Where We Used to Roam Jenn Bishop (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

and the flash would only startle him. Maybe it’s better this way. I stare at him hard one last time, taking a picture in my mind.

“Bye, buddy.” I give him a little wave and head back to the inn.

As I pass through the lobby, I yell out, “Night!” to the receptionist and head up the stairs. When I sneak back into my room, Sadie’s still deep asleep.

I climb under the covers. With my eyes closed, I can still see him: the buffalo I helped save. It doesn’t fix all the mistakes I made, but it’s one thing, one thing I got right.

And then I really do sleep.

The next thing I know, there’s a hand on my shoulder gently shaking me awake. “Emma?” I crack open my eyes. Sadie’s bed is empty, the room sunny and bright. What time is it? Did I sleep in? Did I miss the FaceTime call from Austin?

Chris is fully dressed, holding out a cell phone to me. “It’s your mom,” he says, his voice breaking.

The picture of Austin that flashes in my head when I take the phone from him and press it to my ear isn’t the one from last summer. It’s Austin in the hallway, blasting his fist into the wall.

My mouth goes dry as I take the phone from Chris. “Mom?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

For the flight out of Jackson Hole, the seat next to me is empty. Not that I want to talk to some stranger right now. I text the one person I can trust with the truth: Austin overdosed, but the EMTs revived him in time. He’s stable. Heading home.

My throat tightens as I text the last bit. Sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye.

Any minute now I’ll have to switch on airplane mode, but until then I stare at the screen, grateful Tyler gave me his number before we left for Yellowstone. Grateful for Tyler, period. But then the flight attendant says we’re pulling back from the gate, and I have to turn airplane mode on before Tyler has a chance to respond.

A few minutes later we’re up in the air, crossing over the park on our way to Chicago, where I’ll switch to a plane for Boston. Another two-and-a-half-hour flight, plus a twenty-minute drive, and then I’ll be home. Home.

I stare out the window at acres and acres of grassy plains, the sharp angles of the mountains in the distance, and the one thing I’ve been looking forward to seeing most of all. A whole herd of them. Dozens upon dozens of bison.

That’s what it used to look like—not just Yellowstone, but all of the plains. What did my book say? Sixty million.

Sixty million bison used to roam the plains, but by 1900 there were only six hundred. Sixty million to six hundred. They were almost wiped out completely by people who cared only about money, who were so greedy that they killed nearly all of them until they were practically extinct. Strong and fast and powerful, but that wasn’t enough to keep them alive.

That scary headline I saw online comes back to me. “Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 in the US in the next decade.” Hundreds. Of thousands.

Could Austin be one of them?

I form a fist with my hand and bring it to my mouth. No, Emma.

I’m not ready to go back home. I’m not. My box for Becca is on the whole other side of Wyoming, on the top shelf of a closet. And it’s not even done. I didn’t get the chance to finish it, never mind come up with something for the art contest.

I’m supposed to have another month.

But nothing is going like it’s supposed to. Maybe it never does. Not with me, not with Austin, not with anybody. Rehab was supposed to fix him. It was supposed to help. So how could something go so wrong before he’d even been out twenty-four hours? On the phone this morning, Mom and Dad said they weren’t even sure what Austin took or where he got his hands on it.

He was supposed to be strong. He used to be strong. Like the buffalo.

But I guess he’s not anymore.

Or maybe he is. All of those bison, all of them, they were strong, too. But then I think about the buffalo last night and how fragile he was.

Can you be strong and weak at the same time?

It’s Dad who meets me at baggage claim in Logan Airport, still dressed in his suit and tie like he came right from the station. He’s typing something into his phone—he doesn’t see me, isn’t even looking. “Dad?”

His head jolts up. “Emma!”

I crash into him, burying my face in his chest. He smells like cologne. We’ve never been apart this long, and it hits me all at once how much I’ve missed him. Delia and Chris were no substitute for the real thing.

“Do you have a checked bag or—”

“Dad.” He’s not really doing this, is he? Acting like this was planned, like he was supposed to pick me up from the airport today. “Dad, how is he?”

When he looks back at me this time, the cheery Tony O’Malley from channel 7 weather strips away bit by bit until it’s only Dad in front of me. Not just my dad. Mine and Austin’s. And he pulls me close, patting my hair in the way that only Dad does, which is to say, he’s totally messing up my hair. “Better than this morning,” he says. His voice breaks on the last word. “Oh, Em.”

“Is Mom with him? How is she?”

“She’s… holding up. Do you need to grab something to eat? Do you want to swing by the house first?”

“I just want to see Austin. I need to see him.”

Dad reaches for my duffel, but I shake him off. I’m twelve; I can carry it myself. And as we head to the parking garage, neither of us says what we’re thinking. Where do we go from here?

A nurse