Landline

BEFORE

Neal parked the Saturn in Georgie’s driveway. He leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Christ, he was going to fall asleep.

That would make a great Christmas surprise—Georgie knocking on his window later, asking him if he’d move his car.

He bounced his head on the wheel.

Come on, Neal. You can do this. She might say no, but at least you can ask the question.

He tried not to think of the last time he’d asked this question, when he already knew Dawn would say yes, and he already knew he didn’t want her to.

Dawn would’ve said yes if he’d asked her again this week; he could tell by the way she’d been looking at him.

Christ, he could see it. The wedding. The marriage. The rest of his life with Dawn. It would all be so pleasant and predictable, he didn’t even have to live it to know the ending.

He couldn’t predict the next ten minutes with Georgie. Not ever. But especially not today. The next ten minutes . . . She might say no—she’d been begging him to break up with her on the phone all week.

But all she’d done was convince him that he couldn’t.

Even fifteen hundred miles away, even on the phone, Georgie was more alive than anything else in his life.

He felt his cheeks warm, just thinking about seeing her again. That’s what Georgie did to him. She pulled the blood to the surface of his skin. She acted on him. Tidally. She made him feel like things were happening. Like life was happening—and even if he was miserable sometimes, he wasn’t going to sleep through it.

He ran his hand over his pocket. The ring was still there.

It had been there since he left the nursing home; his great-aunt had pressed it into Neal’s hands—“I don’t need this anymore. I never really needed it, but Harold liked to see it on my finger.” It was a family ring, she said. It should stay in the family.

Neal made up his mind as soon as he saw it.

The future was going to happen, even if he wasn’t ready for it. Even if he was never ready for it.

At least he could make sure he was with the right person.

Wasn’t that the point of life? To find someone to share it with?

And if you got that part right, how far wrong could you go? If you were standing next to the person you loved more than everything else, wasn’t everything else just scenery?

Neal unbuckled his seat belt.