Chapter 19 - The Car Finally Left
I sat on the stairs with Jo for a long time.
I didn't promise I could be everywhere.
That was a promise nobody should have asked a kid to make, and it was a promise I couldn't keep now.
"You can call Mom, Renee, your teacher, or the people at your after-school program," I told her.
"And you can call me. Even when I can't come right away, I'll help you find someone who can."
"What if nobody comes?"
Mom sat down on the step below us.
"Then I will," she said.
Jo looked at her carefully.
"You have to mean it."
"I know."
I watched Mom take that sentence without getting angry.
It was small.
It was the first change I had seen that didn't require me to disappear.
In August, Renee loaded my suitcase into her car.
The university had arranged a room in a different dorm, and I'd completed identity verification in person with Leah.
My scholarship covered the promised costs.
My credit dispute remained open, but the bank had frozen the unauthorized account while it reviewed the records.
Lila brought me a folded drawing of all three of us standing under an enormous orange sun.
Jo gave me her old rabbit keychain so I wouldn't forget home.
Mom stayed on the porch.
"You don't have to forgive me to go," she said.
"I know."
"I hope one day you'll want to talk to me without needing something from me."
I considered that.
"I hope one day we can."
She didn't try to stop the car.
For six hours, we drove through cornfields and small towns until the buildings of Northvale rose above the highway.
Renee carried the heaviest box into my dorm.
I put Dad's notebook on my desk beside my new student ID.
Then I opened the window.
For the first time in years, I didn't have to listen for somebody calling my name from another room.
The quiet frightened me.
And then it felt like freedom.
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At dawn, my phone lit up with a message from Mom.
I stared at the screen, afraid to open it.
