Chapter Thirty-Two
OfficialEndeavourHigh: We hope you’re having a restful fall break!
“What do I even do?” I ask myself out loud. I’m well beyond the point of caring whether or not it’s weird to talk to yourself.
I just wish Mom hadn’t said those words: You’ll do your best, like always.
I know she meant well and all, but right now, I don’t know what my best even is.
Doing my best is what got me here, I think.
Lying in bed in the same clothes with greasy hair and tears on my pillow.
Doing my best is dangerous, because I don’t know when to stop.
I can’t stop. I just keep going and going and going until I end up falling apart, like I am now.
So I take a shower. I wash the grease out of my hair and change my sheets.
It’s a monumental effort on my part … but nothing feels different.
The fresh jersey sheets are soft on my legs and my shampoo smells like coconuts.
But beyond that, everything is the same.
I just woke up an hour ago, but I could easily go back to sleep after all that.
That’s how I know it’s bad: Taking a shower felt like a week’s worth of exertion.
My books still taunt me from the shelf. The TV’s black screen reflects my image.
I look like I’m drowning in the fluff of my comforter.
The wet hair dripping around my shoulders really completes the look.
I don’t hear any signs of chaos, and I didn’t have to fight anyone for the bathroom, so I’m assuming the boys aren’t home.
There are so many things I could be doing right now, so much work I could be getting ahead on. So many friends I could talk to.
I don’t think I want a friend, though.
I want Hayes.
I shouldn’t call him. It’s weird. Is FaceTime better? No, I don’t want to FaceTime because I look like a gremlin. A half-drowned gremlin.
I’m going to call him whether it’s weird or not. Because I believe he’ll pick up.
The phone starts to ring, and I feel a strange urge to move around.
I don’t know what it is about the awkwardness of phone calls, but I physically cannot talk and sit still.
As I walk down the hallway, I take a moment to enjoy the relative quiet.
It’s so peaceful around here when the house is empty.
He picks up as I’m trailing a brush through my overgrown hair.
I try to do something with my too-long ponytail, but those half-curls over my ears still won’t stand down.
“Hey, Novella.” His tone is light but mildly concerned, and I realize he probably thinks this is an emergency since I called out of the blue. “You okay?”
I nod at myself in the mirror, then immediately recognize how ridiculous that is.
“Do you wanna do something?” I start without a greeting because I’m awkward like that. Even as I say it, the thought of going out and putting the image of completely-fine-ness over my face feels impossible. “I’m … bored.”
It’s a gross understatement for what I am and am not feeling right now, but it is technically true. Bored, restless, and consumed by self-doubt and a fear of my own weakness. It’s all the same, really.
“I can’t imagine you being bored.” I hear things rustling around in the background, and I wonder if I’m interrupting something. I didn’t ask, and I realize I am being kind of impolite.
“I don’t know that that’s what this is, actually. I just feel …” I can’t describe it. I can’t tell him what I feel, because I don’t feel anything.
“Maybe you need to touch grass.” He says it like that’s the only solution to the problem I haven’t even explained.
“Grass?” I repeat, looking at my own sarcastically widened eyes in the mirror. Why am I still standing in the bathroom?
“Yeah. You know, grass. It grows out of the ground some places.” Now I know he’s messing with me, and I hate that it helps just the slightest bit.
“I have heard of it. Seen it occasionally. There might even be some just outside my window.”
He laughs, and I feel it warm the cavern of my chest.
“Do you want me to come touch grass with you?” he asks softly.
“Yeah,” I admit, because I really, really do.
He hangs up the phone with little pretense, and then I have a moment of decision paralysis where I can’t make myself move.
My brain becomes a black loading screen with an incomplete circle in the middle spinning around.
I try to calculate how long it would take him to drive from his house to mine, then I think of how I should clean up my room before he gets here.
I don’t. Instead, I grab an old blanket that no one will mind getting dirty, and I head out into the front yard.
My main objective is to touch grass, and I don’t have time for side quests.
The sunlight is nice, and there’s a cool breeze drifting over the porch.
We have exactly one tree, and I lay out the blanket underneath it.
At first, I just sit. With my legs crossed underneath me and my palms pressed against the blanket. Not touching the grass, exactly, but close enough. A gust of wind surges by, and dry leaves rain down all over me.
Maybe this isn’t the perfect spot I thought it was.
I stand, move the blanket in between the tree and the driveway, and sit back down.
There’s no breeze over here, and the sun shines down on my face.
It’s warm enough to make me worried about the climate.
Determinedly, I breathe in a lungful of autumn air.
It’s the kind of scent that Bath I’ll be VP.
We work together instead of fighting. We’ll accomplish more than we could on our own, and that’ll matter more in the end than the titles we had. ”
His hands find me again, and mine go back to his chest.
“Wait,” I say, my brain pulling at painful threads until a theory unravels. “Is this you making it up to me? I don’t want you to just bow out as some weird penance.”
“No.” He shakes his head, leaning up on one elbow to look at me.
“You deserve this more than I do. You need it more. It just makes sense. I beat you in the student-government race last year, and I didn’t do anything with it.
It was a complete waste, and I got absolutely nothing accomplished. But you get shit done.“
I hadn’t thought about it that way, but he’s right.
“All the time, I hear my dad’s voice in my head talking about how much of medicine is leadership. I’ve been thinking about that and med-school applications for years and years. But I literally don’t care anymore.”
“That’s how I feel about scholarships,” I whisper. “Years and years.”
“Exactly. And I’m not going that route, anyway. I’ve decided.” He nods. “Let’s do this together, Nova. You can turn the presidency into something good.”
I sit in silence for a minute, wondering if I can accept his acquiescence. My mind reels, and I try to consider if I’m capable of feeling anything right now. I’m not sure yet. The cloud of heavy fear that had been hanging over me has dissipated some, though. That’s something.
“Seems like a pretty well-thought-out plan.” I whisper. “How long have you been thinking about this?”
He actually blushes. I run my fingers over his cheek again, just to feel it.
“Since I realized it would come down to me and you, and I knew everyone would be expecting a fight. Especially you. No more fighting.“
My eyes drift closed. There’s an almost painful sense of relief that threatens to take over me at the thought that we could both get what we want and not ruin each other in the process.
“I told you, Novella.” He starts leaning in so close, I can feel his words against my lips. “I’ll be your partner as long as you want me.”
I do want him. So much it terrifies me.
It feels like I surge forward, but it’s really only a tilt of my chin. My lips press against his, and relief takes over. His hands hold me tighter, and I can feel his heartbeat in his chest.
He rolls over and so do I, and somehow, we end up tangled up in each other and completely off the blanket. Hayes laughs, an open-mouthed chuckle that I feel on the apple of my cheek.
“See?” He grins. “I told you all you needed was to touch grass.”