“What doyoumean?”
For a moment, we both forget the plot and stop walking, turning to face each other like we’re about to duel.
“What do you mean ‘what do you mean?’?” I spit.
“I mean,” Declan huffs a breath, looking behind us at the group of approaching girls and then back to me, leaning in to whisper something by my ear. “The question doesn’t make sense because I’d rather go with you.”
Warm fireworks explode beneath my skin. If I could sparkle from the inside out, this is what it’d feel like.
I can’t help it. The brightest smile I’ve ever smiled detonates across my face.
“Well, you should’ve just said so sooner,” I whisper back into his ear before theatrically falling on one knee.
“Blair, what are you—” he protests, but the slightest tug at his lips gives him away. He approves of the plan.
I crane my neck up, balancing my hands on my bended knee. “Declan Renshaw!” I shout at the top of my lungs, makingsure the three girls hear every word. “Will you make me the happiest girl in the world by going to prom with me?”
He stares down at me, and for a horrible moment I think I’ve misread the situation. But then he straightens and shouts back, “Yes! It would be my honor!” He plays along perfectly, overemphasizing the musical quality to each word as if we were eighteenth-century lovers, a dopey grin on his face.
Declan cups a hand over his face so that our audience won’t see as he mouthsNow get up!Laughter punctuates each word.
So I do.
We keep walking through the parking lot, clenching our fists to stop the threatening laughter from bubbling out. When we finally make it to our cars, we turn around to find our suspicions confirmed. The group of girls has dissolved. Probably right after our timely performance. He silently pumps his fist in celebration.
“What would I do without your quick wit and ridiculous, unwavering commitment to bits?” he says when they’re out of hearing range.
Bit? I think, foolishly.
I mean, it was one for their sake, but what if it wasn’t for mine?
“Hah!” I choke out. “It’s unimaginable, really.”
“Truly,” Declan agrees, raising his eyebrows before opening his car door. “But, hey. We do need to follow through and go to prom together. Or else we’ll be found out for the liars we are. And nobody likes a liar.” He raises his shoulders like what can ya do?, then disappears behind his car door, slamming it shut.
Chapter 7
After my first day of training at the coffee shop, I walk the short distance back to my childhood home. It is beautiful as ever, with tall multipaned windows and ivy-covered walls standing at attention. But it feels different. Like there’s a thick atmosphere surrounding it. An eerie sense of brevity that is about to pop. And not in the mysterious or sexy waytemporarycould sometimes seem, like a summer fling or a nice car you’re only renting, but in the way that everything about life as I knew it was about to change.
The usually chirpy birds seem to hold their breath as I walk up the cobblestone driveway.
There’s a van I don’t recognize parked outside, and I think my body knows it before my mind catches up. When I walk into the house, my biggest fears are confirmed. Medical-looking bags are thrown next to the shoe rack by the door, evidence of nurses nearby.
I take the stairs two at a time to reach Lottie’s bedroom faster. When I turn the corner, the sound of Lottie’s breaths rattling fills the room. It was like loose change was clanking around a metal box in her chest. I’d never understood what “death-rattled breathing” meant until now. And I found it cruel to find out. I already feared the countless nights I would be awake, the sounds of her death echoing endlessly in my mind.
I look at my mom’s distressed face as she kneels next to Lottie, her fingers gently stroking Lottie’s weathered hand. She presses her lips into a thin line and looks across the bed toward the woman standing in the corner. Lottie’s usual hospice care nurse is checking her vitals, but there is a woman wearing a pantsuit I have never seen before. Without speaking, I know she is my personal Grim Reaper. The person they send you when your loved one is reaching the end.
She notices my entrance and motions to speak, but the thought of her delivering words I could never unhear makes bile rise up my esophagus. Tears cloud my vision, making her an indecipherable blob until I manage to mumble “I’m sorry,” before running from the bedroom, down the stairs, and heaving over the sink.
Nothing comes up, but the sobs rack their way through my chest and into my throat. My breathing is so sporadic it forces me to cough. I keep trying to suck down air, trying and failing. I begin dry heaving, the force causing me to double over at the hips. Still, nothing comes up. I wait in anticipation for mydiaphragm to stop contracting. It does, and when my vision clears, I notice the bowls in the sink I was hunched over.
It feels so cruel that life as I knew it was ending. The woman who was another mother to me was dying, and I had dirty dishes in the sink. Where was I expected to find the energy to care for the details of my life when the main one had been irreversibly altered? Shouldn’t the world slow, the frivolous tasks of life disappear, while the tectonic plates of my life shifted?
Shouldn’t they assign me a pass for today? For the next seven hundred “todays”?
My “todays” would never look the same, but the dishes were still dirty.
After the woman in the purple pantsuit leaves, I drag my feet back into Lottie’s room. My mom looks at me like I’m fragile. And as much as I hate it, I’m starting to realize she’s not wrong.
