When the last person leaves, the house exhales.I glance around at sagging streamers and limp balloons, but everyone pitched in to clean up all the food so we should be able to take down the rest of the decorations in no time.Maddie is pulling out the last full bag of garbage and knotting it.
I glance down and see Grayce is asleep on my chest, frosting in her hair like confetti.
“Trade you the kid for the garbage,” I suggest.
Maddie looks up and smiles at me.“Nah.You go ahead and put her down for a nap.I’ll take this out and get the last of the decorations.”
“Deal,” I say, and it’s just that easy.We’ve always split the duties so effortlessly.
I head upstairs and lay Grayce down in her crib, taking an extra moment to watch her.When I make it back downstairs, Maddie is just walking back in.
I meet her halfway in the kitchen and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her close to my chest.
“Alone at last,” I say.
She sighs, snuggles in.“This feels different.”
“How so?”I ask, stroking her back.
“I don’t know how to describe it, but since giving you the words, admitting I was brave enough to love you and accept your love, it feels different.This hug feels just…more.Make sense?”
“Yeah.I feel it too.”
She tilts her head and meets my eyes.“I’ll always be a little scared, but I’m not letting fear decide for me anymore.I choose you.”
My throat tightens and I frame her face in my hands and kiss her slow.“You have no idea how good it is to hear that.”
She smiles, soft and brave.“Gray helped.”
Of course he did.“He’ll always be watching over us.”
Maddie snickers.“You have no idea how accurate that is.There’s something I need to show you.”
She slips out of my arms, crosses to the side table, and pulls her laptop into her lap.She pats the seat next to her and I settle in.
The glow of the screen washes over her face as she clicks through folders.“Remember I told you that Gray made a bunch of videos for Grayce?I was going through them yesterday, and sure enough, he did one for her first birthday, which we’ll watch later.It’s super sweet.”I watch as Maddie navigates to a folder with a bunch of MP4 videos and scrolls down to one that saysMaddie_WhenYouNeedItMost.
“He left a message for you?”I ask in awe.
“He did,” she says matter-of-factly.“And you can watch it later, but suffice it to say, it made a big impact on me.”
My head swivels and I lock eyes with her.“Whatever he said gave you the push you needed to take a risk.”
“Gray always knew what to say,” she murmurs.
I lean over and kiss her.“Yes, he did, and I’ll be forever grateful he recorded that.”
“He left you one too,” she says.
I jolt, a sudden excitement tearing through me.How many times a day have I wished I could talk to my friend one more time?
“Can I see it?”I ask.
She nods with a smile, touching the trackpad with delicate fingers, like she’s handling a precious gift.
She scrolls to the fileAtlas_OneLastThing.mp4.
The video opens with Gray in a hoodie, hair messy, sitting at his kitchen table.He looks tired but steady, his eyes bright the way they always got when he was about to lay out something important.
