Page 9 of On His Mind

He steps back into the doorway. “Alright.”

The word goes through me like a puck off the crossbar.

Alright.

Which means he’s leaving. Which means I’m staying.

I follow him down.

The house is louder now. Music from the kitchen. Stanley is arguing that rice is superior to pasta, and Benson is telling him to let the freshmen unpack before he starts inventing traditions, and Rowan isn’t participating, just standing there letting it happen around him.

Josh stops at the front door and looks back at me.

For one second I think he’s going to shake my hand.

Instead he pulls me in.

The hug lands wrong. Not bad wrong — just wrong, unrehearsed, my arms not knowing where to go, my whole body locking down for a full second before it remembers this is safe, this has been safe for four years, this isJosh.

He doesn’t squeeze too hard. He doesn’t hang on past the point where it becomes a thing. He just holds on for a beat and lets go.

Say it.

He steps back.

“You versus you, kid.”

I look at him.

He taps two fingers against his own chest, twice. “Day one.”

I nod, because my throat has closed and there is physically nothing else available to me.

Then he walks out before either of us can make it worse.

I stand in the doorway and watch him cross the grass.

Everything in my body is telling me to move. Not think —move, the way you move when the puck’s already past you and you’re going anyway. Every muscle from my calves up is braced to go down those steps and say it. Just say it.Thank you.Two words.

I don’t move.

Four years of him picking me up from practices he had no reason to attend. Mary putting a plate in front of me every night for four years without one time commenting on how fast I ate it. Josh sitting in his truck outside a courthouse for six hours on a Tuesday because I said I didn’t want to go in alone.

Two words. That’s the bill. That’s the whole bill, and I can’t pay it.

My blood feels wrong. Thick, slow, going the wrong direction.

For the first time in my life, I’m letting something go on my own terms. I’ve been so used to things being taken from me, so this feels wrong. Every muscle in my body screams to stop him. That I should thank him. That’s the least Josh and Mary deserve.The least.

Josh doesn’t look back right away. I get my throat under control while he’s not looking. Chest full, hold it, let it out slow through my nose. In for four. Hold for four. Out for six. He starts the engine. Checks his mirrors, both of them, the way he does, the way he’s told me to a hundred times. Then he looks back. He lifts one hand off the wheel. And I just stand there. Frozen in a doorway with a folded piece of paper in my fist, throat locked, hand at my side like it’s bolted there.

Lève la main.

Lève-la.

He pulls away from the curb. At the stop sign, his brake lights flare. He turns the corner and disappears. And just like that, he’s gone. It’s over. That’s it. That’s the end of it.

I’m not a foster kid anymore.