She purses her lips and shakes her head. “There’s a difference between choosing something out for your daughter that you know she’ll love, and forgetting her birthday exists, then sending some extravagant gift to make up for it. It means less and hurts more.”
Billie squeezes my hand one last time before the glass door opens. Grant’s face is red all over.
“Are you ready to go?”
I glance between the two of them. Two siblings, so similar to one another, it’s uncanny. Scary, even, considering they’ve been separated in this situation and every other one before it. If Grant realized how alike he is to Locke and Billie, would he still feel like such an outsider in his own family? If he knew that their lives weren’t as sunshine and rainbows as he’s pictured, would he empathize with them?
And if he knew Locke cared about him to the extent Billie says he does, would he be so convinced it’s two versus one all the time?
The questions of “what if”s swirl in my head as I hug Billie goodbye. Under her breath, so only I can hear, she whispers, “Please don’t tell him what I said. Locke will never forgive me.”
My skin goes ice cold. In a span of one night, I’ve uncovered a massive revelation about Grant’s family and earned the trust of his sister to keep it a secret. Under my breath, I promise her I won’t repeat what she’s told me.
When we make it back to Grant’s apartment, my boyfriend says his brain is too tired to be awake another moment, and he wants to go to bed. His green eyesareshrouded in exhaustion, so I let him push the topic off for the night.
But sooner than later, he’s going to find out that the villains he’s created of his siblings were ones he’s drawn himself, whether he wants to hear that truth or not.
twenty-four
LILIANA
The final sentencesof my short story were woven together at Grant’s apartment the day after Billie’s birthday dinner, with his encouragement over my shoulder as I typed it out. The ending wasn’t originally what I intended it to be, but he made a point of mentioning foregrounds and backgrounds in a painting and how it has to tie in to be cohesive.
So I adjusted the ending from my characters confessing through a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, to their love being put on display in front of their closest friends.
It’s a clean ending. It’s what I think Grant would have planned out, if he did some sort of illustration of it. I felt satisfied when I typed out the finale, but I saved this special moment until now, at my own apartment.
The intention was to write out the words “THE END” by myself. So I could relish in my hard work and let the feeling of validation sink in.
It doesn’t feel anything like that. The short sentence stares at me, bland. Nothing feels special about it. For my hard work, long nights, and anxious tears, I got… this.
I’m sure it’ll earn me a passing grade. It follows every guideline, and Grant said it felt cohesive, so it’s bound to be praised by my peers. They seem to like everything he influences.
Sighing, I delete the sentence. Re-write it. Bold it, then italicize, then underline. But no relief overwhelms me, no sense of pride drives me to text the good news to my friends and family. It’s just done. A complete story. A finished assignment.
I’ve finished assignments, though. Lots of them, where I tossed my hands up afterwards and smiled at how comforting it was to finalize. This is worlds away from that.
Is it because I’ve managed to finish it two weeks before finals? Liliana from a few months ago would gawk if she knew it was done this early. Liliana from undergrad would be shocked it was ever an issue.
Right now, I’m just confused, and regretful I didn’t do this at Grant’s place.
Maybe I could’ve found a way to segue this into a conversation about his siblings.
One of the things I’ve learned about Grant is how hard it is for him to talk about his family. The last thing I want to do is push boundaries.
I’ve thought long and hard about how to do this. I’m determined not to break Billie’s trust. Seeing her out on the balcony, so vulnerable about the life her and Locke have trudged through alone, the least I can give her is my word.
At the same time, I know I can help. If I can get him to talk to his siblings, or Locke, at least, he’ll be able to uncover people who understand him in a way I never could, no matter how much I want to.
I don’t mind being the person he leans on. I love that he trusts me enough for that, but Grant deserves more than one person to be his support system. He has Clem, and her parents, but minimally, when they’re not focusing on their own family. Derek is too distant to be there for him.
It’s not wrong for me to see he has two people in his life who can be what he needs. My heart aches knowing Grant,myGrant, has been so conditioned to push them away, he can’t see them in any other context.
My apartment is quiet. Rosie left on a date with a guy she snagged on MeetCute, and it’s a reminder of how far everything has come. From listening to her crazy schemes for my assignment, to getting caught up in a deal with the boy I told everyone I loathed.
To falling in love with him and wishing Grant’s happiness before anything else.
I love Grant. I love how creative he is, how he manages to hold himself together when his patience is tested—even if he stumbles, he’ll push through. I love that despite my stubbornness, he never gave up on me. He saw we had something in our past, and when I let my temper ignore that, he held onto it and chased after my heart that was his to begin with.
