Free London Is the Best City in America by Laura Dave Page A

while. Not because it would make me feel any differently afterward, but because I wanted to feel again, for a few minutes, what it had been like. To belong to something bigger than myself.
    He had had these thick sheets, this soft blue comforter. Why did the color matter to me? Why did I remember that? You can’t really feel a color. You can’t really feel anything entirely unless part of you doesn’t know it’s happening.
    I shook my head, turning the ignition back on. I didn’t need to be here. I didn’t need to be anywhere but in my own bed, sleeping. Or knocking on the bedroom wall, seeing if Josh was awake and could hear me. If he wanted to talk.
    My dad opened his eyes, abruptly, and turned toward me. But by then I was already pulling away.
    “Is everything okay?” he asked.
    “Everything’s fine, Dad.”
    “Where are we?”
    “Matt’s,” I said.
    “Matt’s?” He was confused, but his eyes were closing again. In a minute, I knew he’d be out.
    “Well,” I said. “Not anymore.”
     
    When we got back to the house, Berringer’s car was still in the driveway. I carried my bags inside—fishermen’s wives tapes included—and got a glass of ice water and left it on the floor by my father, who was passed out on the couch. Then I peeked in on Josh, just for a second, who was lying on top of his bedcovers, fully dressed, sleeping.
    “This house is a mess,” I said out loud, even though no one seemed to be sober enough to hear me.
    I filled up another glass of water and went outside. I found Berringer out on the back steps, facing the yard. The tent was up for tomorrow already, these four six-foot-tall wooden lanterns firmly planted into the ground on every side. Berringer was looking out at all of it, an empty cereal bowl next to him.
    I handed the water over. He smiled a thank-you at me, taking a huge sip, downing most of the glass, before he started speaking again. “I fear that the Everett men are going to be struggling a bit tomorrow,” he said. “I left your dad a note on the kitchen table, telling him to have another beer in the morning. Hangover cure. A hair of the dog that bit you.”
    I moved the bowl over, took a seat. It was still incredibly warm outside, the air thick and sticking to my skin.
    I swirled the spoon around in the leftover milk. “What kind were they?” I said, motioning toward his cereal bowl.
    “Honey Nut Cheerios.” He said. “It’s usually Honey Nut Cheerios at night.”
    “What about the morning?”
    “Sometimes Special K. But mostly on Sundays.”
    I smiled at him, putting down the spoon. I could feel my heart beating in my head, my eyes starting to get heavy. “I‘m not sure I should have been driving,” I said. “Now that I’m sitting still.”
    “Yeah, well,” he said. “I’m definitely walking home from here.”
    “In this heat?”
    “It’s going to be worse tomorrow.”
    “True,” I said. “Isn’t that a weird thing, though? That you can walk home. That our homes are still here? All this time after we left?”
    “Well, our parents’ homes.”
    “Still . . . I spend so much time trying to escape this place, and sometimes I wonder if it’s the only place I’ll ever have to really go back to. You know? If it’s the only place I’ll ever really consider home.”
    He handed me the glass of water. “Drink,” he said.
    I took the water from him, starting to laugh. He turned and looked at me, tilting his head. It was weird when he did that—looked at me from that direction. It was almost like he was trying to see something that I wasn’t sure I wanted someone to see. It made me nervous.
    “So.” He smiled. “Tell me something more about this documentary of yours. You must be close to finishing by now, right?”
    I felt something clutch inside. I didn’t know what to say. I was used to explaining my life away with partial fictions, but it felt wrong, in a way I wasn’t entirely used to, to tell him anything but the truth. Maybe