Chapter 14
fourteen
GRANT
I wish I thought about the car ride. I didn’t consider what it would be like weaving through the streets of Boston, glancing at my passenger’s seat and seeing Liliana there again, highlighted with streetlights and shop signs.
The sun has set. Dusk covers the defined features of her during most of the ride, but there are breaks, where Boston’s glow lets me see sprinkles of her freckles.
The small, heart shaped earrings that were hidden behind her hair before she tucks it.
This angle of her smile, one that’s different than what I see across a café table or textbook.
It’s the quickest twenty something minutes of my life before we pull into the parking lot I’ve watched deteriorate and be reborn again throughout the years.
“Putt-putt!” Clementine cheers from the backseat, and I chuckle. This isn’t the first, or the tenth, time I’ve brought her here, but she gets excited every time.
“Kristian’s?” Liliana asks and I nod while searching for a parking space. While guessing what we could be doing and where we were going, neither of them predicted Kristian’s Mini Golf.
Clem’s top guesses were the park, a birthday party, and Disneyland.
After I snag a parking spot, there’s a sequence of unbuckling seatbelts, opening and closing doors, and helping the smallest of us out of the car before heading towards the entrance.
“I used to come here all the time when I was a kid, with my parents,” Liliana says, glancing through the tall gates.
Warmth covers my heart and my grin spreads wide. “Me too. It was mine and my mom’s favorite spot.”
After ten minutes of mumbled complaints about me paying, we’re through the gates and standing in front of hole one.
It’s simple, with the only obstacle being a few winding curves.
I’ve been here enough times to know that if you hit the second brick on the first curve, you can hop the course and get a hole-in-one.
But winning isn’t the goal. It’s a slow day of the week and I intend to spend as much time playing my favorite game—with Clementine’s happy dances and Liliana’s wide smile—as I can.
So when my niece wants to try again and again because her golf ball won’t stop landing in the bushes, I let her, and I take the space next to Liliana in the meantime.
“Clem’s cute, huh?”
She smiles and nods. “She’s adorable.”
Clem knocks her ball further out-of-bounds when Liliana angles herself towards me, balancing her body on her pink golf club. “Why did you want to come here?”
“I told you. You deserve some fun.”
“We have fun no matter where we are.” Her voice is so casual when she says it, half distracted by Clementine whacking a rock into the green, I think she doesn’t realize what she just said.
But I do. And it’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.
“You deserve some time away from studying. You need to let loose and give yourself a break.”
“Grant.” Her defeated tone is a dead giveaway for what she’ll say next. Any attempt to get her to ease up on herself is countered with how badly she cares about her grades. “I can’t afford to take a break. I need to pass this class and get a decent grade, at least.”
I know.
Does she think I’ve forgotten how much this means to her? My intention is never to sabotage her, or work against something important to her. I would never do anything to risk her grade, if it means so much to her.
Except for the one time I did.
Guilt drops into my stomach. The memory of my mistake eats away at me even now. I don’t know if she thinks about it as often as I do, or if it suddenly invades her brain at night like it does to mine.
I glance over at Clem again to make sure she’s in a safe distance before dropping my head in shame.
“I’m still so sorry Liliana. I hope you know that.”
My emotions always feel heightened here. Tonight is no different. I clench my jaw, disappointed with my past self and still hurting from the memories of that week, when there’s a soft grip on my left forearm.
“Grant.” She sounds softer. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize again.”
“It’s not okay.”
“Hey,” she says, poking at my side lightly. I look over at her, met with friendly eyes I don’t deserve. “I know I wasn’t the easiest on you when we started talking again, and I kept saying I didn’t want to hear your side.”
My shoulders feel heavier.
“But I’m glad you told me.” I see her throat bob, like she’s nervous or unsure of what she’s about to say, but the corners of her mouth start to lift into a smile. The weight starts to lighten. “It changed how I saw you. And for what it’s worth, I forgive you, Grant.”
I stop breathing. It’s worth everything.
There are probably an infinite number of things I’ve wanted since meeting Liliana. To learn about her, to care for her, to see the hazy gloss in her eyes right after a kiss. Out of everything, earning her forgiveness is what I’ve wanted the most.
Apart from helping her with her story—which isn’t even finished yet—and buying her a drink or two, I’m not sure I’ve done anything towards achieving that. Without thinking, I bend to her, skepticism laced in my voice.
“Don’t feel influenced to say that.”
She stares at me, and whether she means to or not, leans closer.
There’s something hanging here between us. I’ve felt pulled towards Liliana since the day I saw her. Every time we spoke, it got stronger. Inevitable.
Right now, there’s a pull, but it doesn’t feel one-sided. It’s like we’re magnetized.
Her eyes hold a playful glint when she asks, “What makes you think you have any influence over me?”
Guilt continues to gnaw at the back of my mind, but being comfortable with her like this makes it less intimidating.
“I think I might have a little bit of an influence on you.”
I could argue I’ve had an influence on her story, or thankfully, how often she speaks down on herself.
Liliana seems to realize this too. She shrugs. “If you think so.” I know so. “I really do forgive you, though.”
“Thank you.” Are people supposed to give thanks for forgiveness? I’m not sure. I don’t remember the last time a “sorry” held so much importance. “I don’t forgive myself, though.”
The air surrounding us is heavy again. Way too dramatic for a night at mini golf, and completely off-track from what we came here for.
It’s like Clementine knows what I’m thinking when she yells, “I got it! Look, look! Hole-in-one, Uncle Grant!”
I break whatever was building between us to glance at my niece and clap my hands. “Good job! I’m so proud of you!”
She’s so happy and adorably ignorant to what a hole-in-one is. The moment of childhood innocence ignites ideas in me, drawings and paintings of kids cheering over participation trophies and excitedly waiting in line for Santa at the mall. I lock the inspiration in a mental vault for later.
Liliana lets go of the moment as easily as I do, in favor of walking through the course and cheering on Clem.
Between serious putts—that Clementine doesn’t count towards any sort of score, because what four-year-old keeps score?
—Liliana and I talk. The topics range from what we ate for lunch and the television shows we’ve been watching.
Compared to the deep-rooted feelings I have for her, the discussions are downright ordinary. I love it.
“Rosie isn’t working while she’s in school?”
Our conversation has shifted to friends. Not that I have many to talk about, but it’s where we naturally ended up, and I’ve known for a long time that Rosie is Liliana’s best friend of them all.
She shakes her head and hits her golf ball off a brick.
“She doesn’t have to. She got a full ride for undergrad, so she invested the college money her parents put in her savings.
” Liliana doesn’t see the surprised look on my face.
“She earned some money from that and was awarded a few grants from private organizations. It’s enough for her expenses until the end of the school year. ”
“Grants?” The joke is bubbling up faster than I can stop it.
Liliana takes her attention off the ball to glare at me.
“Don’t even.”
I can’t help it.
“So Rosie has grants.” She starts walking away, waving me off with her club. My body follows her on instinct. “And you have Grant.”
“Oh god, don’t, please. She’s already made that joke twice.”
Liliana pretends to be annoyed with me, but the smile she can’t fight off gives her away.
If Rosie and I can both tease her like this, and pull laughs from her so easily, I think we’ll get along.
After Clementine proclaims victory and moves us onto the next hole, Liliana asks, “What’s Derek up to?”
My muscles tense. I should’ve expected her to follow with that question. Liliana’s not the type to forget someone special that I’ve mentioned, regardless of what’s happened since then.
I almost do the same thing with her that I do Heath. Lie, say that Derek is okay, and pretend I haven’t gone months without hearing from him. But she’s the one person I won’t lie to.
“Honestly, I have no idea.” I focus on taking my turn and pretend not to feel her confused stare. “I haven’t spoken to him in a while.”
“Is everything okay?”
“With him, or with us?”
“Both.”
I shrug and completely miss my shot. “Last time I saw him was when I helped him move back to Boston.”
“Didn’t he live on the west coast in undergrad?”
“California.” My golf ball ricochets off Liliana’s foot, and I mumble an apology.
This is the worst I’ve ever played at this hole.
“He decided not to go into pro-baseball and moved back to Boston to live with his girlfriend. Last time I spoke to him they had just argued over the color of the stove he bought.”
Simultaneously, we wince.
“You haven’t heard from him since?”
“Nope.”
I don’t like how curt I’m being with her, but I hate the lonely feeling of missed calls and unread texts even more. That’s all Derek has given me lately.
If I can’t forgive myself for one mistake, I’m not sure how I’ll forgive Derek for months of being ignored.