick as me? Or maybe some of them are headed home instead of jetting off into the unknown. It's impossible to tell from the roller bags and ereaders and handheld gaming consoles they carry.

"I'm going to miss them," I finally say. I sip on my coffee, except it's not coffee at all. "They had jasmine tea?"

"Yeah, I thought you'd like it better."

"You're more cut out for the Boyfriend Café than you give yourself credit for, Diego."

He chuckles shortly. "I guess I learned a thing or two. But really, are you alright? We can turn around and walk away."

"No way," I say quickly. As much as it was hard to say goodbye, the second he proposes abandoning our plans I push back. "We're doing this. And it's going to be amazing. I just haven't been away from my family for so long before. We've always been close."

"Me neither," Diego says. "It wasn't much better on my end, if that makes you feel better."

Having met his family, I can easily imagine that they were as emotional and broken up as my own, especially his mother. But I also know she would have encouraged Diego more strongly than anyone to stick with this, to go out and experience the world.

"I never imagined when I got to Montridge that I'd ever decide to go even farther away than that," Diego says.

I chuckle, recalling the terrified man who called Montridge a city when he first arrived.

"Sorry for messing up your life," I say, joking.

Diego smirks at me. "Yeah, you've really ruined my plans of being a sheltered hermit who studies my own community from afar. How dare you?"

"I guess I'm a bad influence."

The joking lightens the mood. I find that I do actually want my tea, and the chocolate-filled scone Diego selected for me too.

"You're the best influence," Diego says, turning serious. "If I hadn't met you, I probably wouldn't even have made it through my time in Montridge, let alone taken such a huge leap to go live across the world."

"I wouldn't have either, though," I say. "I wasn't going to continue studying. I was probably going to stay in New Jersey and work some office job. You're the reason I'm sitting here today. You might not want to give yourself credit for that, but it's true."

Diego arrived in Montridge terrified, wanting to turn around and run right back to his small town out in Wisconsin. But together we discovered a hunger to travel, to explore, to dive into scary new things as long as we do it together. I might have been more bold to start with, but I wouldn't be sitting in this airport waiting for an international flight if I didn't have Diego next to me.

The PA system crackles with static and an airline employee starts rattling off instructions they've probably said a hundred times. "Boarding will begin shortly. Please check your ticket for your boarding group," they finish.

Diego and I startle up to our feet. Diego gathers our trash while I make sure we have everything we need back in our bags. We roll our luggage into the line, but as we stand there waiting for our boarding group, Diego grabs my hand. His is shaky and a bit too warm, and boy, can I ever relate. We're about to do this. The moment we step into that tunnel, we'll be walking onto an airplane that will take us across an entire ocean and far from everything we know.

But now that the moment's here, I couldn't be more excited.

"You okay?" Diego says when the line starts to move, ushering us toward the plane.

"Yeah," I say, and I really mean it this time.

I beam over at him, and my enthusiasm must be apparent, because he smiles as well, soft and genuine and relaxed. His hand is steady in mine, but I give it a squeeze anyway. We're about to walk away from everything we know, everything that's safe, everything that's familiar. We're about to leave it behind to go on a grand adventure, and we have no idea what the end result will be or what the future holds for us.

But we're both okay with that.

We step into the tunnel leading to the airplane, and our lives change forever.