Relief flooded my chest, but before I could fully exhale, she continued.
“But we will need to discuss your grandmother’s needs going forward.”Her voice was gentle but firm.“She’s expressed her wishes to me, and as her doctor, I will advocate for them.With you.And with Maya.”
Shit.
In my rush to get Nana to safety, I’d forgotten about Maya.I should call her now, but it was so late, and Nana needed to rest.
First, I’d get Nana home.After that, I’d fix things with Maya.
thirty-nine
how could I have been so stupid?
Maya
Ipacedthehallwaybetween Nana’s apartment and mine for the hundredth time since discovering she was gone.After scouring the building from top to bottom one more time, and running around the block once, I'd called every person I could think of to help me find Nana.I’d been pacing the building ever since.
Harold was as worried as I was.He’d been pacing right alongside me the entire time without stopping to lick himself or demand a treat even once.
“I should never have answered that phone call,” I muttered, the rebuke all too familiar thanks to how many times I’d repeated it since discovering Nana was gone.
As usual, my parents had wanted to regale me with pointless updates about their latest adventure.But the call had left me so rattled, so heartbroken, that I’d stormed upstairs, jammed on my noise-cancelling headphones, and curled up on my bed like a petulant teenager having a tantrum.
While my Alan Rickman playlist played on repeat, Nana had woken up, let herself out of her apartment, and walked right out the back door.
And I hadn’t even noticed.
How could I have been so stupid?
I was so wrapped up in my own feelings, I hadn’t checked the back door or armed the alarm.If I had, it would’ve gone off the second she’d left, and I would have heard it over my playlist.I would have known sooner.Now she was gone, and it was all my fault.
In all my life, I had never felt so useless.I hadn’t kept Nana safe, and now I couldn’t even help search for her.I’d been ready to scour the streets all night if I had to, but someone had to stay at the shop in case she came back on her own.Guess who got tapped for that job?
God, I am so, so stupid.
Stopping in front of the store window to stare out at the falling snow, I willed Nana to appear.It was just my luckwe’d have a late-season snowfall the night Nana took herself on a midnight walking tour.As if being confused and alone weren’t bad enough, Mother Nature just had to add freezing temperatures to the mix to make things extra dangerous.
When I’d checked her apartment again, her coat had still been hanging on the hook, but her winter boots were gone.Thank god for small favours.Hopefully, she’d put a sweater on over her nightgown.If the temperature dipped any lower, and if Nana stayed out there long enough, she could—
No!
That would not happen.I couldn’t let my thoughts turn dark again.Stay positive.Nana is coming home.But no matter how much I told myself that, my brain refused to see anything but the worst-case scenario.
I pressed my fists to my eyes, but the images wouldn’t stop.Nana, frozen and blue, with icicles hanging from her nose and fingers.Not even Alan Rickman returning from the afterlife to talk me down in person would have been enough to ease my mind right then.
This was the woman who saved me.The woman who gave me a home, a job, a purpose—the woman who had cared for me like the members of my own family never had.
And I had let her down.
I owed her so much after all she’d done for me.Looking after her in her retirement was the least I could do.Turned out I couldn’t even do that right.
My stomach churned as a combination of self-loathing and worry threatened to swallow me whole.When she got home, I’d make this right.Because something like this could never happen again.I wouldn’t allow it.
As long as she came home.As long as she hadn’t succumbed to the cold somewhere, alone, helpless—a flash of light through the store window snatched me from my bleak predictions.A car sped down the street toward the store.My throat tightened as I squeezed my eyes shut and tilted my face to the ceiling.
Please let that be one of my friends, I prayed to the universe.I will do literally anything you ask if someone finds her and brings her straight home.I won’t even care that they didn’t call me first.
I forced my eyes open, and my heart lurched when the car that pulled to a stop in front of the store showed a familiar face peering through the windshield.
