Page 54 of Let the Light Shine Through

“Are we done here or what?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Roz says, getting to his feet to take my hand. It’s a little too coupley for my taste, but I remind myself it’ll all be over soon.

Too soon.

“Do you want to tell me what we’re supposed to do with…this?” he asks once we’re around the side of the house, his gold eyes lighting up despite his obvious confusion. He likes this shit just as much as I do; he just doesn’t know it yet. Or he does and feels too guilty to admit it. Grieving and enjoying life are not parallel. They overlap, they coincide, they can live in beautiful harmony if you know how to balance them correctly. It may not feel that way at first, but after a while, the agony lessens, allowing you to find a way forward, embracing both notions openly.

I take one half of the inflatable pool I bought while Roz lifts the other and, together, we carry it to the backyard. Then with his help, we drop it in the regular pool.

“Now we need blankets, pillows, snacks, and drinks.”

Roz eyes the inflatable pool floating on top of the water. “What if there’s a hole?”

“Then we swim.” I turn for the house, muttering, “Or sink.”

Gia

“Why didn’t you just do online schooling during the year you missed instead of making it up later? I’m sure the public schools have programs like that.”

“Worm,” I say, and Roz drops a gummy worm into my mouth.

“You could’ve gotten a tutor like I did.”

I scowl over at him, swallowing most of the worm whole. “You’re kidding, right? Private tutors cost crazy money, Roz.”

He bites his bottom lip into his mouth, so I decide against stating the obvious. Roz comes from money and I do not. But even if I did, I wouldn’t have used that kind of change on myself, not while my mom was suffering. We poured everything we had into getting Mom better, and it still wasn’t enough.

Roz feeds me a potato chip, then faces the inky sky again. “It’s just…you don’t exactly strike me as the type to want to go to a school like that.”

“It meant a lot to my mom for some reason. She went there, too.” To be honest, I never really understood why she wanted me to go to the all-girls academy so bad. My grandpa sent her there because after her own mother died, she no longer had a woman’s influence in her life, and he didn’t want that for her. A woman’s touch, as they used to say. But I did have my mom. Mostly. For the first sixteen years anyway.

Maybe she was planning ahead. Preparing. It’s what I’d do.

I reach for another worm from the bag on Roz’s chest.

“Is she the reason you like being outside so much, too?”

“Yeah.” Times like this, it’s where I feel most like myself. For the last few hours, we’ve been lying side by side inside the inflatable pool, talking, eating, appreciating the view above us. Roz and I skipped the fireworks, but it feels like the stars are putting on their own show for us.

Every few minutes, we bump into one of the sides of the in-ground pool; otherwise, it’s been a pretty smooth float. No holes so far.

“My mom loved to be outdoors. She was big on, um,” I side-eye Roz, but he’s still gazing up at the stars, “adventures. So we were always outside somewhere, off searching for the next one.”

“And birds.”

“And birds,” I say, grinning, because some birds you don’t have to search for at all. Some birds find you.

After a long pause, Roz changes the subject, saying, “So, you skateboard, you ride four-wheelers, what else can you do?”

“Want to find out?”

We turn our heads to each other at the same time.

“I’m not sure I’m your type.” His tone is teasing, but there’s a layer of genuine curiosity tucked in there, too.

“Type… Yeah, you might be right. I don’t think I have one. I like everybody.”

The water below us shakes from Roz’s laugh.