On the drive home, Uncle Ray gave him a sideways look in the rearview. “So. You asking her out, or are you planning to just blink at her for the rest of your life?”
“She’s a friend,” Tyler said.
Uncle Ray made a sound that expressed its opinion without using any words.
Graduation came quickly after that. Charlotte left for New York with her mother and brother, chasing a modeling career. Tyler went overseas for college, rebuilt himself year by year, and eventually built a technology company that bore no resemblance to any
version of the future his seventeen-year-old self could have envisioned.
From the outside, it looked like a clean success story.
Inside, something never entirely settled.
The Night He Called the Restaurant Back and Left a Message With Her Name on the Order
By the time the takeout had gone cold and he had sat with it for an hour without eating much of it, he had made a decision.
