Chapter 12
Karla
One night after dinner, Ellie came into my bedroom to say good night before she left for the evening. I was sitting on my bed listening to music as she appeared in my doorway. She had a goofy grin on her face, and her arms were crossed over her chest with a look of victory.
I sat up straight. “No way.”
“Yes way,” she said, beaming with pride.
I shook my head in disbelief. “No way.”
“Yes way. He said Ash can come for study meetings and dinner some nights. Of course, you still have to keep doing great with all your schoolwork and focusing on your other tasks, but . . .”
“He agreed?” I timidly asked. I was too afraid of getting my hopes up.
“Yes.” She nodded. “He agreed.”
“Ohmygosh! Thank you, Ellie!” I shouted, moving as fast as I could to give her a hug.
A hug. I was hugging my nanny. But I didn’t even care because I was that happy.
She hugged me back, and goodness, she gave good hugs.
The kind that made you want to melt into it. It almost reminded me of Mom’s hugs.
For that reason alone, I held on a little tighter.
* * *
I suppose Ellie wasn’t the worst person to ever nanny for Lorelai and me. Ever since she somehow convinced Dad to let me hang out with Ash even though I was still grounded, Ellie had shot to the top of my favorite-nanny list. Not that I needed a nanny, but still . . . she was doing OK.
Without Ellie’s help, I figured Dad would’ve forbidden me from seeing Ash.
If he had it his way, no boy would ever hang out with me.
Not that Ash and I were anything more than friends.
Even though sometimes my mind thought, What if?
Whenever the what-if thoughts appeared, I was quick to push them to the side.
I didn’t see a reason to dream of such a thing when the reality was that Ash would never see me as more than a friend. No one ever would.
But still, his friendship was enough for me. I was lucky he even gave me that.
Ash: Are you sure we can’t hang out at the cemetery? I’m sure there’s a few ghosts who would love our company.
I smiled down at Ash’s message. I wished that was a possibility. Not to sound weird, but I missed the cemetery. I missed Mom. Unlike Lorelai, I felt as if Mom lived more at her final resting place than floating through the air, following us around.
Karla: I miss that dark, creepy place.
Ash: I haven’t been since you and I met there.
Karla: I bet the ghosts are really struggling without you.
Ash: Yeah. It’s a known fact that people and ghosts suffer without me.
I smiled again.
A friend.
I had a friend.
A friend who sometimes made my heart skip a few beats from the mere idea of him.
A friend who had a way of making me smile even when I felt like crying.
A friend who was coming over later that afternoon for a Saturday hangout session.
A friend who saw me for me and still liked to stick around.
I still had a ton of anxiety over that fact. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hung out with a person outside of school. Most of my evenings were spent alone as I scrolled on social media looking at the friends I used to have living their lives without me.
It felt so strange to see people who were so familiar doing things that I’d introduced them to.
They didn’t even know about Frankie’s Ice Cream Parlor right outside of town until I took them there for my birthday two years ago.
Now they posted pictures from Frankie’s as if they’d known about it all on their own.
They also seemed happy. That was hard for me, because how could they be so happy without me when I was so miserable without them?
It had been a few weeks since Brian said hello to me in the hallway, too.
Two weeks and four days. Not that I was keeping track.
I missed his random hellos and how sometimes, when no one was looking, he’d smile my way. Missy never smiled at me, but sometimes I’d catch her staring at me with sad eyes. The moment I caught her staring, she’d look away.
It was OK that my old friends didn’t talk to me as much, because now I had Ash as a new friend.
Us and our very public friendship. He smiled at me even when other people were looking.
There was no secret about Ash wanting to be my friend.
He made that clear as day. Sometimes, my mind still doubted it, though.
Why would he want to be friends with someone as broken as me?
He could’ve done better. Even though he was odd, he was a cool kind of odd.
He could’ve easily been sitting at the popular kids’ table.
He even told me he used to be an all-star basketball player at his old school.
That was more than enough to make him homecoming royalty.
But Ash didn’t seem to care about popularity.
We were different in that way. I cared what people thought of me, but he didn’t.
I envied him for that. He would’ve fit right in with my old group of friends, yet he chose to be with me.
I didn’t fully understand why. I was grumpy and mean, and still . . . he stayed.
Mom would’ve loved him.
She would’ve called him a sweet young man and asked me all about him. I would’ve lied about the way he made my cheeks heat up whenever his light-brown eyes locked with mine, because I would’ve been too embarrassed to tell her that I was developing a tiny crush on a boy who was too good for me.
Mom would’ve said no person was too good for me, but I would’ve thought she was lying. Even back then, I wasn’t that confident.
A few hours after I spent way too long doomscrolling on my phone, Ellie knocked on my bedroom door.
“Hey, Karla. Your friend is here,” she stated with that sunny smile that she always had.
I sat up from my bed, stunned. Had that many hours passed already?
I began frantically combing my hair behind my ears. “What?! I’m not ready!” I exclaimed as I stood from the bed. I wished my body moved faster than it did, because my heart was sprinting and doing cartwheels while my legs dragged slowly along.
As I opened my dresser drawers, I searched for something to change into. Ellie walked over to me. She placed a hand against my shoulder and said, “Karla, you look great.”
I huffed. I stopped my erratic movements.
I took a breath.
I released it slowly.
“OK,” I said, before turning to walk out of the room.
Ellie followed behind me, then walked at my side.
She always walked at my speed, never a step faster.
Never leaving me behind. There were only two other people who did that.
My dad and Ash. Lorelai was always about half a mile in front of me, but that was because that kid was moving like the Tasmanian Devil at all moments of all days. Freaking speed racer.
Once we reached the living room, I saw Ash sitting nervously on the couch with his hands in the pocket of his signature tarnished hoodie. Standing over him was Dad, who had his arms crossed over his broad chest in his designer suit.
“You said your mother is a nurse and your father is an EMT?” Dad asked Ash, clearly interrogating him.
“Dad! Back off,” I reprimanded as I approached them both.
Dad glanced over his shoulder at me with his grumpy expression. “I think it’s important to know who’s in my household, Karla. And—”
“Grey,” Ellie cut in. “Stop it.”
Did Ellie just tell my father to stop it? And use a nickname for him?
And to think, I was just starting to like the woman. Now I was going to see my father destroy her before firing her right before my eyes.
Goodbye, Ellie. It was nice while it lasted.
Dad’s stare shot straight to Ellie, a look of disdain at first that shifted to . . . understanding?
Whoa.
What kind of witchcraft did that woman have within her?
Dad’s whole demeanor shifted not in a negative way but in a . . . lighter way? His shoulders relaxed. His jaw loosened. He looked . . . calmer. At peace, almost. Ellie kind of made me feel that way, too. As if the air was a little easier to breathe when she was around.
I wondered if she had some crystals or magical herbs in that purse of hers.
“Well.” Dad cleared his throat. “Have a good visit, you two. If you go in your room to hang out, the door stays open.”
“But—” I started.
“No discussion on that. Actually, better yet, stay in the living room or backyard,” Dad ordered.
I grumbled to myself. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Actually, I do. Eleanor,” he stated, turning in her direction. “Keep an eye on these two.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied before glancing my way with a slight wink.
God . . .
Did I like Ellie?
Ugh.
I liked Ellie.
What an odd turn of events.
Dad headed to work, leaving Ellie, Ash, and me in the living room alone. We didn’t say anything at first, and Ellie kept smiling at me like a giddy little girl. I cleared my throat and gave her a “Can you leave us alone?” stare.
She shook out of her goofy Zen state and clapped her hands together. “Right, well, OK. I’m going to go hang out with Lorelai in her room. But if you two need anything I’m one hallway away. I also left you snacks in the kitchen.”
With that, Ellie headed out, leaving me alone with Ash.
He turned to me and smiled. I was beginning to like that smile more and more. “Sooo,” he said in a singsong tone. “You never told me you were rich.”
“What? I’m not rich.”
Ash glanced around the room and arched an eyebrow. “You have a wine cellar in your basement.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How do you know about the wine cellar?”
He pointed a finger in my direction. “I didn’t know about it! I was just saying something that rich people have to see if you were rich. I bet you have a swimming pool and a hot tub, too.”
“And a sauna,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m rich. That means my dad is rich.”
“Typical line a rich kid would say. Can I see the pool?”
I nodded as I walked him through the house toward the backyard. The swimming pool used to be one of my favorite parts of our house. Mom, Lorelai, and I used to spend all our summer days in there whenever Dad had to work late hours.
I hadn’t been in the water since Mom passed away.