Free Second Chance by Katie Kacvinsky Page A

didn’t go out of my way to tie a big red bow around my naked body . That would have been sufficiently humiliating . Gray might have used it to hang me from the nearest tree . That’s about how happy he was to see me .
All I want is for Gray to love me . And he not only doesn’t love me , h e downright loathes me . He mega loathes me . It’s so strange that people get angry , not by what you do, but by what you do n’t do .  
I look at the rooftops huddled around me a nd I want to skip across them and slide down a chimney chute into a place I feel welcome . Right now I feel like an intruder . I want Dick Van Dyke to pop out of a chimney and sing, “Step in Time,” and then draw a chalk picture of a perfect landscape for me to jump into . Why can’t I just add a spoon full of sugar to sweeten t he sad moments in life ? Wh y don’t birds land on my finger when I whistle to them ? I keep trying , but it never works for me .
I need to move , but what direction do I take ? I didn’t plan one step ahead of this moment . I have a summer job waiting for me in Wisconsin , but not until June . I have almost three months to kill and no money . This is what I get for following my heart—a bi g dose of rejection .
I make a mental note : Next time you take directions from you r heart, plan on getting lost .
I count my net worth , and once I convert it to dollars, I’ll have about $ 100 . I stare into the horizon and contemplate h ow to spend it . If I’m lucky, it will just be enough to cover a bus ride back to Wisconsin . And then what ? I’ll be stuck living with my parents a nd getting a job with all my high school townie friends whose idea of traveling is ice fishing up north . E veryone will say “ I told you so ” and “l ook where you end up when you don’t plan better. ” Broke . Living under your parents ’ roof . Suckling the parental teat .
My future becomes terrifyingly clear . I’m forty years old , still living at home in a room above the garage . My wardrobe consists of a plaid bathrobe and white orthopedic slippers . I don’t bother shaving my legs anymore . My skin smells like Lubriderm lotion and my robe smells like cranberry potpourri air freshener . I raid my parent’s refrigerator everyday for leftovers because all I have in my place is a hot pad and a mini fridge . I spend every night reading trashy romance novels with my four cats curled around my feet : Fiffi , Fluffy, FooFoo and Fro .
Ugh . The image is too painful to endure .  
I shake my head to break free of this nightmare . I stand up , suck in a deep breath , and make a decision I’m determined to keep . I’m going to stay in Albuquerque . I’m going to show Gray he can depend on me . I’m going to prove that even if there’s distance , even if our relationship is n’t perfectly spread out before us like a map from point A to point B, it doesn’t mean it’s over . Maybe our relationship curves and dips and weaves and cuts off and forks and then comes together again, but maybe that’s who we are and who we need to be . Besides, aren’t the things you work the hardest for , the sweetest victory in the end ?
I a m not giving up on Gray . It isn’t over between us .
Feeling better, I pull out a piece of paper with Catherine’s address and email written on it a nd I pray she’ll be a little more excited to see me.
             
***
 
A half hour later I find Sage Street. I t’s unnerving to discover Cat lives about six blocks away from Gray’s house . It’s one of my stranger fates . I hear someone strumming a guitar and I follow the sound until Cat’s in view, sitting on a brown couch on the f ront porch of a small, single story green house tucked between two maple trees . I swing my duffel bag down on the ground to find my camera . I take a couple shots of Cat while she’s stuck inside a creative haze before she notices me . S he stops strumming and blinks over at me .
“Dylan?” she asks, t hough she