Text From the Future: Dump Your Girlfriend novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: On the Porch

At six in the morning on the day of my flight, Chelsea was sitting on our front porch steps with her suitcase.

I saw her through the upstairs window, in the same pink sweater from Rosie's.

She had been sitting there a while. The dew had soaked through her jeans.

Behind her, parked at the curb with the engine running, was her mother's silver van.

It was the second Thursday in August and the last time I would wake up in that room.

I came down the stairs with my duffel on my shoulder and my mother behind me.

"Don't open that door," my mother said.

"I have to get out somehow."

"Then I'll open it."

She did.

Chelsea stood up so fast she nearly fell.

"Malcolm," she said. "Please. Five minutes."

Her eyes were swollen. Her hair was in a tangle.

Down the street, a neighbor was putting his trash out, and he took a very long time about it.

"You've had two months," I said.

"I know. I know I did. I didn't call because I wanted to give you space. Toby's gone. I haven't seen him since the airport, he blocked me everywhere, I swear. I'm not with him, I never really was."

"You told him I was solid."

"I was being stupid!" She started to cry. "I'm going to Ashford State alone. I can't even think about it. Please just stay one year with me. One year, Malcolm, and then you'll see."

"See what?"

She stopped.

For half a second her face went blank, and I watched her put something back in a drawer.

"Nothing," she said. "That we're good together."

Her mother had climbed out of the van. She was a heavy woman in a nurse's smock, and she walked up our path with her hands folded in front of her.

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