Here Without You

‘I called Graham about the adoption.’ Reid starts and looks down at me, surprised. I take a shuddering breath. ‘I knew River’s caseworker was going to call him, and I was afraid of what he might say to her. He told me I couldn’t use River to fill my need for affection.’

Pulling away, I grab a tissue and look back at Reid, whose shirt is wet with my tears. ‘Reid, River lost the only parents he’s ever known. And he’s understandably attached to Wendy, which will be another loss. If we do this, we can’t back out.’ I take his hand and stare into his eyes. ‘Please don’t do this if you can’t be there for him. If you’re going to start a new family some day and leave him behind. He doesn’t need any more hollow places.’

Staring down at our hands, he says, ‘I’ve thought for years that my father wasn’t there for me, but he was. He was present – even if he didn’t get me at all most of the time. Even if he didn’t pay as much attention as he should have.’ Returning his gaze to mine, he says, ‘I’ll be present, Brooke. I don’t want to make promises I can’t live up to, but I’ll try my best to be more than present. Just promise me that if I f**k up, you’ll call me on it. And you’ll give me the chance to make it right.’

I nod. ‘Okay.’

Reid twitches his hair back and opens a palm. ‘So. Does every girl I know have to turn insightful all at once? I mean hell – I know I’m shallow, but Jesus. You’d think somebody would be content to remain superficial, just to keep me company.’

The weight leaves the conversation, and I’ve unburdened myself – to Reid – without being demeaned for it. His wisecrack allows me to swim back to a place where my feet can touch the bottom.

‘Like John?’

‘Oh, right,’ he laughs. ‘I forgot about John. Dude, I’m so covered.’

REID

When Dori didn’t answer texts or calls yesterday, I didn’t freak out. She had classes all day, including that statistics exam she was worried about. It was her birthday, though, and I didn’t get to talk to her. I told myself that her friends probably took her out to celebrate.

Even if it would have taken her thirty seconds to return a text.

Now it’s Tuesday, she’s still not replied, and every passing hour makes it harder to pass off her radio silence as the demanding life of a college student or a dead phone battery. I wonder if she’s okay. I wonder if her parents would even try to call me if she wasn’t. And then I wonder if I should call them. I try to remember her friends’ names. (Kayla something. Aimee something. Shayma something.)

I’m not cool with the direction my thoughts are taking, because I don’t do clingy or needy or dependent or possessive.

I’ve spent most of the day with Brooke, first at her attorney’s office with Dad, and now at Kathryn’s house making a scrapbook about us for River. After printing out photos of ourselves and parts of LA – hiking trails, parks, his bedroom-to-be at each of our respective places – we glue-stick them on to the pages, like kindergarteners.

‘So, how do we plan to explain our relationship to him, since we’re planning to move him from the one home he knows … into two he doesn’t know at all? Two parents who are already separated – that might be confusing.’

Brooke chews one side of her lip, thinking. ‘Hmm. Well, we need to convince him that we’re friends. That we aren’t going to drag him into a tug-of-war. All our self-portraits are separate. Are there any photos in existence of the two of us together, happy? But not, you know, happy-happy. Maybe something taken during School Pride?’ Glancing at my dubious expression, she waves a hand. ‘Yeah, never mind. We pretty much loathed each other for the duration of that whole thing …’

After today’s revelations, I feel even worse about how I treated Brooke then. Seriously, having a conscience is ass. ‘The only friendly one I know of is from five years ago – the one that got printed along with the pics of us at LAX a couple of weeks ago, along with all the theories about why we were flying together.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Right? Because nothing coincidental ever happens to celebrities.’ She thumps herself in the forehead and grabs her phone. ‘Duh. Let’s just take one now. Lean in.’

We lean our heads together and smile, and she takes two or three shots. After we choose one and she sends it to her laptop, I say, ‘You know what the media is going to do with this story, right? River. Us.’

Sighing, she nods. ‘I’m not sure what slant they’ll take, but they’ll probably either try to make us into a pre-packaged little family, or we’ll be the new young Hollywood poster children for teen irresponsibility. Like having a child is comparable to being jailed and rehabbed non-stop for a coke addiction. I wouldn’t care what they say about me –’

‘That’s new.’

She shrugs. ‘I just don’t want River getting hurt because of it. Especially the whole illegitimate thing. So … I was thinking about giving Rowena an exclusive for the first photos of River –’

‘What? No. Why would you even consider letting one of those vultures take photos of him?’

‘Because, c’mon, Reid, be realistic – they’re gonna take photos of him. This is a huge story, and Hollywood babies are stalked hard. If we have Rowena do them, we diffuse some of the demand for him, and control how he’s presented to the general public.’

I grimace. ‘Alarmingly, that makes some sense …’