Chapter Twenty-One: Wednesday December 28, 2005, Glen Oak

Lucy wasn't surprised to hear Simon's voice on the end of the telephone line the next morning. Matt had called last night to tell her about him and Simon's fight. It was all her fault.

No.

It was Simon's fault, for being stubborn, for not listening, for not thinking.

"I'm sure you already heard from Matt," Simon told her, by way of hello.

"He called me. Look, Simon—"

"I get it, okay, Luce? You were worried. You, Kevin, Matt, Mom, Dad, everybody. You all think I'm some kind of screw up."

"We don't think that, Simon! I don't think that!" Was that what he really believed? Did he think they all thought—did he think…? "Simon, you're smart and funny and kind and thoughtful. You had a rough couple of years but you're getting yourself back on track. I don't want to see you get derailed."

"By Caroline?"

"By anyone."

"Lucy, Caroline is the reason I'm back on track. Maybe not the whole reason," he corrected, before she could tell him that wasn't true. It couldn't be true. She knew Simon. "But meeting her, getting to know her—she believes in me in a way no one has in a long time. Maybe ever."

"I believe in you Simon. Me, Kevin, Mom, Dad. We all believe in you."

"Then why don't you trust me to make my own decisions?"

"This is about more than just you. Simon, I see girls like Caroline in my teen empowerment class every week—"

"We're not having sex!" he snapped.

Which was a relief. "I didn't think you were." It was…mostly true. She gave her brother enough credit not to be a complete idiot. "But the thing is that she's young, she's still…it's easy not to think straight when you're…." infatuated. Because that's what it was, right? It had to be. Lucy had thought she was in love a few times. She had been in love with Jeremy.

And look what it could have cost me.

So she chose her words as carefully as she knew how. "Girls don't always make the best decisions when they care about someone as much as I'm sure Caroline cares about you. Matt says she's a really smart girl. She's got her sights set on law school, right?"

"She's hoping to go to Radcliff. That's where Cathy went. I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"And what about you?" Lucy asked. "Are you planning on going back to Northern?"

"I'm still figuring that part out."

"So while you're figuring that part out, what is Caroline supposed to do? Sit around and wait for you?"

"Isn't that up to her?"

"Simon, you have to do the right thing because it's the right thing, Simon. I know you know that. Sometimes one person has to make a hard decision because they know the other person is too stubborn or too young to do it for themselves."

…..

December 28, 2005, New York City

Simon hung up the line and wandered out onto the balcony, where just a few nights ago, he and Caroline had celebrated their own private Christmas. It seemed like forever ago. He'd been…happy.

Every time he thought of Caroline, he felt happy.

More than happy.

He felt…peace.

He felt right.

At the same time, Lucy wasn't wrong. Matt wasn't wrong.

Could they be both not wrong and not right?

He needed to talk to someone—but the people he usually talked to were Matt, sometime Ruthie. He already knew where Matt stood and Ruthie….

If I don't think Ruthie has enough life experience to have insight, how can I expect Caroline to be able to figure out what she wants?

Caroline was only a little older than Ruthie.

Except if some guy dumped Ruthie "for her own good", Simon would be livid.

But what if that guy was nineteen?

He stared out at the city, wishing Caroline was there, but knowing she wasn't who he needed to talk to, not yet. Not until he figured it out.

Simon poured himself another cup of coffee and called the only person he could think of who might understand. He'd lost touch with most of the people he'd considered friends from college. That "date" he'd had with Rose last summer had proven to Simon how little he cared about any of those people, at least in any deep sort of way. He'd tried to reconnect to some of his old friends, people he'd known since high school—middle school—some even longer. But they either still saw him as the same kid they'd known way back then, the driven, happy guy who had his life all planned out, or they saw him as the guy who'd killed a kid on his bike and still didn't quite know how to process that. Even his very closest friends were strangers to him anymore.

After five rings, Mary finally picked up. "Simon? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. No. I'm not sure. You have a minute?"

"What's going on?"

He settled onto the sofa and started at the beginning. Some of it she'd heard before, either from him or Matt or Ruthie, but some of it no doubt was brand new to her. He didn't gloss over the age gap separating himself and Caroline and he didn't argue with her that it was different than her and that airline pilot, or even different from Lucy and Kevin, even though in a few years it wasn't going to seem like a big age gap at all.

"But it's not like we've done anything. I haven't even kissed her. The truth is, as much as I want to, I don't want to…to spoil what we have." There was a sweetness to their friendship, an innocence. He wanted to savor that for as long as he could. "I don't feel like we have to rush into anything."

"You sound happy," Mary observed.

"I am. For the first time in longer than I can remember. It's just…nobody else seems to see it. All they see is all the stuff I did before and it's not like I'm trying to pretend none of that ever happened, I just want to move past it."

She almost laughed. "Good luck." Then, more seriously, "Mom and Dad love you. They're just not good at letting go of the past. I think it's because they're afraid you'll mess up again and they don't want you to get hurt. And maybe that's my fault a little bit."

Simon scoffed. "How?"

"Because I…set a precedent, I guess. I'm the second oldest, right? I had it all mapped out. Basketball. College. Then I screwed up. And I kept screwing up—or at least that's how they see it. So, because of me, they think you'll keep screwing up, too."

"That's not fair."

She laughed for real. "Which part?"

"All of it. Whatever's going on with you and Carlos is your business, not Mom and Dad's." It also wasn't fair for them to judge him because they thought Mary was making another mistake.

"There's a reason I moved across the country, Simon, a reason I made a new life for myself. I went to London for six months and when I came back, I moved to Chicago without telling anyone except Carlos. And I know everyone thinks I abandoned Charlie, but Carlos is a great dad—despite that stupid fight I picked because I needed an excuse to leave. The truth is that I wanted Carlos would go back to Puerto Rico because he's close to his family in a way I'm not able to be close with mine right now. I'm not saying Mom and Dad are awful or that I don't love Matt and Lucy and all of the rest of you guys, it was just that the only way I was ever going to get out from underneath all my mistakes was to move away and start over."

"I tried that."

"You went to a school four hours' drive from Glen Oak," she pointed out. "I bet you came home on weekends."

"Not every weekend."

"Often enough."

He heaved a sigh. She was right.

"Look, I'm just telling you what I did. You're not me. You have to figure out on your own what you want to do with your live because it's your life. Moving away, starting over like I did…it wasn't easy. Back home, in Glen Oak, in Mom and Dad's neighborhood…? It's not such a bad thing when everybody knows who you are. When I moved to Chicago, I didn't know anyone. I had to start all over. Again."

"So, why'd you do it?" She must have had friends here in New York.

"Because sometimes you just have to keep at it, until you get it right."

"Have you? Gotten it right?"

"It's a work in progress," Mary admitted.

"Are you happy?"

"I'm getting there."

Simon could hear the smile in her voice. He smiled too. "I love you."

"I love you too."

They hung up without a proper good-bye, as was apparently the Camden fashion. Simon was careful not to do that with other people, but with family—at least his family—somehow both parties just knew when it was time to hang up.

Simon walked his empty coffee cup to the kitchen sink and rinsed it out. He was just starting to think about what he wanted to do with his day when there came a knock on the door. Simon expected Caroline—but instead, he found Elliot Burch.

Elliot seemed to register the look on Simon's face. "Sorry if I'm not who you wanted to find on your doorstep," he said with a laugh.

"No, it's just… do you want to come in?"

Elliot crossed the threshold, still smiling. "Caroline is out with Cathy and a couple of the other ladies doing the sorts of things the likes of you and I are never invited to, and we're probably better off for it," he teased.

"Let me guess, manicures?"

"I suspect that's the least of it. So, I figured I'd drop by and see if you wanted to have lunch with me, Joe, and Devin. Fin will join us if he can."

"What about Caroline's father?" Simon asked. He still hadn't met the guy.

Elliot's smile remained serine. "Vincent has a lot going on today. I'm sure you'll meet him in time."

….

It was, on the one hand, weird being the youngest guy sitting at the table of a corner deli, and yet on the other hand, sitting there with them made Simon feel as if he'd passed some sort of test. There were no more questions about his future, his plans, no side-eyed looks, even from Joe Maxwell.

They were joined half-way through the meal of sandwiches and fries by Dr. Joel Fleishman, a casually-dressed, dark-haired man around the same age as the others, who wore a leather medicine pouch around his neck and greeted Simon with a warm, friendly smile as "Caroline's young man! We meet at last!"

Simon gleaned through conversation that Joe was a widower, married only a few short years to the love his life, while Joel was a "contented bachelor" who had been engaged some years ago, before he moved to Alaska. She broke up with him after he discovered that instead of going to practice medicine in Juneau, he was being shipped to a tiny little city called Cicely.

"I was bitter for a while," he confided to Simon. "And not just about that. But having my life up-ended like that was the best thing that ever could have happened to me."

After lunch, Cathy, Caroline, Robbie, Lauren, Amy, and Cathy's friend Jenny Aronson joined them, although they'd already eaten. When someone suggested ice skating in the park, Joe suddenly had to get back to work, much to Cathy's amusement. Thankfully, Caroline took pity on Simon and suggested that the others go on without them, she—allegedly—wanted to take him to her favorite bookstore.

Cathy grinned, "Say hello to Kristopher for us, if you see him."

"Oh, Cathy," Jenny groaned.

"Seriously, Radcliff?" Joe added.

Elliot beamed indulgently. "Gotta believe in magic, Joe." He kissed Amy's hand. "I know I do."

Joe rolled his eyes, Cathy laughed, Caroline snickered, and Simon was sure he was missing something.

"Do I want to know?" he asked, as he and Caroline left the deli, hand in hand.

"Probably not. Kristopher is the artist Mother and Father swear they didn't really name my brother Christopher after, but nobody believes them, not even Kristopher."

Simon didn't bring up his argument with Matt and Caroline didn't ask him. Instead, they spent the afternoon browsing old books and walking around the city. By the time Simon got back to Cathy's apartment he was foot-sore (nobody in Glen Oak walked as much New Yorkers!) but feeling better enough about everything and everyone that he called Matt.

He got the machine, which came as no surprise. "It's me," Simon said into it. "I just wanted to apologize for losing my temper yesterday. I know you guys love me. I love you too. I just wish you'd see me for who I am today, not who I was two years ago, because I'm not the same mixed-up kid. I'm still a work in progress, but I'm starting to figure out who I want to be and what I have to do, to get there. I know who I want with me—but the decision to be there or not is hers, not mine."