Page 38

Jonah

The view from the backseat of the cab was different than Jonah expected.

He had never been to New York. Every depiction in books and movies made it out to be a monolith of concrete and steel, but as the cab pulled away from LaGuardia airport, he saw a surprising amount of green.

It had taken him a full week after his breakdown in the backyard to gather enough courage to reach for the card—the one Jonah had shoved to the back of his nightstand drawer the first night back in Indiana. He could have thrown it away, and almost had, but perhaps some part of him had always known he would need an escape route.

He wasn’t even sure what he had hoped to get out of making the call, only that Antonio Ellis had written him a blank check of his assistance, and Jonah needed out.

To his surprise, Ellis had kept his word. There was no hesitation when he offered Jonah a room in his newly inherited house in Queens—a private room, with a locked door, his own key, and no expectations.

On paper, it was the perfect plan: a fresh start in a new city, and a place to lay his head until he got back on his feet.

In reality, Jonah had been conditioned to look for the fault lines in kindness. The weak spot that exposed the ulterior motives. But in the end, the choice was simple.

He was in no position to turn down an extended hand. That sort of prideful naivety wasn’t possible for someone like Jonah, who knew what it was like to lose everyone you ever thought was on your side. He wouldn’t let that happen again.

Two hundred dollars in cash burned a hole in his front pocket, and there was a bank card with his name etched into the bottom in his wallet, which his mother had helped him set up before he left. Her way of showing support for his plan, he supposed. She had even driven him to the airport herself, teary-eyed and white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole way.

When she pulled him into a hug in the departures lane, she’d told him she loved him. She gave him the apology he needed and the one he deserved, and she said that she understood why he needed to leave, but that she would always be there if he wanted to return.

It was a start, Jonah thought. Maybe someday they would get there.

When the car ramped onto an elevated highway, Jonah got his first glimpse of the skyline in the distance. It was further away than he expected. He wasn’t familiar with the city’s layout, but now it made more sense why Ellis described his neighborhood as a “suburb in the city.” Still, the view was nice. Jonah pulled his phone from his pocket and snapped a photo.

Meet me in the fall? He typed, then sent the message off to Liam.

From the back seat, he watched the dot on the GPS draw nearer to his new address, hugging his overstuffed backpack to his chest. It was hard not to think of the seventeen-year-old kid in the back of the Greyhound to Chicago, nearly two years ago to the day, freshly wounded and desperate for a soft place to land. From this perspective, it was easier to give that boy some grace for the things he had done when his back was against the wall.

Jonah was older now, and this time he was running forward instead of away. He wasn’t responsible for creating the environment from which he’d fled, but he had left of his own volition. He had the opportunity before him to build the kind of life that he had already begun to mourn, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

After twenty minutes, the car pulled onto a street lined with Tudor-style houses and brick driveways. He paid the driver with a wad of cash from his pocket and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Looking up at the old house, with nothing but a small suitcase on wheels and a backpack slung over one shoulder, Jonah pictured a hundred different ways this could go wrong .

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to reveal Liam’s reply.

It’s a date, it said.

Jonah smiled.

Despite it all, he wasn’t quite willing to write off the possibility that this was exactly where he was meant to be.