The Start of Me and You (31 page)

“I’ve thought about it,” he said quietly.

I recoiled, jaw dropping. My pulse quickened, pushing the mortification and confusion and anger through my veins.

“Great,” I said, standing in a huff. “Just great. See you around.”

“Wait,” he said.

My hair flew around me as I spun back—still pathetically hopeful.

“At the beginning of the year, why did you even become friends with me?”

My eyes went squinty with confusion. “I … I mean, we had QuizBowl together, we sat next to each other in this class … I don’t know.”

“That’s the reason, then? Circumstance?”

“Yeah. Why?” Okay, technically, I’d thought that being friends with Max would be my ticket to Ryan Chase. But that was before I knew Max. It stopped being about that a long time ago. And it’s not like he could have known that.

“No reason.” His head still sagged, defeated in a way I couldn’t understand. “I really am sorry.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

And I was. Sorry that we burned each other, sorry that he’d pulled up a drawbridge—shutting me out so completely. But not sorry that I’d tried to talk it out. Not sorry that I’d tried to fight for our friendship even when I felt awkward and confused.

I darted down the hallway in the opposite direction of our usual path, just to spite him. Still, I waited to hear my name called out over the hallway bustle. It never came.

I went over to my grandmother’s after school, even though I’d seen her on Sunday to tell her about my New York news. Of course, she’d forgotten that I applied in the first place, so it was a huge surprise. She cried happy tears, kissed the top of my head and kept saying, “my little Madelyn Pugh.” If there ever came a day that she couldn’t remember that
part of our history, I’d remember it for her. I’d remember it all for us both.

After such a good day Sunday, I felt terrible dragging my misery to her on Monday. But I didn’t know what else to do. I sat down in the chair next to her bed—my new usual spot.

“What’s on your mind, sweet girl?” she asked. Her voice had become quiet in recent weeks, with a soft rasp to it.

I leaned over so that my head was on the bed. I felt my shoulders twitch, trying to absorb the restrained sobs from my stomach. I didn’t want to cry, but my body insisted.

“Honey,” she said, running her hand over my hair. “Oh, honey.”

My tears slipped onto the quilt, and I let them. I didn’t wipe my eyes or cover my face. After a few minutes, the tears made space for words to fill. I explained as best I could without confusing her, but it came out in rambles and sniffs.

“Everything is so messed up,” I choked out. “I was doing so much better about Aaron. But then I met Max. And it just got so real, so fast. I lost someone again, in a completely different way, but it still hurts, and I just feel so stupid.”

She brushed my bangs out of my eyes. “I know it’s difficult to bare your heart, sweet girl, but it’s the least stupid thing in the world.”

I sighed, wiping my face. “I really was trying to move on. But I don’t know why I bothered.”

When she was quiet for a moment, I looked up. Her bleary eyes became fierce. “Paige Elizabeth, you are allowed to be sad, but you are not allowed to be a defeatist. The fact that you are hurting means that you let someone truly matter to you, and that is exactly—exactly—what your friend Aaron would have wanted for you.”

I paused, blinking, and more tears leaked out. “Yeah?”

“Of course. You’ve had your cry, but now you’ll pick yourself up and keep living your life. Doubly, for that sweet boy. Love extra, even if it means you hurt extra, too. That’s how we honor them.”

“But everything else with …,” I began, but she raised her hand to stop me.

“Everything else will fall into place,” she said. “Just live your life.”

“But …,” I tried again.

“No buts.” It was there, in her insistence, that she reminded me of my mom.

“Live my life,” I repeated, and the mantra stuck in my mind even after I left my grandmother’s bedside.

Chapter Twenty-Four

In other circumstances, I probably would have worked up the nerve to talk to Max again the next day. Instead, the words I might have said were gone, replaced by my grandmother’s:
Everything else will fall into place. Just live your life.

I’m not sure if those words would have mattered to me as much if they hadn’t been some of the last words she ever said to me.

My grandmother died that night, after another stroke that came out of nowhere. I had been there just a few hours before.

After getting the call, we slid into that blur of sobbing and numbness. “Mom, no,” I kept repeating as I cried. “I’m
so sorry, baby,” she said, and tears dripped off her chin. She held Cameron and me against her on the couch, and we sobbed in a little pile until my dad got there. Cameron climbed onto his lap like a little kid, and he clutched my mother’s hand between us.

Eventually we broke it up to deal with the notifications. It took the last of my energy to call Tessa and tell her. She sniffled into her end of the phone line, one of the few times I’d ever known her to cry. When she asked if I wanted her to come over, I told her I was too tired, too sad, too much of everything.

When I slumped upstairs, I could hear, faintly, my mother’s voice from her room, calling relatives and making arrangements. Her bedroom door was closed for the first time I could remember. The open door meant she was always available to us—if we got sick in the middle of the night or rushed in after a terrible dream. But no matter how much it felt like a nightmare, this night was not a bad dream. And even if it had been, the door was closed. I was used to her being a mother to her daughters. Now, she grieved in private, a daughter with no mother.

I begged my mind to turn off as I climbed into bed. At the beginning of the school year, I thought nothing could be worse than returning to That Look at school. But I would have given anything to go back there: when my grandmother was around, before I messed up everything with
Max. I cried all over again, muffling the sounds against the pillow until, at the edge of sleep, a creaking sound pierced into my consciousness. I sat up, blinking. There was a small figure in my doorway, its arms crossed in the darkness.

“Cam?” I mumbled. I blinked again. It was definitely my sister. “What are you doing?”

“Can I sleep in here?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” I told her. “Sure.”

I adjusted myself, leaving plenty of room on the side where Tessa slept when she stayed over. Cameron hurried toward my bed, as though she thought I might change my mind. Climbing under the covers, she clutched the stuffed rabbit she’d had since infancy.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked in the darkness.

I laid my head on my pillow, facing her.

“Me either.” Maybe as the older sister, I should have lied and said something more comforting. But she deserved to hear the truth, to be commiserated with.

“I miss her so much already,” Cameron said.

I bit my lower lip, fighting against the lump in my throat. “Me, too.”

“Do you think Mom will be okay?”

“Yeah.” I thought of the pain after Aaron died, blistering beneath my skin.
It will not always feel this way
, Tessa had insisted. “Just not right away.”

Cameron was quiet for a moment. “I don’t ever want anything to happen to Mom.”

“It won’t.”

“It might,” she said, calling my bluff.

“It won’t.” I needed to believe that, too. “Good night, Cam.”

“Good night.”

When I awoke the next morning, Cameron was already up. I wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing, but there was an indentation on the pillow next to mine where her head had been. The morning light felt harsh—too real. My grandmother was really gone, and even a night’s sleep didn’t dream it away. I curled myself into the fetal position for another little cry. When I eventually heard footsteps on the stairs, I expected my dad. But it was Tessa, holding two to-go cups from Alcott’s.

My eyes felt swollen as I propped myself up to greet her. She sat down on my bed, where Cameron had been, and handed me a coffee.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking. From Tessa, it was never That Look, especially not now. She loved my grandmother, too, and her sadness was her own.

I bobbed my head and bit down on both of my lips. I had a feeling that I would be doing that move a lot for the next week. The coffee tasted hot but not too hot—bitter and comforting.

We sat here for a moment. I felt my forehead creasing, my body instinctively knowing that I was going to cry again. “I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

“She knew.” Tessa turned to me. “She knew how much you loved her.”

I nodded through my tears.

“It will get easier,” Tessa promised all over again, linking her arm with mine and settling back against the headboard. I believed it this time, even as I stared down the long road ahead of me.

It certainly didn’t get better as the days dragged on. The funeral service was solemn, with all the expected formalities. My dad handed my mom tissues, his hand never leaving hers. Tessa sat in the pew exactly behind me, with Kayleigh and Morgan on either side of her. When the pastor launched into a diatribe about the finality of death, I felt their hands on my shoulders, assuring me that they were behind me. That they were always behind me.

I hated everything about the service. I hated the depressing music, hated how much I missed my grandmother, and hated the heartache radiating from my mother. I hated how much it reminded me of losing Aaron. I hated the graveside service, and I knew I would hate the repast at our house. I had no interest in appetizers or the people milling around, giving us That Look.

Two hours into the repast, I was long past exhaustion,
emotional and physical. I was tired of saying “thank you” to all the “I’m so sorry” speeches, tired of wearing my brave face. So when there was a knock at our front door, I escaped to answer it. The police could have been on the other side for all I cared, as long as I could leave the groups of people pooling in the living room, the family room, and even into the edges of the kitchen.

“Hi,” I breathed, pulling the door open. It was Ryan and Max standing side by side, each with an armful of various containers. I recovered from my stunned silence and opened the door wider.

“Come in, come in,” I stammered.

They filed into the house and made their way to the kitchen. I watched them go, suddenly very aware of my appearance. I smoothed my hair down and wiped beneath my eyes for stray mascara.

Shallow
, I accused myself, but I still straightened out my dress as I walked toward the kitchen.

They set everything down on the counter. I opened my mouth to say something, but what? I wasn’t sure. Now that they weren’t holding a mound of stuff, I noticed they both had ties on. Something about that made me want to cry again, but before I could, I was engulfed in Ryan’s chest, his arms wrapped around me.

“I’m really, really sorry, Paige,” he said quietly. His chin rested on the top of my head and held me there—a real
hug. Max gave me an awkward side-hug and cleared his throat.

“These are from my mom.” He nodded toward a small arrangement of calla lilies in a glass vase. “She’s really sorry she couldn’t be here.”

I wouldn’t have expected her to be, but I nodded all the same. “Thanks.”

“This is from my mom.” Ryan tapped the top of one of the containers. “It’s lasagna, double cheese. Best comfort food, I promise.”

“This is so …” I shook my head, bewildered. “Thank you.”

I had seen them a few days ago, but it was still so comforting to have them in front of me now. They showed up in nice clothes with food and flowers like … well, like grown-ups.

“Everyone’s downstairs in the basement,” I told them. “If you wanted to avoid mingling with adults.”

Ryan stepped toward the basement door.

“You coming?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he meant Max or me.

Max responded. “In a minute.”

Ryan nodded before he turned away, and Max set an orange cookie box on the counter. Do-Si-Dos, from his personal stash. “All yours, if you want them.”

My lower lip quivered. “I do. Thank you.”

He smiled hesitantly. “You’re welcome.”

“I can’t believe …,” I started. “I’m glad you came.”

“Of course we came. We’re your friends.”

He slid onto a kitchen stool—relaxed, as though personal tragedy meant a reprieve from our problems. I missed this Max, the one who looked me in the eyes and
saw
me. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and hang on until everyone else left.

“I know this is the tritest question,” he said, “but how are you doing?”

To everyone else who’d asked that night, I’d said okay. I shrugged as tears tried to form again. “Not great. I mean … you know.”

And he
did
know, having gone through it himself. “Yeah. Losing a grandparent is really hard on its own, but it’s also miserable to see your mom upset.”

“Yes!” I agreed, a little too loudly. These few normal minutes with Max felt like cozying up with a fleece blanket. Not enough to shield me—just enough to feel comforted.