Maggie and Grace, together forever.
I sit in the waiting room. Around me, everyone is coughing and hacking and sneezing and bleeding, and it’s a general cesspool of humanity, but I barely notice any of it. My nose burns from the bleachy and medicine-y odors wafting through the air. I’m not sure how long I’m there, blinking heavily at CNN on the TV, before Emmy comes out with her arm around an exhausted-looking Eva, Luca trailing behind them and carrying Eva’s bag.
“Are you coming with us now, Grace?” Emmy asks, digging through her bag for her keys. “Or do you need to stay?”
“Yes,” I say, standing. “I mean, no. I’d like to go now. If that’s okay.”
She pulls her keys out of her purse and takes a deep breath. I’m not sure what I expect from her. Whatever it is, what I get is a weary smile and a whispered “Of course, honey.” She hasn’t looked at me once. Just takes Eva’s arm and guides her out the door, Eva’s gaze on me the whole time.
Tears pool in my eyes, but I can’t let them fall. Not yet.
Luca’s hand slips into mine. “Mom’s just freaked out, Gray. This whole thing shook her up. Remember when Macon was sixteen and got in that fender-bender? Barely a dent on the car, the airbags didn’t even deploy, and Macon didn’t have a scratch on him. She still she took him to the emergency room.”
“She’s mad.”
“She’s mad at Maggie. Not you.”
I don’t say anything. Luca squeezes my hand, but I pull away and walk outside into the silvery drizzle.
The drive back to Cape Katie is silent. Nothing but a few soft drops of rain on the windshield, the wipers swip-swapping every few seconds. No one asks about Maggie. I don’t offer any information.
It’s like we’re both already long gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A FTER YOU GRADUATE . . .
After you graduate . . .
After you graduate . . .
By the time Emmy pulls up to the Lucky Lobster, Mom’s words have already rolled through my head about a million times. They’re so loud, her voice so tinny in my mind, I barely hear Luca telling me to wait when I toss the car door open and get out.
I’m halfway to the stairs leading up to our crappy entrance-on-the-outside motel room when I hear the door of Emmy’s Accord squeak open again.
“—?let me do it,” Eva’s voice says. “I’ll be right back . . . No, I’m okay.”
I walk faster.
I don’t want to talk to her. If I do, I’ll cry or scream or try to kiss her, and I can’t do anything of those things.
“Grace?”
The stairs are in front of me. They’re right there with their tarnished handrail and paint-chipped wood. All I have to do is take them two at a time and our room is the second on the right. Safety.
“Grace.”
But I can’t take the steps two at a time. Her voice stops me, holds me, turns me around.
“What?” I try to say it forcefully, angrily, even meanly, but it comes out a cracked whisper.
Now, she’s right there. Right in front of me. She smells like Band-Aids and smoke.
“Grace.”
“Please stop saying my name.” I finally lift my eyes to hers, to that cut on her head, to her red-rimmed eyes haunted by another hospital hours away. The rain falls softly, tiny sparkling diamonds on our skin.
“Is Maggie okay?”
