Did I Mention I Miss You?

  “Did you figure it out yet, why people do irrational things such as running off to Portland with their stepbrother?” The corner of his lip quirks upward to create a cunning smirk, his eyes smoldering teasingly as he waits for an answer. He moves closer within the small confinement of the hall and presses his palm flat against the wall by my shoulder, the warmth of him making me shiver.

  “Of course, I’m not exactly qualified to say,” I murmur as fast as I can, trying my best to get my words out before they catch in my throat. I have to swallow and take a second to catch my breath, because it’s so surreal having Tyler not only back in the picture, but having him within such close proximity. Last summer, I was desperate to have him this close. Now I have to adjust to how it feels again, because I have lacked his presence and I have lacked his touch for far too long. But I’ve also missed it.

  When I do finally find my voice again, I continue with honesty, my words reduced to a mere whisper as I tell him, “But I’m pretty sure people only do such a thing when they have some hope left.”

  14

  It’s a seven-hour drive to Portland. Seven hours confined in a car alongside Tyler, who I just so happen to have completely mixed feelings for right now. My thoughts have never been more all over the place. Between the anger at him for leaving that’s slowly diminishing, the thrill from running off to Portland with him and the amazement at how calm and relaxed and different he seems, I’m really struggling to pinpoint exactly how I feel at the moment.

  What I do know is that he is ridiculously terrible at singing. I know this because he has been singing along to the radio for the past fifteen minutes, messing up on half the lyrics, yelling the choruses, tapping his fingertips against the wheel and nodding his head in sync with the beats. Three years ago, I don’t think Tyler would have ever been caught dead doing such a thing, because it’s lame and definitely not cool. He’s trying to make me laugh to make the journey go by quicker.

  And I have been laughing. I’ve been laughing for each of those fifteen minutes that have passed, my stomach cramping each time he reaches for a high note, burying my head into my hands, embarrassed on his behalf. I’m slumped down in the passenger seat, the air conditioning directed straight at my face, my Chucks on the floor and my feet up on the dash. It’s painful to laugh, so I signal for a time-out and pull myself upright. I reach for the controls and reduce the volume of the radio, and at the same time, Tyler’s awful singing trails off, and his sincere laughter fills the car.

  “Okay,” I say, grinning. It’s almost four, and we passed through Salem a little while ago. We’ll be in Portland soon, maybe thirty minutes from now. Finally, the scenery is beginning to seem familiar. “Are there any talent shows coming up soon? I’m signing you up for an audition.”

  Tyler glances at me, his huge grin mirroring mine. “You’re my first groupie.”

  Just then, his phone rings. It’s lying in the cup holder in the center console, vibrating profusely, the screen glowing, his ringtone bouncing around the car. He reaches for it, glancing down at the screen for a second, and then passes the device to me.

  “It’s my mom,” he tells me. “Put it on speaker.”

  So I do just that.

  “Hey, Mom,” Tyler says.

  “Hi, Ella,” I say, holding the phone between us. “You’re on speaker. Tyler’s driving.”

  “Hey, you two,” Ella murmurs across the line, almost like she’s sighing. I have yet to figure out how it’s possible for her to somehow sound cheerful yet sad all at the same time. “I’m just calling to check up on you. Shouldn’t you be there by now?”

  “We’re about a half-hour away,” I inform her. “We stopped for an hour at—”

  “At some diner for breakfast,” Tyler cuts in. He fixes me with a sharp look, and very slowly, he shakes his head. I stare questioningly back at him. “And we’ve stopped for gas a couple times, but yeah, almost there. Where are you?”

  “Up in the room,” Ella says. The connection isn’t the best, so her voice is crackling a little. “Chase is down at the pool, and Jamie’s been talking to Jen on the phone for at least two hours now.”

  Neither Tyler nor I say anything at first. We exchange a concerned glance, because we’re both wondering the same thing. I’m the one who ends up asking the question we both want an answer to. “And my dad?”

  Now it’s Ella’s turn to be quiet. We listen to her breathe across the line. “I’d be lying if I told you I knew where he was,” she says, finally.

  Softly, my eyes close, and I throw my head back against the headrest of the passenger seat in disappointment. Tyler’s doing a good job of frowning while keeping his attention on the road, and when I sit up again, I prop my elbow against the window and rest my forehead against the palm of my hand.

  “So he knows the truth,” I mutter. That’ll explain why Dad’s disappeared. He’ll be off somewhere trying to get his anger to subside, I bet. I’m staring out of the window, my lips pressed firmly together as we head across a bridge that runs over the Willamette River which traces its way through Oregon. “What happened when he found out?”

  “I had to tell him,” Ella says. “As soon as I woke up, I went next door and just told him the truth. That you left for Portland together, and that you’re both old enough now to make your own decisions, and that it’s not up to me or him to stop you.” She releases a frustrated laugh. “And the first thing I thought about were the charges the hotel would press against us if he punched a hole through the door. Thankfully, all he did was leave, and I haven’t seen him since. The car’s still here, though, so he can’t have gone far. I went out and checked.”

  “Did he say anything?” Tyler asks.

  “It’s probably best if I don’t repeat it,” Ella says quietly. The apprehension in her voice is palpable. “He’s not all that impressed with me, either.”

  I glance over to Tyler. He’s shaking his head as he pushes his shades down over his eyes, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “We should have waited until morning,” he murmurs, almost as though he’s talking just to himself. “We should have told Dave ourselves before we left.”

  “Trust me, Tyler, if you’d told him yourself, you wouldn’t be anywhere near Portland right now,” Ella says. “At least not with Eden. I hate to say it, but I bet he would have been thrilled to see you leave.”

  “That’s true,” Tyler agrees. “What about Jamie? Chase? Do they know we’re gone?”

  “Of course they do,” Ella states matter-of-factly. I can just sense her rubbing her temples right now as she ponders the situation. “It’s impossible to hide the fact that you’re not here. And as usual, Jamie’s being incredibly difficult. Chase only wants to know when you’re both coming back.”

  “It’s Eden’s decision,” Tyler says. Although he’s focused on the road ahead, I can see the small smirk on his lips. I wish he’d take the sunglasses off again so that I could see the expression in his eyes.

  “Hmm.” I sit up and tap my index finger against my lips as I feign deep consideration. “I’m not sure yet, but I do know that if Tyler keeps on singing, I’ll be back by tomorrow.”

  Ella laughs, and then Tyler does, and then I do, and for a moment, I forget just how risky all of this really is. By doing this, by coming up here to Portland with Tyler, I may have just ruined whatever chance I had left at salvaging a relationship with my dad. There’s absolutely no chance in hell of him ever forgiving me after this.

  “Right,” Ella says. “I’ll stop distracting you. Drive carefully, and text me when you get there.”

  Tyler nods even though she can’t see him. “Will do.”

  She hangs up the call, so I lock Tyler’s phone and drop it back into the cup holder. I pull my legs up onto my seat and cross them, trying to get comfortable for the remainder of the journey. We’re so close, I think. And I don’t know how I feel about it yet, about Portland. I like to think of Santa Monica as my home these days, but there’s no denying the fact that I’ll fo
rever be a Portland girl. I was born and raised here. Admittedly, I adored Portland when I was younger, when things were the way they were supposed to be. Then my parents began to fight, and my friends turned cruel, and the bad memories have always seemed to outweigh the good ones. Maybe I just need some time to make some more memories here. Good ones, that is.

  Cautiously, Tyler turns the volume of the radio back up and I can sense him glancing at me through his sunglasses. He’s biting back a smile, but he refrains from singing, all the way through Wilsonville and straight up to Portland.

  And by the time we’re within the city’s boundaries, everything is so, so familiar. So Portland-y, if that’s even a thing. You can just tell when you’re in Portland. The interstate is lined by trees, covered by low clouds and the slightest breakthrough of sun. It’s a short drive to downtown Portland, and it’s not until the Willamette River appears alongside us that I remember just how beautiful the city actually is. In a natural, urban sort of way. There’s nothing glamorous about Portland. No gorgeous promenades, no photogenic piers, no stunning beaches. But I think that’s why it’s such a unique city. The nature, the diversity. How liberal, green, and wet it is. For what it’s worth, the majority of the people in Portland are pretty unique too, and it’s a much friendlier city than Seattle, that’s for sure. We Portlanders are pretty laid back.

  “I just remembered,” Tyler says, finally taking his sunglasses off again and placing them into the cup holder alongside his phone, “I should probably stop and get groceries. I cleared out my refrigerator before I left, so my place is pretty bare right now.”

  I look at him. “Your place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have a place?”

  He directs his eyes away from the road for a second, over to me instead. “What? Did you think I’ve been staying in a hotel or something all this time? Living out of my car?” He has to laugh, but now that I think about it, I’ve never actually thought any of it through. “We’ll head over, right after we stop by Freddy’s.”

  I blink, holding back laughter. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” He seems genuinely confused, and creases appear on his forehead, right between his eyebrows.

  “Nothing,” I say, and finally I laugh. I have to. I can’t help it. “It’s just really weird hearing you talk like a native. You’re from out of town, so you should only know it as Fred Meyer.”

  “You make it sound like it’s difficult to learn how Portland works,” he shoots back teasingly, a challenging smile playing on his lips. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s not that hard. Go Timbers, go Blazers.”

  I raise my eyebrows suspiciously back at him. “Anyone can say that,” I say defensively.

  “But can anyone say that the Blazers won the NBA championship in 1977?”

  My eyebrows arch even higher. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But still. It’s kind of freaking me out having you know all this stuff about Portland. Call me crazy, but it’s like you’re invading my personal space.”

  “Kind of like how you invaded mine when you moved to Santa Monica?” He’s grinning now, glancing rapidly between the road and me as though not to miss my expression, and I roll my eyes and playfully push his arm.

  “Whatever.”

  It takes a good fifteen minutes to reach downtown, and with it being a Sunday, the traffic isn’t bad. But we don’t pull off the interstate. Instead, Tyler continues to follow it, straight onto the Marquam Bridge, only one of many bridges that cross the Willamette. If there’s one thing Portland is known for besides our overwhelming amount of trees, then it’s our bridges.

  I lean forward, looking past Tyler to the Hawthorne Bridge on our left, where I can just about see the Waterfront Park. It’s where I used to spend the Fourth of July, sprawled out on the grass with Amelia, listening to music and bands we didn’t even like at the Blues Festival. And over on our right again, way in the distance, is the faint tip of Mount Hood.

  We’re over into East Portland now, advancing along the Banfield Expressway, which I’m all too familiar with. It’s the route I used to take with my friends downtown, because Mom hated me taking the MAX when I was younger, especially because the line that runs through our old neighborhood starts over in Gresham, which doesn’t exactly have the best reputation. According to Mom, I was likely to be assaulted by a gang member if I got on that train.

  “So.” I glance over at Tyler. “Which neighborhood, then?”

  “Irvington,” he says.

  I have to think about it for a second, because Portland is a huge city with a hell of a lot of different neighborhoods, and after three years of being gone, my geographic knowledge isn’t up to scratch. “Irvington . . . As in, Broadway Street? As in, over there?” I point over his chest, out of his window to the left of the expressway. There’s nothing but thick trees, as with everything else in this city, but I’m pretty sure that Irvington is on the other side.

  “Yeah,” Tyler says with a small shrug. Even though it’s just after four now, he’s beginning to seem tired. It’s been a long drive. “I’m renting an apartment up on the corner of Brazee and Ninth,” he tells me. “And even though it doesn’t exactly have a view like my apartment in New York did, I think you’ll like it.”

  “Haven’t you been lonely?” I blurt out, and he looks at me a little funny. I felt that way in Chicago at first. Settling into a new city, knowing absolutely no one, being thousands of miles away from everyone you do know. It kinda sucks, and I realize now that Tyler had to go through the exact same thing. “You know, like, living up here on your own? And I know you did the same in New York, but that was different. You had Snake. You had Emily. You had the tour. You were talking to people.”

  “And you think I don’t talk to people here?” Now he just looks perplexed, and he hasn’t glanced back at the road yet, so I can’t help myself from reaching over and pressing my hand to his cheek, directing his eyes back onto the expressway. “Trust me, Eden,” he says, his gaze already finding its way back to me, “I’ve kept myself busy.”

  Again, I gently push his jaw so that he’s facing the road. “Doing what?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” he says quickly. “But for now, it’s time to stock up on food.”

  He takes the next exit off the Banfield Expressway, and shortly after we head left into the Irvington neighborhood. Broadway Street is extremely familiar, because a lot of the time Amelia and I would come here instead of heading downtown. It’s dominated by stores, breweries and restaurants, but I hardly have time to look around, as Tyler is already pulling around the corner into the Fred Meyer parking lot, which is packed, because it’s fucking Fred Meyer. And in Portland, Freddy’s could seriously be a religion. I kind of miss it.

  We pull into a spot and make for the entrance after taking a few seconds to stretch out the stiffness in our legs. It feels odd walking on Portland soil again, but luckily, the city seems to be experiencing its usual high summer temperatures. It’s definitely hotter than eighty out right now, and definitely hotter than Santa Monica has been lately.

  We head inside and Tyler grabs a cart, heading straight for the aisles like a seasoned Fred Meyer shopper. He spends a good amount of time around the fruit and vegetable sections. I’ve never gone grocery shopping with a vegetarian before. It’s an interesting experience watching all the food he’s tossing into the cart, and even more interesting is the fact that most of it actually looks appealing. Still, I manage to slip two boxes of Lucky Charms into the cart when he isn’t looking, only because it’s a guilty pleasure of mine.

  We head for the checkout lanes after strolling up and down the aisles for over half an hour, and I help Tyler stack the entire contents of the cart up onto the conveyor belt, all the while thinking about how mature I feel—which is weird, because I have gone grocery shopping in Chicago like a million times, but it’s different with Tyler. It feels like we’re a couple, carrying out our weekly grocery restock before heading home and ramming it all into our refriger
ator and cabinets, then collapsing in front of the TV. That’s how it should be. Only it’s Tyler’s refrigerator, not mine, and we’re certainly not a couple. But it’s a nice feeling, nonetheless. It makes me think about what our life could be like if we were a couple, and all the daily, mundane tasks we would have to do that would only be enjoyable because we were doing them together.

  We’re overloaded with bags by the time we get back to the car, and we have no choice but to stuff them all into the backseat. Our luggage is already taking up all the space in the trunk, and when we actually get moving and pull out of the lot, we can quite literally feel just how weighed down the car is. But thankfully, Tyler lets me know that his apartment is only five minutes away.

  So we head further into the neighborhood of Irvington, straight over to the corner of Brazee and Ninth, where Tyler pulls over by the curb. The street is lined with trees, obviously, and it has a mixture of two-storey houses and bungalows. Except to our right. To our right is an apartment complex.

  “Is this it?” I ask, although the answer is pretty obvious.

  “Yeah,” says Tyler, already slipping off his seatbelt. I follow him out of the car and around to the trunk, where he collects our luggage. “It’s a nice place, just the rent’s a little pricey. That’s why I sold my car.”

  “Priorities,” I say, echoing his own words from several days ago.

  Slowly, he smiles as he slams the trunk shut. “Exactly.”

  He leads the way into the complex, through the entrance in the wooden fence, right into a gorgeous courtyard. The apartments are all identical in design, with some being two-storey houses, and they all curve around the communal courtyard like a giant C. Footpaths weave through the well-maintained lawn, where plants and trees and benches are dotted around. It’s nice, especially with the sun out, but I can’t imagine it looking as pretty as it does now during the fall when drizzle is hanging over the city.