Spring break couldn’t come soon enough. I am going back home to California. I am going to spend the week watching beautiful sunsets over the green valley below my parents’ house, swinging in the hammock on our wraparound deck and eating oranges straight from my mom’s carefully maintained orange tree.

By the time my mom picks me up from the airport and we finish eating dinner in front of their new wall of windows looking out onto the valley spotted with wildflowers, I forget all about my life in New York. It’s as if absolutely no time has passed. I feel like I had never left at all.

“So, tell us everything that has been going on,” my mom announces.

We talk everyday and I keep her up to date on my everyday life, but she still demands an update as if we haven’t seen each other in ages.

“Nothing.” I shrug. “Just school stuff. Lots of papers. Midterms. Didn’t do very well on my Victorian Literature midterm, unfortunately.”

“Like an A-?” my dad jokes.

“No.” I shake my head. “Like a C.”

“Oh wow,” my mom says. “Well, that’s good.”

“What?” I gasp.

“It’ll build character. I don’t think you’ve ever gotten a C before and this is good for you. To know that you are capable of making mistakes. That you’re not such a know-it-all.”

She’s joking of course. Trying to make me feel better. I appreciate it. My mom can always be counted on that. She doesn’t take things too seriously. At least, not anything that shouldn’t be taken seriously. In fact, she always has a way of putting life in perspective. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is pretty much her motto.

And that’s precisely why I feel so terrible about keeping the events of the last month or so secret. I should tell her. She probably won’t freak out. At least, I hope not. Honestly, I have no idea how she would react. But I can’t. I’m scared. So, for now, all my mom knows is that Tristan and I broke up. Again. This time for good. So instead of telling her what’s really going on, I focus on my grades. And school.

“I did a speech for public speaking last week,” I say. “And it actually went okay.”

“Oh, I knew you’d do great!” my mom says, clinking her glass to mine. We’re drinking her specialty: sangria. She makes amazing sangria.

“You know, you can’t get sangria anywhere in New York,” I say wistfully. “I guess it doesn’t fit the climate; it’s all grey skies and bleakness over there now. But I honestly think that a little sangria would do New York some good.”

My mom flashes her pearly whites.

“Speaking of grey,” she says. “You’re looking a little grey.”

I look down at myself as if I can see my face. “I know,” I say with a shrug, “but I haven’t seen the sun in close to a month. Honestly, it gets really depressing sometimes. More like all the time, actually.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” My mom pats my hand.

Unlike me, my mom looks radiant. Both of my parents are doctors, but they’re not working as many hours as they used to anymore and now it looks like they’re glowing. Gone are the dark circles and the tired eyes. Their skin looks sun-kissed and they’re as fit as ever – given their daily tennis matches at the Calabasas Country Club.

“So how’s the business going?” I ask.

My parents started a clinical research organization, which runs pharmaceutical trials. It took a few years for it to get off the ground, but now they have more time and more than we’ve ever had.

“Really, really good.” My mom smiles. “I’m so glad I’m not killing myself at the hospital anymore. Now, I actually have time to do my makeup everyday and get my hair done every week. Can you believe that? Me actually taking care of myself?”

“I’m so happy for you,” I say.

And I mean it. They’ve been working so hard for as long as I can remember, missing my sisters’ and my games and events and special occasions. And now, everything is finally falling into place. They have time for themselves. Time for each other.

“So, okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “There is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you two about.”

“Wait, wait,” my dad says and pours himself another glass of wine. My mom laughs.

“You ready?” I ask. He takes a sip and nods.

“Okay, so…I’ve been thinking about something.” I don’t know how to say it without actually just coming out and saying it. I look at my parents. They are waiting for the news patiently but eagerly. “I’ve been thinking of transferring to USC next year.”

The table gets so quiet, I hear the hummingbirds flapping their wings as they angle for some syrup out of the feeder.

“Oh wow, that’s a surprise,” my dad finally says.

“But we thought that you loved Columbia,” my mom says. I know she’s serious because she puts her glass of sangria down and leans closer to me.

“I did. I mean, I do. But it’s just tough, you know. Winter. All that darkness and the cold.”

“Well, spring is coming,” my mom says.

“Hey, if she wants to go to USC, that’s awesome. Why are you trying to talk her out of it?” my dad asks.

“It’s not that. I’m just confused. I thought you loved New York. This is the first I’m hearing about how you don’t.”

“It’s not that. It’s not just New York. I mean, it is, but it isn’t,” I say. I’m grasping at straws. The truth is that I don’t know what it is. I just don’t want to be there anymore. I don’t want to deal with the cold and all of the bad choices that I made there. But I can’t really come out and say that. Any of it.

“Well, I don’t know about your mom,” my dad says, “but I, for one, would love to have you close by. You can visit on weekends. Go surfing anytime.”

I smile. That sounds…amazing. Exactly what I want.

After my dad goes inside to answer a few emails, my mom stays out with me on the deck.

She takes a sip of her sangria and taps her manicured nails on the table. I’m well familiar with this nervous habit of hers. Except this time, something jingles along with it. I look at her wrist. She’s wearing a white gold Tiffany’s bracelet.

“Is that new?” I ask, even though I know it is. Why did it have to be from Tiffany’s? It reminds me of everything I want to forget back in New York. I can’t bear to look it.

“Yes,” she says. “Your dad got it for me for our anniversary.”

“Wow, really?” I ask. My dad has a lot of good qualities, but buying jewelry isn’t one of them.

“Yes, and I didn’t even have to pick it out myself. He just went out and bought it. All on his own.”

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

“I know,” she says with a laugh. “I thought that maybe he had a stroke.”

I smile. It’s nice to know that no matter how old I get or my parents get, they always have the ability to surprise me. I think that’s important in life. The ability to surprise others.

I look at my phone. The high of being home is wearing off and I’m starting to feel more and more tired with every minute that passes.

“I think I’m going to go lie down for a bit,” I say. “I’m really tired from the flight.”

“Okay.” My mom nods. “But before you go, Alice, can I ask you something?”

I sigh and sit back down. It’s about USC. I know it. I look into her deep blue eyes and wait.

“I know your dad is overjoyed about you transferring to USC,” my mom begins. “And I am, too. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have you close by. We can go shopping and out to lunch. It would be really fun. I miss those Saturdays we used to have together when you were in high school.”

“I miss those, too,” I say. Suddenly, thinking back to them, I feel like I’m going to cry.

“But the thing is that I don’t really understand why you’re doing this. And maybe that’s not my place. Maybe you don’t want to tell me, and that’s okay. But I just want you to really think about this. I don’t want you doing this because things aren’t working out for you in New York. Certain problems you can’t just run away from. It’s strange and hard to believe, but for some reason they tend to follow you around. Even across three thousand miles.”

“I know,” I say, nodding. Though I don’t really know if I agree with her.

“And it’s not just certain problems. It’s really all problems. What I’m trying to say…rather ineloquently, I guess, is that I want you to come back here for the right reasons.”

I nod. I’ve heard that before, that you can’t fix your problems just by changing geography. But changing geography would change a lot of aspects of my life. For one, I would not be living near Dylan anymore – my soon to be ex-husband. And I wouldn’t be living in the same space as Tristan anymore – the love of my life up until now, the guy who broke my heart, and the guy whose best friend I married. Oh, what a mess. I promised myself that I wouldn’t think about this anymore. None of it. At least while I’m in LA. But I’ve only been here for a few hours and I’ve already broken that promise ten times.