Chapter 31
thirty-one
LILIANA
It’s eight am. My eyes are strained from the bright laptop screen that’s been my only focal point for hours. My wrists are aching, from typing and deleting and typing and deleting, but this might be the best I’ve felt all semester.
Rosie came into my room, just after midnight, to drop off snacks and water. I wasn’t even through my first act then. A whole hour was spent on a single paragraph I tried to recall from memory.
After she placed the bowl of popcorn at the edge of my desk, she leaned over to look at the messy and probably incoherent sum of words littered on the screen.
Smiling, she said, “I’m so proud of you, Lil.”
Rosie has said that sentence to me countless times before. And while I’ll always be happy to hear it, I didn’t hang onto it for everything it’s worth. I smiled back at her, thanked her for providing me with something to keep my energy going, and set my sights on making myself proud.
The words of my short story aren’t as messy now. They’re more organized, but passionately written, a tumble of thoughts a creative only gets a three am when it’s usually inconvenient.
I stare at the document. “THE END” stares back at me.
Pride, satisfaction, happiness, and every positive feeling I searched for previously, finally overtakes me. It’s the only sentence that’s transferred over from my first story, and that’s what makes it so much better.
I started the night sure I could rewrite the entire thing. Maybe not sentence by sentence, but the ideas were still fresh in my mind. I could piece together something that resembled my original and guarantee myself a passing grade.
Hours into it, when I was ready to move onto the second act that ruined so many of my nights, I realized how much I hated it.
The story itself was okay, but it wasn’t mine.
It was a product of Grant’s thoughts and my actions.
I wrote the words onto the page, but does it really count as being mine if someone else was drawing the picture for me?
I remembered then. Liliana Kahale, ever the over-achiever, who succeeds at everything she does, did it on her own. There was no one to hold my hand through any of my accomplishments. Regardless of my motivation, that’s who I am.
I’ll never regret asking Grant for help. Without it, my life would still be lived for others, and I wouldn’t have met the love of my life. The man who helped me realize I can do everything I want to do, for myself.
Grant pushed me to success, but he will not lead me. That’s my responsibility.
My blinking clock reminds me of the time. This paper is due in less than an hour, and considering the morning foot traffic on the train, I had to start getting ready ten minutes ago.
I quickly save the document and file it away on my laptop. Upload it to my blue USB. Email it to myself and to Rosie, just to be safe. Then I shoot out of my desk chair and rush to my closet.
I’m tired, hungry, and a bit delirious, but I’ve never been so excited to turn in a piece of work in my life.
“Hello?” I press the phone harder against my ear. My shoulder knocks into another student rushing to their own class, probably overly stressed about their finals like I was eight hours ago. I wave my apology and continue to my class.
“Lily.” Grant sounds tired too, but the heavy-breathing, physical exhaustion sort of tired. Not the words slurring, sleepless-night-of-homework sort of tired. “What time do you need to turn your assignment in?”
“In about…” I double check the time on my phone. “10 minutes.”
I open my mouth to explain I’ve figured it all out, the work and myself, but he speaks quickly. “Fuck. What are the chances you’re already on campus?”
“I’m walking past the science building now.”
“Perfect, stay there.”
I attempt to tell him there’s no need, and I can’t be late to turn in the miracle of an assignment I’ve created, but the line goes dead.
I decide he gets five minutes before I text him an apology and head to class.
Three minutes after making that decision, he runs into my eyesight, sweating and panting.
“Grant?” His cargo pants and thin white t-shirt are wrinkled, wavy brown hair disheveled. I’m surprised by his appearance, but even more shocked by the blonde-haired boy in superhero pajamas trailing him. “Locke?”
Grant holding his arm in the air, smiling wide. “I got it!”
My jaw drops. Seconds later, he reaches me, drops the item in my hand, and throws his head back to breathe. Locke does the same while I turn it over in my grasp like it’s a figment of my imagination.
But it isn’t. The exact shade of pink that made me choose it out at the store, and a nick in the side where I dropped it down a flight of stairs.
“How did you get it back? Was it in your apartment after all?”
Grant shakes his head, throws his arm around Locke, and looks at him with pride. “It was Locke.”
The presence of my boyfriend’s brother, who he’s pushed farther and farther away as long as I’ve known him, sends me for a loop. I reel back further at the revelation that they did, whatever they did, together.
Locke shrugs and waves a hand. “It was nothing.”
“What did you do? How is…” I don’t want to be too optimistic, but my heart springs at the chance that maybe Grant took my advice. That they talked something out and while I was patching the hole in my self-confidence, he was sewing together the pieces of his family.
My boyfriend scans over my face. His eyes glint, and I know he’s read my thoughts.
“I went to Brown and we had a talk.”
“Really?” I bounce on the balls of my feet, my grin stretching as large as it can.
“Yeah. It was a really good talk.” Grant nods to his brother, and he nods back, and it’s all I need to conclude that what I wanted for him is finally in reach.
“Locke called Keller’s private jet, and we flew to Pittsburgh.
The hours we had to wait at the airport and our delay heading back to Boston made me scared we’d miss your class, but it worked out.
” Grant pats Locke on the shoulder again before closing the space between him and I, pulling me into his arms and sighing against my hair. “You know I’d never let you down.”
It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. The most insane series of events, and all for an assignment. For me.
There wasn’t a second I doubted Grant, his love, or his dedication to me. I believed he would do everything in his power to figure something out for me. Taking a private jet to get the USB back wasn’t on my shortlist of possibilities, but it perfectly encapsulates how he makes me feel.
Worth the crazy sequence of events, the effort, and the trouble. His words of encouragement that echoed in my brain while I was writing were the emotional and mental proof that he shows up for me. This, the physical.
I’m so helplessly in love with him.
I grab onto the back of his neck, stepping on my tippy toes to bring his mouth down onto mine. It’s a sweet, brief kiss, but it says everything I need it to say in this moment.
I love you, Grant McCarthy.
He smiles at me and kisses my forehead. Pointing towards the fine arts building, he says, “You don’t have much time. Go turn in that USB.”
Love is layered with an awkward realization of the news I have to deliver.
“Yeah. About that.” His eyebrows scrunch in confusion. Locke looks between us, bewildered. “Don’t hate me.”
“I could never, Lily.”
“Good.” I find the blue USB safe tucked into the pocket of my tote bag and pull it out, showing it to them. “Because I wrote an entire new story last night, and I love it. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and I want to turn it in.”
I wait for him to get mad, or for Locke to throw up his hands in exasperation. It would be a valid response after the trouble they went through.
None of that happens, though. Grant smiles wilder, and Locke breaks out into a laugh. My boyfriend’s arms come around me, resting his cheek on the crown of my head.
“I’m so happy for you. That’s amazing, and you should turn it in.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Mad?” He separates only far enough to look at me. “I’m an artist. You think I haven’t completely scrapped a project and redid it at the last minute?” Grant laughs again, his chest shaking against mine. “If anything, I’m so proud. This is like a rite of passage.”
My laughter mixes in with theirs and I lean my head onto his chest. “I could’ve save you guys some time, at least.”
Locke crosses his arms and shakes his head.
“Halfway to Boston, I told him to call you. He said no.”
“It was your idea to be dramatic.”
They knock elbows with one another, and my heart warms. Brothers, finally.
“Thank you, Grant. For everything.”
He leans down, his lips next to my ear so only I can hear. “Don’t ever thank me for loving you. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Every road that led me to him, from that undergrad class to my job to Locke barging in, to now, are a collection of the best things that have happened to me, too.
With Grant’s whispers still pressed against my ear, he jokes.
“Did you like my big, heroic act at least?”
“Of course. I loved it. And I love you.”