Chapter 5

Reece

I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the registration details of the Uber, and then make sure I'm standing in the correct pickup area outside Des Moines airport. The early March chill bites into the exposed area of skin behind my neck. My scarf is doing little to help.

Overhead, the sky is dull with heavy clouds. It might rain. Maybe even snow. It's so fucking cold.

Other Uber users gather in the covered shelters to get away from the wind. Most of the crowd waiting for their rides have enough luggage to take them around the world. I have one bag at my side and a satchel slung across my chest. The only thing of value in the satchel is my old journal, a single pair of Abby's yellow socks, and a jar of prickly pear jam for Asher. For Asher and his husband. A thank you gift for letting me visit them.

I have enough luggage to last me a week. Maybe two weeks. The rest of my belongings are stored up in a facility in Arizona. Who knows how long it will lie there?

I remove one glove and check my phone again. Two minutes.

A text from Julie shows up on the preview: Did you make it?

Me: Yeah. Uber is on its way. How's California?

Julie: It's nice. I'm settling in nicely.

I know what this looks like. We're cordial and kind to each other, pretending we're holding it together, but the truth is that we're both running from this unbearable shared pain, hoping not to cause the other more worry than is necessary. Strange, because I was more than willing to cause Asher worry when I bullied my way into visiting him. Them .

Me: The house is on the market. All our stuff is in storage. Abby's things are double wrapped. Don't say sorry. You don't have to.

Julie: I know. Thank you for dealing with everything. I hope you find what you're looking for, Reece.

Me: I hope you do too.

Julie: I will. We will. We'll always have Abby.

I respond to her text with a heart emoji and put my phone away as my Uber pulls up. He helps me with my suitcase and I settle in the back.

"Is there a radio channel you prefer, sir?"

"No, this is fine." Whatever is on already is fine. I hope this Uber driver isn't a talker. I don't feel like talking. This is a two-and-a-half hour drive and I don't have the stamina for that much conversation.

I plug in my earphones, dulling out the end of a news bulletin and the start of a Taylor Swift song I can't remember the name of, but think I know the words to. My earphones are just a decoy so the driver won't talk to me. I have nothing playing.

He navigates the organized chaos of airport traffic while the GPS directs him north on Fleur Drive and tells him to stay on Highway 5 for the next six miles.

Then, I check Asher's text again, the one he sent me after I told him I'd booked a flight and accommodation at a guest house not far from the home address he'd given me: You can come straight through if you want to. Have dinner with us first. Sawyer is looking forward to meeting you.

I did want to. God, all the things I wanted. But I pulled myself together and made myself believe that I chose to go directly to Asher's house before checking into the guesthouse because I was simply eager to see my friend again and meet his husband for the first time, and not because I wanted to see the boy – now man – I loved eternally, and to satisfy my curiosity about the man he now loves.

I reach for the satchel next to me, removing the journal from inside, careful not to tip over the glass bottle of prickly pear jam I got from The Farm Stand yesterday.

Mrs. Cameron always told us never to arrive for a visit anywhere empty-handed. So, I drove up to The Farmhouse By The Mountain and got Asher's most favorite thing in the whole world. I don't know if he still likes it.

The journal is a tattered old thing. Almost as old as I am. A gift from Asher for when I turned ten. Actually, it was from Mrs. Cameron. Asher would never have chosen a journal for a birthday gift.

He said he always felt stupid giving me weird gifts like a journal when he got nerf guns with advanced features plus accessories and Transformers action figures from me. My father sometimes let me choose his gifts in the early days, before . . . everything.

Only later, long after that tenth birthday, did I realize the economic difference between us. It didn't change anything, but I understood why their house was so much smaller than ours and why they didn't throw away their leftovers. And why Asher was always embarrassed about the birthday gifts.

When we were children and other kids complained that their parents didn't have time to drive them to their friend's house, I bragged about how my best friend lived right next door to me, and I could see him whenever I wanted. Imagine being able to run across the lawn, open the small square gate in the white fence and just walk into your best friend's house? That was me and Asher.

Well, me. Asher never came barrelling into my house the way I would simply barge into theirs. He never ate straight out of our fridge the way I did theirs, but I never thought anything of it. At the time, I didn't know that I was the boss's son.

I told Asher countless times that I loved his gifts more than anyone else's; that even the car I got when I turned sixteen couldn't compare to this little journal. That's what I told him every time we sat under the apple tree behind his house and ate prickly pear jam.

"I love you, Asher. I'll love you no matter what."

"Always?"

"Always."

Except, it wasn't always . And in the end it did matter. My father made sure the Camerons went back home to Iowa with nothing. Asher lost everything, including his chance to play college football, because of me.

Asher taught me how to have friends. I hated it and I told him so because he was my best friend and nothing would change that, and I didn't need other friends.

He told me that his mom told him that a person had to have other friends. I didn't really believe him until Mrs. Cameron told me herself one day after I refused to go home for my own birthday party. Asher was sick and couldn't get out of bed to come to my party, and I didn't know how to have a birthday without him.

"All the kids are waiting," Mrs. Cameron said. "You have other friends, see?" She pointed across the lawn where several kids were running around, screaming and laughing. Parents stood around the garden drinking champagne and laughing at all my father's jokes. A cake and all kinds of other party food lay spread out on the wooden table. I was eleven and that was all before any of us knew how much I would come to disappoint my father in my later years.

All I could think of was how I could get Asher to the party.

I did pretend to have friends after that. I went to a different high school, so I had to, but I never considered any of them my friends, not really. The only friend I had was Asher.

He kept my secret. His parents too. He carried the burden of maintaining the outward innocence of our friendship for the benefit of others long after we had become so much more than that. And Mr. and Mrs. Cameron never told a soul when we came out to them. We did it together because Asher said his parents would never, ever treat us differently. He was right. By then we already knew that my father might kill us, so his parents' support was all we had, and we held on to it tightly.

As tensions escalated between me and my father – "Why can't you get better grades? Why don't you excel in any kind of sport?" – I retreated more and more into Asher's family until they were more mine than my own. In the end, his mother was more a mother to me than mine had ever been when she lived with us, and Asher loved how much they loved me.

When they left, I became an orphan. Like Oliver Twist.

The extensive use of this journal didn't start when I was ten. In fact, the only thing I wrote in it for the first five years I had it was the date Asher had given it to me.

Its overuse began when we were fourteen. At first, we would write stupid notes about school and video game characters. Then, we kissed for the first time. And after that, we wrote in this journal all the things we felt but couldn't say. This journal holds my and Asher's deepest thoughts and hopes and dreams. At least, all our hopes and dreams until we were seventeen.

The day Asher left Arizona was the last day I wrote in it. The last day he wrote in it was the day before we got caught. He wrote three words: Forever and always .

My last words were a cop-out. I could think of nothing better than the words he'd used. I trace them with my thumb now.

January fourth : Forever and always.

Forever and always.

I thumb absently through the journal.

September 9th: Eighth grade sucks balls xoxo Ash. Only because he had to travel further away for high school and got home too late. With the travel time, his football practice and homework, we hardly saw each other.

October 10th: Ash grew like six inches and THAT sucks balls cos where's my growth spurt? It came a year later. There was only a three-inch height difference between us by the time we turned seventeen.

A lump jumps in my throat when I swallow. I turn to the middle of the book.

November 17th: I love you xoxo Ash

November 18th: I love you xoxo Reece

My inhale is shaky. I can't cry in an Uber.

December 11th: Please, sir. I want some more hahahahahaha

December 12th: Always, Reece

Ash's handwriting was always better than mine. Mine were terrible scribbles. His, neat blocks. We passed this journal back and forth nearly every day after November 17th. There was always something to say.

February 17th: Your eyes get darker when the weather is bad. I love them like that xoxo Ash

February 18th: You're my hero. I love you so much xoxo Reece

A smile touches my lips. I guess we were a little cheesy too.

The GPS announces that we should take Exit 190. Still two hours to go.

My desperation brought me to Iowa, to the only man who can help me make sense of who I am. When I see Asher again, maybe I'll beg him to tell me what to do with this life I've managed to fuck up so catastrophically. I'll tell him about Abby and does he think I'll survive? Does he think I have enough courage? Asher always had all the answers.

I rummage through my satchel for a pen. Turning the page over, I write in our journal for the first time in more than ten years.

March 15th: New beginnings