4:39 PM
so you have to convince them. WHY NYU?
4:40 PM
Because if I don’t get out of this town now, I don’t think I ever will, tbh.
4:41 PM
It feels so good talking to Nash from my phone, as Kels, like before. At school, the best strategy when it comes to dealing with Nash is total, complete avoidance. I always arrive to our shared classes right before the bell. I claim the lunch seat wedged between Sawyer and Autumn. Any and all school-related talk is strictly about assignments and due dates.
It’s the only way to avoid a repeat of that awkward first day.
Because already I can see that Nash is just as smart and funny and filled with book puns for every situation as he is on my screen. If I get to know him, I know I’ll think he’s even more wonderful, and I’ll wish I were brave enough to tell him the truth and take his reaction, whatever it is. Which I won’t be.
When we have conversations like this one though—where Kels can talk to Nash as if nothing has changed, where Nash confides in Kels—the IRL awkwardness is worth it to risk not losing this.
Enough about that. Are things going
okay at the new school?
4:42 PM
i’m trying to make friends, i swear, mom!
4:43 PM
That’s not what I meant.
4:43 PM
… ok that’s kind of what I meant.
4:43 PM
is there even a point? It’s senior year. i’m at yet ANOTHER new school. maybe it’s better to save the whole IRL friends thing until college
4:45 PM
That sounds lonely.
4:46 PM
who needs real people when i have the internet?
4:47 PM
You mean when you have me
4:45 PM
“What is all of this—?”
My eyes snap up from my phone, meeting Gramps’s voice, and wow, his pained expression wipes the Nash smile right off my face.
Okay, so I kind of made a mess … and am in the process of frosting two dozen cupcakes.
But Gramps is looking at me like—I don’t even know. Like I’ve done something wrong.
I place my phone facedown on the table. “Peak stress baking?”
“Is this—it’s all Miriam’s stuff? How?”
His voice cracks when he says Grams’s name and my eyes instantly start watering. The mixer, the bowls, the pans and spatulas—they were all Grams’s. But she always let me use them, and all of it was just sitting in a box in the garage, clearly labeled KITCHEN STUFF.
“I just needed to bake, Gramps. I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t think.”
I swallow my words. I don’t know what to say next. Whatever I do say will be wrong.
“You can’t just start taking things that aren’t yours, Hal. You didn’t even ask. You can’t just bust in here like nothing has changed when everything—”
He pauses. Blinks once. Twice.
“Just clean it up, okay?”
He turns his back to me and walks upstairs without another word.
I lean forward and press my hands against the counter. All the emotion I’ve kept in since we got here bursts out now that Gramps looked at me like I’m the worst granddaughter in the world and just left. Tears stream down my face. I am the worst. The real reason it was all in the garage is so obvious now. Gramps literally stripped the house of everything Grams in a matter of months and I hate it.
My movements through the kitchen turn static. I’ll work on the cover reveal another day. I frost the cupcakes standardly and put the ingredients away. I scrub the bowls until my fingers prune and there are no more signs of sugary batter or memories of Grams. Scrub until I can convince myself that it doesn’t even look like I used them, not really, and I can forget the broken heart plastered on Gramps’s face.
I can’t.
I dry the bowls and pack everything back into KITCHEN STUFF. Tears dry on my cheeks as I lift the box and carry it into the garage, back to its spot on the shelf that I now realize is all Grams’s stuff. Cupcakes gave me tunnel vision—because it only now hits me that everything that was Grams, everything that is Grams, has been reduced to boxes in a garage.
CLOTHES (1/4)
SHOES (1/2)
BOOKS (1/10)
PHOTOS
Someday, we’ll all just be boxes in someone’s garage.
The KITCHEN STUFF box nearly crashes to the floor, my hands shake so violently. I can’t breathe, my chest is in knots, and I’m so hot and I’m gasping for air, gasping for anything to make this stop.
It doesn’t stop.
I am going to die, I think.
I’ll only be three, maybe four, boxes when I die, I think.
“Hal?”
In an instant, Ollie grabs my hand and pulls me away from the boxes, toward the steps of the garage.
“Breathe,” he says.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Listen to Ollie.
Breathe.
Ollie holds my hand tightly and lets me breathe my way through this. And I do get through it. Slowly my muscles relax, my breath steadies, and I’m not going to die—at least not today.
The first time I had a panic attack, Ollie was nine. Our uncle had died suddenly—I didn’t know him well, but the idea that he was just gone? The idea that someday I’d just be gone? It was too much. I cried so hard I couldn’t speak, or breathe. I thought, This is what dying is, isn’t it? It’s not being able to breathe—which only exacerbated the situation.
Ollie found me on my bed, sobbing my brains out and hyperventilating. He didn’t say anything. He just climbed into my bed and held my hand until it passed.
He’s held my hand through every panic attack since.
The tightness in my chest eases and I let go of Ollie’s hand. “Sorry,” I say. “I thought I was—”
I don’t finish my sentence because whatever I thought I was, I clearly wasn’t.
“You good? Maybe you should talk to Gramps about—”
I shake my head. “Gramps hates me.”
Ollie shrugs. “He’s just triggered, you know? He’ll get over it.”
I cover my face with my hands. “I just wanted to bake. He just wants to forget her.”
“Maybe he’s not ready to remember yet. Maybe we’re making it worse. I don’t know. Dude can barely take care of himself—it’s pretty brutal to watch.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Ol.”
Ollie waves me off and nudges my shoulder. “Did you bake double dark chocolate?”
I open my eyes and nod.
“Excuse me while I go eat one. Or five.”
He holds his hand out to me and pulls me up to standing. I swear, he’s even taller than he was just a week ago. He says something that makes me laugh—I can’t remember what though, because when we reenter the kitchen a second later, Gramps is there, eating a red velvet cupcake over the kitchen sink. Scout sits patiently at his feet, waiting for any possible crumbs to fall.
Seriously? Moments ago, Gramps’s grief crushed me into a panic attack and now he’s just—eating my cupcakes? He can’t see Grams’s baking equipment, but the cupcakes they produce are apparently fair game. I can’t.
“What?” Gramps asks, voice flat. “You made my favorite.”
At least that hasn’t changed.