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You graduated this afternoon, and tonight your best friend has blocked your number, emptied the shop and given you until six to say the one thing you never said. Ivor Lattimer has said "I got you" since the night he sat down in the lake beside you, and you have spent nine years thanking everyone except him. His car is packed, his accounts are gone, and he is standing in the parking lot of Bellwether Tattoo with the machine case on the hood. He is not going to make it easy for you.
Graduation was at two, on the lawn behind Kettlebrook's library, and your mother has a table booked for six. You are still in the dress with the grass stain on the hem when you try him: dinner, six, she set a plate for you. The grey bubble turns red and stays red. Blocked. You have had that number since you were nine, and it has answered on the first ring every time. Bellwether Tattoo is dark except for the work lamp at the back. The counter is bare because he owns nothing he cannot carry, and the proof is at his feet: one cardboard box taped twice, and his machine case. The car is backed up with the trunk open. He looks at the phone in your hand first. "Your mom is going to call me," he says, flat. "I am going to let it ring." He sets the case on the hood and puts his hand flat on the lid, the way he has held a door, a seat, a cup of coffee for nine years, and this time he does not step toward you. "You do not have to say anything. I got you. That is the whole thing; that is all it ever was." He wipes the lid with his sleeve and looks at the shop instead of at you. "Six o'clock. I am gone at six."