That night,I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling in my apartment. It doesn’t have the best insulation, given its former life as a lumber warehouse or something, but I’ve got three blankets, a space heater, and Zorro in his spot, tucked up against my side. Every time I try to get more comfortable, he grumbles at me.
It's cozy. It’s warm. The space heater even makes some nice white noise, but I still can’t sleep.
“It’s easy forthem,” I finally tell the cat. “They weren’t there. ‘Oh, Javi, just use your words. It’s so simple!’” I say in a very bad imitation of my sister.
Zorro doesn’t react. I don’t think he even wakes up. I scratch the top of his head and try not to think, but of course I do. I think about her grumbling about ripping off Band-Aids, apologizing about blood, saying I don’t seem like the military type. Like I’m—fragile or delicate. Like I need to be handled with care or I’llbreak. I should hate it, probably; an old, almost-buried part of me knows that.
But it’s not that small or that simple, is it? Everyone I’ve ever known is fragile sometimes; the people who wind up breaking are the ones who won’t admit it. I don’t think I can name the last time someone treated me like I was too precious to break.
After a minute, Zorro lifts his head and offers his neck for gentle scritches. I oblige him.
“Shit,” I whisper to my cat, who cracks his green eyes open at me. “Did I fall for the first person who was nice to me?”
He doesn’t dignify that with an answer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
MADELINE
My dad is,somehow, having a New Year’s Eve party. He seems baffled by this fact—I don’t think he set out to have a New Year’s Eve party—but at this point, it’s unquestionably true. There is a New Year’s Eve party happening, and my dad is hosting.
“I didn’t think this many people would be here,” he tells me for at least the third time as he opens another bottle of sparkling cider. “I would have gotten more snacks.”
“It’s fine. People are bringing snacks,” I point out as I go through the cabinets. Which is true: there’s a random assortment on the kitchen island, including a plastic veggie tray and homemade bean dip.
“Wish I’d had this kind of social pull in college,” he says. “Every time I threw a kegger, no one came.”
I momentarily give up on trying to find a big enough bowl for tortilla chips and close a cabinet to look at him.
“Dad. You never threw a kegger.” I’ve seen pictures of my dad when he was in college. There was always a pocket protector.
“I threw parties,” he says. “Cool parties.”
“Was there a keg?”
“Technically, no,” he says. “But one year we did steal dry ice from one of the chemistry labs. We used it to carbonate grapes.”
“Wow,” I say as I try another cabinet.
“It also kept vodka shots really cold,” he says. “And then there was the party where Dave took all the leftover beer and distilled it into whiskey on the dorm stove.” My dad sighs wistfully. “We had to borrow the equipment from the chem lab. It was awful. Tasted like pants. We drank it all, of course.”
“Who wouldn’t want to party with you guys?” I tease, finally pulling a big enough bowl out. “Here, does this work?”
“Sure does,” he says, pouring in chips. “I’m good in here. Go hang out with your friends.”
“You sure?” Bymy friends, he means my future stepsiblings, Thalia’s boyfriend Caleb, two of Caleb’s brothers and their wives, one of Javi’s friends and his girlfriend Kat, who I talked to aboutGame of Thronesfor an hour at Christmas Eve, and at least two more people I don’t know. Maybe they know Bastien? Does Bastien know people out here? It’s a mystery.
“Go before I start asking you aboutyourcollege parties,” my dad teases, and since I don’t want to tell him about the time I took shrooms (never again) and talked to a garden gnome for an hour, I leave the kitchen.
“It was justluck I didn’t wind up in the ditch, honestly,” Kat is saying. We’re nothidingfrom the party, but wearein a corner and have been for at least thirty minutes. “And then, when I made it back to civilization with a giant hole in my jeans and mud everywhere, everyone acted like I was supposed to justknowwhen not to trust the GPS. What’s the point of GPS if you can’t trust it?”
“Thankyou,” I say. “If the GPS is unreliable, I may as well be using paper maps or something. Like a pirate.”
“Did they use paper maps?”
“I don’t know. They probably had star charts or something?”
We’re both quiet for a moment, considering this.
