I don’t know why I follow Carter, but I do. Through gates I haven’t seen, past so many people, it’s hard not to take notice of a few after a while. It seems like we’re passing areas where the mood completely changes. At one point, everyone that we pass seems upset and hostile. Their postures and tones stiff and unwelcoming. To another area where everyone seems emotionally charged. Likely sad and worried that they’re going to miss spending the holidays with their loved ones. Selfish as it may be, I’d rather be around the grumps again. I hate negative Nellies. It not only stresses me out, it drains me.

Thankfully, Carter doesn’t seem interested in sitting amongst them either. In fact, his steps seem to become faster, making my legs push harder to keep pace.

Next, we pass an overwhelmingly active stretch where young children are prevalent and seemingly climbing the walls, or at least every chair, suitcase, and parent. I notice Carter’s lips curve into a smile before passing an invisible barrier where the sounds are quieter, the mood visibly more relaxed, where several parties of people have turned banks of chairs and individual ones to create seating areas where they can converse easily, sharing smiles along with friendly words. Some are sitting back with books or computers, others playing games and laughing. It’s while I’m watching a small group playing dominos, feeling a sharp twinge of homesickness, that Carter stops.

His head angles forward, and without question, I follow him into a gift shop.

“Do you have a sweatshirt in your carry-on?” he asks, heading to the racks of clothes.

“I have my sweater.” The aisle is too narrow for me to follow him, so I go around an end base of candy and gum to reach where he’s rifling through plum-colored sweatshirts with “New York” printed in lime-green block letters.

“Trying to make sure you don’t lose sight of me?” While my question could easily be said with a light and easy tone, even more easily a flirtatious one, mine is mildly annoyed still. I’m sure he sought it out because of its color. My mother dressed me in purple everything from the time I was little. Being born with strawberry-blond hair that often looks more strawberry than blond, purple is one of the few shades my hair doesn’t clash angrily against. Even knowing this, I have never cared much for the color.

“It’s going to be big, but you’ll be warm,” he says, pulling a hanger free.

“I don’t need it.” I turn and scan over the food displays that are being picked clean. “We should find another gift shop with some food, but I’m going to the restroom. I’ll be back.”

I head into the bathroom with my suitcase and stop in front of the long bank of faucets. My hair is a mess, and makeup is smudged under my eyes, but what looks the worst about me is my anger. I sigh deeply and wash my hands and then my face.

Carter isn’t in the gift shop when I return, my shirt changed and hair pulled up to try to conceal that it’s gone flat and greasy. I whirl around in place, trying to convince myself my heart isn’t thrumming with disappointment and pain.

“Pipe!”

I turn my head, and a heavy sigh rolls through my belly as I see Carter by the far wall.

“I thought you left,” I admit as I drop my suitcase near his backpack.

“In twenty-three years, have I ever left you?”

I know what he’s doing, insinuating that I’m the one who left. “Haunted Corn Maze Incident of 2004.”

“It has an official title?”

“Don’t ignore that it happened.”

Carter smiles ruefully and then dips his head. “You have the memory of a steel trap, I’ll give you that, but your facts are often distorted.”

“What does that mean?” I cry, my arms crossing over my chest, working to keep my heart firmly in its place.

“You and Emily went in after Brad and me because you were trying to get those guys’ attention, so you begged us to separate.”

My lips part to protest.

“They were the year between us, and I told you they would scream louder than you guys. I’ll give you that I was wrong about that, you guys could be heard in Chicago, but you didn’t want us near you,” he reminds me.

We had wanted them to leave us alone. And we did scream like banshees.

“And while we’re discussing the Haunted Corn Maze Incident of 2004, remember who came back and found you?” His chin drops, his hazel eyes widening as he looks at me with patience.

It was him.

We had gotten so scared we’d stopped, and Carter had found us. Emily and I clung to him like leeches as he led us out. How had I forgotten? I’m fairly certain it was that night—that moment—that I started to admit my feelings for Carter were far from platonic. His sixteen-year-old arm had felt so warm, so safe, and surprisingly strong as I dug my nails through his sweatshirt and long-sleeved tee. Never once did he complain, though he did poke fun for weeks. However, while he guided us, his eyes met mine repeatedly, making me wonder if he was possibly seeing me as something more than his best friend’s little sister.

I never asked. I hated him two weeks later when I found out he was dating Linsey Burke, the same Linsey who was so rude it’s kept me from returning home, likely the cause of suppressing what then had seemed like such a gallant gesture.

Carter moves, and I’m wondering what path his memories have wandered down. Is he too remembering Lindsey? Does he recall making that mistake that made us squabble and bicker for the month that he dated her and an additional six weeks because I felt he had wronged me after holding my hand that night in October? It was an ornament, a reindeer with a life preserver around its middle and Christmas lights tangled on its horns he gave me on Christmas Eve, that finally dissolved my anger.

“What are you doing?” I ask, watching as he pulls a couple of empty chairs over.

“We’re going to build a small fort.”

“A fort?”

He nods, moving more chairs around to create a small tunnel. “Grab that bag, will you? It has some blankets in it.”

I watch him, not certain that he’s serious, though he continues building, rearranging, and altering things. He lies on the ground, his face toward the brightly lit ceiling. He pushes the chairs a bit farther apart before looking at me, his eyes widening and chin darting out with the silent demand for me to hurry up.

“Stop rolling your eyes,” he says as I move to the plastic sack.

“I’m not even facing you,” I cry, though I was rolling my eyes.

“I know you.”

My face distorts as I silently mimic him.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Good,” I retort. I pull one of the airline blankets out and hand it to him.

He drapes it over the backs of the chairs and uses the roll of duct tape that he had mercilessly flirted with procuring yesterday to ensure the blanket stays in place. I hand him two more blankets that he does the same with. I’m wondering if the airport will tell us to take it down when Carter rolls my suitcase inside, following it to the very back. He quickly crawls out and grabs his bags. Several minutes later, I’m wondering if he’s taking a nap or has decided to give me some time alone finally, or maybe he needs a reprieve from me.

“Are you going to check it out?” Carter’s head pops out from the tunnel, his hair mussed from the electricity and rubbing against the blankets.

“Now?”

“Get in here!” He grabs my calf and pulls me closer before retreating back inside.

I crouch near the entrance and look around. It’s small, barely bigger than a two-man tent, the ceiling much lower.

“In,” Carter demands.

Everything about crawling into a small, dark space surrounded by blankets with Carter seems wrong. “Maybe later. I’m going to go see if I can find some more snacks.”

I shift my weight, an unnecessary nervousness creeping over me like a fever, flushing my cheeks and distracting my thoughts. Should I be waiting for him to reply? To come with me?

No.

But I am.

“Anything sound good? That last place was already clearing out of everything except for gum.”

“I got quite a bit of food this morning,” Carter replies as he backs out of the small fort he’s constructed. I watch as he sets a pair of tennis shoes at the end so they’re barely peeking out from the blankets. “You were passed out, and since that couple heard me call the airline and tell them my last name was O’Brien and their last name was the same, they offered to watch and make sure no one bothered you.”

“You know, an eighty-year-old woman was in the local news last week for robbing her neighbors she was asked to house-sit for. She looked really sweet and innocent.”

“I lost sight of you twice for less than three minutes each time that I checked out. Other than that, I stayed in the terminal. I wouldn’t have left you alone—especially while sleeping—even with a nun, if I couldn’t see you.”

My gaze shifts away from Carter’s, which is intense with an honesty I don’t have to question. I know without thinking that Carter O’Brien will always think of my safety. It’s why for the years we grew up together, he always walked on the outside of the sidewalk, convinced Brad they should go to the lake each time Em and I went, and drove us to parties they both complained about. The Haunted Corn Maze Incident of 2004 was not the only time he’d rescued me. He went to my junior prom with me though he’d already graduated because my then-boyfriend had broken up with me a week before the date, leaving me dateless with the dress I had worked for months to save up for and the refusal to hide my face because I’d been dumped, and he already had a new prom date. He attended my senior prom as well but under different circumstances. That year, he asked me at the end of summer, right before he left for New York to go to school. My car had been filled with balloons. Each one had a slip of paper rolled up inside; they contained memories, jokes, and reminders of what to do and avoid my senior year, and one bright-purple balloon held the invitation for prom. I didn’t date anyone that year. Not once. Instead, I read each of the handwritten messages from those balloons so many times I could recite them each better than the state capitals. That year, he also called me every night before bed.

“What are you doing?” I ask, watching him rearrange the shoes he’d brought out and propped under the blanket.

“I don’t want anyone to steal our stuff while we do our Christmas shopping.”

A short laugh bursts through my lips. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t done your Christmas shopping?”

Carter rubs his index and middle fingers across his brow. “I was supposed to have a couple of days.”

“But you live in New York. There are so many awesome things your parents would love from here. I got your dad some dried meats from Little Italy and this really beautiful bracelet for your mom from this woman who has a small shop in Brooklyn. It’s all handmade and made from recycled material.”

“I avoid shops like that at pretty much all cost. But the dried meats from Little Italy, that one is pretty brilliant,” he says, lifting a finger and pointing it in my direction. “Besides, they come to New York to visit.” His knuckles graze my arm as he faux-punches me, shifting my thoughts from my senior year, when he not only called every night but hid away in my bedroom and kissed me like I was his life support. Turns out I was the only one fully reliant.

I remain still for several long seconds, attempting to understand if this gesture is his effort to show we can still be friends. “When did you become so hard to read?”

He blows out a short breath through his nostrils like the question is offensive. “Probably around the same time you decided I didn’t exist.”

“Or maybe both of us have changed.”

Carter shakes his head, then runs a hand across his brow like he’s attempting to soothe the tension visible with the thin creases there. “Some things you can’t change. No matter how hard you try.”

“Sure you can.”

He cocks a single brow. “Yeah, like that old Santa suit your dad always wore? The one that stank and made you sneeze like crazy.”

The memory catches me off guard and has me laughing, recalling the years we had to feign excitement and pretend we didn’t know it was Dad dressed up. “That beard he had was the worst!”

“You mean to say real beards don’t have elastic wrapping around your ears?” He smiles, rearranging the constellation of freckles on his cheeks.

“Well, I guess we can check out some of the stores here,” I say, glancing in each direction as though instinct will kick in and instruct me which way to turn.

Carter follows me, and as we take the long trek to a shop we haven’t yet visited, I pay less attention to others around us.