If I could be reborn, if I could be somewhere simple, where streets aren’t wet with sick and slop. If I could be a gentleman. If I could be someone I loved. Someone who knew how to love her. Then maybe I would know what to say those nights when we sprawled beneath the star-lit everything.

I closed my eyes and breathed deep the fresh, fragrant hay rounds near the bypass. Where we lay was enveloped in an orchestra of crickets supported by the steady bass coming from my truck engine. It was cold, but we were warm.

“Think you’ll get one of ‘em noo-yawka accents?”

“I don’t know, I guess, maybe,” I replied.

“It’s scary, but kinda a little exciting, too, you know? Going out there, getting to be the sorta man you’ve always wanted to be.”

She gripped my hand. Faith was brave, so it was easy for me to convince myself that she wasn’t terrified at the prospect of my absence. I shifted to sit up and, in doing so, withdrew my hand from hers and folded my arms around my knees.

“Honestly, I really am excited. I’m so ready to leave this shit town, Faith. This so-called ‘real America’ slug of a community, where people got no vision or sense of possibility, where every concern is daily and books are for holding tables up. The urban life…”

I paused, noticing her wide eyes trail to stare at the dirt where our hands weren’t.

“It’s where I’m supposed to be. I mean, I’ve got family and friends here, and I’ll miss them—you, the most. But you ever get that feeling? Like you weren’t born where you were meant for?”

“No, I get what you’re saying. I know how you felt for a long time. But we’re not the same. You know that; you say it all the time.”

“Faith… that’s not—”

“No, listen to me,” she interrupted, which was good because I didn’t actually have words to say, much as I felt the need to say something.

“I love my family, Carson. I don’t know how far I’d want to move from them. I’m a part of this community, I see myself in it. Sure, it’s got its problems, but that’s everywhere. I don’t know how much better off I’d be anywhere, ‘cause I don’t think places do that for folks. And if you’re just going somewhere ‘cause you think it’ll make you better, I’m betting what you’ll find is the same you in both places with nothing changed but the scenery.”

I wanted so badly to have something to say. Goddammit, I just wanted her to stop. But instead she shuffled around and sat straight up so that her eyes were level with mine, and she just stared into me and insisted.

“I hate when you talk about our hometown like it’s the darkest part of space. People here may not be much learned or cultured in the ways you figure as appropriate, but that don’t mean they’re not good people. You condemn what they like as silly. Who are you to judge what other people put in their hearts?

“You tell me they got no ‘vision for the state of the world.’ You call ‘em idiots ‘cause they don’t see what’s out there, and you’re headed out soon to prove you’re right. But I’ll tell you one thing, Carson: so long as you don’t got the right eyes for it, no matter where you’re at, you’ll always be blind to what’s right in front of you. And that’s sadder to me than any country hick who’s never been to the opera.”