“It might be easier,” I say, sounding more uncertain than I’dlike.
“Easier for…?”
“Well… My parents, for one. If they…see it, then they won’t question it.”
“So you think we should lie to them?”
“We haven’t been honest with them in months,” I snap. “If anything, this is just correcting an assumption.”
He doesn’t respond to that, which pushes my internal panic index into the danger zone. “Garrett, I can’t handle the constant questioning and lecturing from my family. You know what they’re like. If we don’t make it crystal clear, then the entire visit will be spent explaining what happened, over and over again. Not just explaining, but having to justify it. They won’t believe that I did enough to try and save our?—”
I cut myself off, because I probably didn’t do enough to save our relationship. But neither did Garrett. We just let it slip away, and that’s a regret I’ll have for the rest of my life, because he was—is—so important to me.
But I didn’t grieve the loss of him for eight long months only to re-hash it all with my parents.
If I wanted their opinions about it, I’d have told them sooner.
“Never mind,” I manage to stammer out. “Fine, we can do it your way.”
And he just nods.
I want to cry.
I won’t, though. I have more control over myself than that. So I drill all my attention into picking better holiday songs, weird stuff that maybe Garrett hasn’t heard before, or stuff that I know he likes, like “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues.
Over the next hour and a half, we listen to an eclectic mix. But we don’t fight again, and he doesn’t side-eye any of the songs. His thumb even starts tapping along to some.
It’s a minor road trip victory.
“You hungry?” he asks suddenly.
Right on cue, my stomach growls. “Um, maybe.”
He shifts slightly in his seat and jerks his thumb back to the cooler.
I twist and open the lid, looking at his picnic. There’s a massive wrap that looks like it’s got turkey and spinach on it, as well as some apple slices and clementines, which surprise me. I love clementines, they’re my fave, but he’s never been a fan before.
The wrap looks like he pre-cut it in half, so we could share that.
“Turkey, you say?”
“It’s good, I promise.”
“I believe you.” I grab it, as well as two clementines, which I let roll into the cup holders between us before I take half the wrap out of the Ziplock bag.
Up close, it’s not just aturkey and spinachwrap. It’s like a chopped salad with spinach, red pepper, celery, and other veggies, dressed and neatly folded inside turkey breast and a whole wheat wrap.
I stare at it. “There are vegetables in here.”
Garrett muffles a laugh. “Correct.”
“You made this?”
“Correct again.”
I narrow my eyes. “That’s not treading water.”
“You sound suspicious.”
