Chapter 16
My grandmother’s kitchen is a place filled with magic.
When I close my eyes, I see it so clearly.
Glass bottles in different colors catch the light.
Ancient cast-iron pans sit on top of the stove like generals in an army.
Plants grow from pots on high shelves, trying to reach the light that spills in from the window above the worn porcelain sink with brown rings in its base.
Soft, faded wool rugs layer on top of each other, having survived an infinite number of spring cleanings.
And when I’m feeling untethered, I draw it and remember all the time I spent inside the walls that seemed to keep everything there sacred. My pencil—
“That’s not your art project.”
The words come in muffled through the music playing in my earbuds, and I look up to see Linden standing in front of me with a coffee mug in one hand and a bottle of Advil in the other.
She’s still in her pajamas and her bed is unmade.
Somehow, I missed her getting up and making coffee with the pod machine she had to have.
Coffee is the first thing I require to function.
“Grandee’s?” she asks, even though she knows it is. She would know this place just by the way the sun filters in through the gauzy curtains.
I pull out one of my earbuds and bury it in my fist to cover up the static noise. “I’m just feeling stuck.”
Linden sits down next to me and takes a small sip as she holds the cup with both hands. “Mm. Stuck is not good. Stuck like in school? In life? In art?”
“Yes,” I tell her with a pathetic smile.
“Sounds like we need a cheat day.”
“I wish I could. Today is my studio time to work on the mural.”
“Or,” she says, giving me a mischievous look, “maybe you have massive diarrhea and can’t make it.”
“I would never tell them that.”
“Okay, stomach problems? You ate bad cheese?”
“No, Linden,” I say, growing more exasperated.
She stands and grabs her phone from off her bed. As she furiously types, she smiles, and then I hear the whoosh of a message being sent. “Done.”
“What did you just do?” But I already know.
Her face is proud when she tells me, “I texted your TA that you’re not gonna make it.”
Snatching her phone from her hands, I read the text to Max.
“Those are my private messages!” she says with a laugh.
Nieve has diarrhea and can’t make it today.
Oh my god. “I hate you.”
She throws a pair of sweats at me. “Come on. Get dressed—we need a cousin day.”
“Linden, I can’t. I’m already so behind.”
Her jaw clenches. “I’m not trying to be a brat here, but I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever, and it’s like you’re turning into this whole other person without me. And … I miss you, okay?”
My heart gives a painful squeeze. Linden isn’t just my cousin; she’s my best friend. The person that sees the ugly parts of me and still believes in me. The one that tells me there is something inside of me that is worthy and important.
Not for the first time, I wonder if I should try to tell her what is happening, or what I think is happening. She grew up with Grandee, too, after all.
But I can’t seem to do it. I don’t think even she would understand.
“Linny.”
Her face falls, and I know this moment is one that matters.
The kind that changes things. Maybe if I tell her no, Carter lives, and my life is different.
Or maybe not. I’m so scared of doing the wrong thing.
Of changing things in a way that will erase someone permanently.
And I’m scared that one day I’ll wake up and not recognize my life at all.
All because I made a single decision.
But then I remember Linden holding me, still covered in water from the river, as I screamed for Carter and … I can’t lose Linden. No version of my life would be complete without her.
“These sweats are filthy. I need a different pair.”
She smiles at me, relieved, and pulls out a pair of hers. Twenty minutes later, we’re in her car listening to the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac.
I don’t have to ask where we’re going.
We drive down the freeway, only breaking the quiet to sing with the music. When we hit our small town, Linden stops at the grocery store with a deli counter and a bakery.
We order our favorite sandwiches and a bag of chips to split. She grabs two cupcakes, one vanilla, one confetti.
And we drive to Grandee’s.
The house is quiet, her truck gone because this is the day she attends the farmers market to sell the yarn she’s made during the week.
Grandee’s sheep baa but don’t move as we walk toward the pond.
We sit on a small dock that floats on top of the water covered in blankets that we never bring inside.
She asks if I want to swim, and I tell her it’s too cold.
From the look Linden gives me, she knows I’m not telling the truth, but she doesn’t press it as we eat our sandwiches.
The sun carves a path against the sky, and in this moment, I feel my world exhale, like the waves lapping gently against the wood.
“Everything feels like it’s moving too fast,” Linden says. “Like time itself.”
“Huh?”
“We left school at eleven, and now it’s two.” She picks off a pickle from where it hangs between the bread and pops it into her mouth. “Time just keeps going, and I feel like I can’t catch up. You know?”
Before I can stop myself, I say, “Maybe you can repeat it?” But it sounds stupid, and I take a bite to cover up how ridiculous I feel.
“Right. That would be nice. To just go back.” She grins at me, and I know before she speaks, she’s going to do her Grandee impersonation. “Time isn’t real. Reality is whatever your mind tells you is true.”
I smile, but reality feels different when your mind isn’t sure what reality even is, when you’re waiting to see if you’re just gonna wake up from a dream.
There’s an ache in my heart because I can’t lose Linden, but I have a secret.
Something that keeps me in a place separate from everyone else.
I can feel her slipping further and further away from me.
I reach out and lace our fingers together. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m a good college student.”
“First year is hard,” she says. “I cried every night and wanted to come home and see you and Grandee all the time.”
I didn’t, though. My first year, I had Linden and Carter, and all I wanted to do was be grown. No curfew, no one asking if I went to class, no one making sure I ate something that was green. Home was with them. Home was me finding out who I was.
But I know Linden wants to take care of me. This gives her a purpose in my life. Something for her to do during my crisis.
“That must be what it is.” I pat her hand gently and open the chips.
Linden goes inside and brings out a bottle of cheap wine and unscrews the cap. We feel like adults drinking and picking at our food as we watch the sun set.
“I think Max likes you.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes me. “No, that’s not it at all.”
“I know when a boy likes someone. Max watches you.”
I hate that I can feel myself blush. “I’m pretty sure he watches me because he thinks I’m a brat. Entitled.” It embarrasses me to admit it.
“Maybe, but probably hot, too.”
“No,” I say, wanting badly to stop this conversation. “He would never do that to Carter.”
“Do what to Carter?”
Damn it. “Nothing,” I say, adding a laugh at the end like it’s funny. “I mean, it kinda feels like they’re dating.”
She rolls her eyes. “They are codependent.” She takes the wine from me and adds, “Carter is cute, though. In that rich-kid-frat-boy way.”
“Yeah.”
But I hate Carter being described like that, like he’s just a list of things. Not the small scar on his stomach that I loved to kiss or the way his heart would slow when I laid my head on his chest. The way his sigh felt like I was sighing, too.
“I mean, he’s my friend, and I don’t hook up with friends…” Linden continues.
“But?”
“But sometimes when I’m feeling like shit, I think, Why not? Carter doesn’t care about feelings or commitment. I could just…”
He doesn’t care about those things, because he doesn’t have me. Because I’m gone.
“I think hooking up with your friends is bad news,” I say, even as I hope there isn’t an edge to my voice.
“Is that why you won’t hook up with Max?”
“I don’t like him like that. And he’s the TA.”
“You don’t think Max is hot?”
“Everyone who likes men thinks Max is hot; I’m not an idiot.” I’m getting more and more impatient the longer we talk about this.
“Max is hot. That’s a scientific fact.”
“You hook up with him, then.”
We sit on the dock until Grandee shows up a little tipsy from her own wine adventures at the farmers market.
The three of us eat a cake she made for the church potluck, saying she plans on staying home. Grandee claims she only goes so they won’t call her a witch, but she smiles too much at Pastor Greene for that to be true.
After, she demands we fall asleep in our childhood bedroom, and as I lie in bed, I think about what Linden said about Carter.
Maybe he is the kind of guy that she should be with.
Maybe they would work well together.
Maybe if they are together … he won’t be with me.
And if he’s not with me, maybe he’ll live.
A tear trails down the side of my face and into my hairline before I can catch it. I hate this. I hate the way I feel when I think about Carter, this in-between space of wanting him to live and wanting him to be with me.
Wanting a distraction, I grab my phone and see a text from an unknown number.
Sorry about your diarrhea. I explained part of your project today to the team, but it was probably bad.
And then.
Thanks for the notes.
Max Emerson. I don’t know why my heart beats fast in my chest. I can only think it’s because I was worried that he would be angry with me for writing on his project. But I save his number before I type back.
I don’t have diarrhea.
Perspective is hard.
If you say so.
You’re not good at it either.
This asshole.
Yes, I am. You literally said I was good at it on my project.
You’re okay.
Make sure you eat right so you don’t miss tomorrow.
I’m not covering for you again.
And then he texts,
Good night.
I’m not sure why those two words feel heavy against my mind. I hear them in his low voice.
I had his number. Before.
The week that Carter died, Max came over every night.
He sat on my bed, the one I refused to get out of.
We barely spoke. He mostly asked if I’d eaten or if I needed something.
But then the fight happened. I don’t remember most of what it was about, only that Max had shouted at me for going into the river.
Because he blamed me, even if he hadn’t come right out saying it. Finally, we could stop playing this game. The one where he pretended that he didn’t think I was responsible for Carter’s death. I told him never to come back.
And he only told me … good night.
“What are you making that face for?” Linden asks from her bed on the other side of the room.
“I’m not.” I close out of my text app and drop my phone onto the nightstand I had painted yellow during a phase where I wanted everything to look like a sunrise.
This table makes me sad that I live in a dorm with generic furniture that’s the same in each room. Made of particleboard and built to be as inoffensive as possible.
She smiles at me. “He asked for your number.”
“Who?” But I know who she’s talking about. I don’t know why I’m playing stupid.
“He’s not a bad guy, Nieve. He might even be a fun distraction.”
This is the problem with Linden talking to me about Max. She doesn’t understand that Max and I have a history etched into time in a way neither of us can overcome.
Maybe Max doesn’t hate me now, but he will.
He will hate me if Carter dies again. And somehow, he will know it’s all my fault.