Chapter 6
CAROLINE
“ Where’s Mr. Mack?” one of the students asks me as I’m arranging cookies on a long table at the hospital. I’d actually like to know the answer myself.
“He should be here soon.”
I hope, anyway.
Truth is, I don’t know where Austin is at the moment. In fact, we haven’t talked much at all this week. Not since our kitchen make-out. But that was only three days ago. He’s shot me a few texts, asking things like what time we’re setting up, if we have enough decorations, how many dozens of cookies students have dropped off at either of our houses. We’ve both been busy grading final exams and getting the scores entered into the student portal on top of planning this project, so I’m hoping that’s the reason we haven’t connected much these past couple days.
I don’t want my mind to go places like maybe he’s ghosting me or that he’s bailing. But as I stand here in this hospital hallway, the lone faculty advisor in charge of this set-up, I can’t help but wonder if Austin is just another person in my life who said he’d be here…and then wasn’t. Am I wrong again?
“Miss Carr, I think that’s it for the cookies.” Laura, the president of G.U.T.S. and probably the most responsible seventeen-year-old on the planet, stands next to me, looking over our masterpiece of sweet treats. Each student agreed to bring at least three dozen cookies, but from the looks of it, they made way more than that. “All we need are the labels. Is Mr. Mack still bringing them?”
I hope so .
“Yes,” I respond. “You all can go now. Thanks for all your help. I’ll wait for Mr. Mack and put the finishing touches together.”
The students hug and wish one another a Merry Christmas Eve Eve , and I stand here wondering how long is too long to wait. When should I accept that, now over an hour late, Austin isn’t coming?
I walk back to the spare office where the extra cookies are stored, remembering that there’s a printer back there. With a little luck and some Christmas magic, maybe I can print some cookie labels from my phone that don’t look like I printed labels off my phone at the last minute.
I sit at the desk, my back to the door, letting my head fall back against the wobbly chair. I’d all but tossed aside my life’s philosophy of setting low expectations, of doing things myself so I can’t be let down.
But as I sit here alone, waiting for a printer that looks like it’s from the eighties to decide if it wants to do its job today, I can’t shake the feeling that, once again, I’m wrong. Because Austin doesn’t seem like someone who wouldn’t show up. Sure, he’s a people-pleaser, a perfectionist to his core, but he also did something not many people have ever been able to do: he earned my trust.
I stand from the chair with a little more force than it can handle, judging from the groan it gives. This is the season of hope and believing, and in a twist the me from three weeks ago would never see coming, I’m believing in Austin. Trusting that he won’t let me down.
“Caroline!” he shouts from the doorway. And wow, I guess my believing powers are stronger than I thought to summon him so quickly. And speaking of quickness, it looks like he ran here, all disheveled and out of breath.
“Austin, where have you been?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, walking into the office, shutting the door behind him. “I got hung up with some business, and I got here as fast as I could.”
I wish I could say the admission doesn’t sting a bit, realizing that he blew off helping today for business —something my own father has done more times than I can count—but it does.
“Well, I hope whatever it was, was important.”
I notice a shiny box in his hand. A hand that’s trembling so much the metallic wrapping paper catches the light, casting wobbly reflections across the ceiling.
“You tell me.”
He hands me the box with a shaking hand, his eyes rounded and his face shining.
I slip off the ribbon and take off the lid to see a folded piece of paper inside. Unfolding it, my breath catches as I see the words MacArthy Grant Award Winner, Central High School English Department.
I shake my head. “I…I don’t understand.”
Austin’s throat bobs with his swallow. “Right after I won the Harler Grant, I heard that you finished right behind me. And while I couldn’t make up for edging you out at the last minute…”
“Who told you that detail?” I ask, even though I’d bet a thousand bucks it was Brooke.
“Doesn’t matter. But I made some calls, did some research, and found one that wasn’t quite as much but would cover the lit resources you were hoping for.”
I blink back tears because I saw that grant application. And there was twice as much work for this one than the one I did this summer. “How on earth did you do all this?”
He shrugs with a chuckle. “I enlisted about half the faculty. Seems they were all quite eager to help. I was waiting for the confirmation email all morning. I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands, touched by the work of my fellow faculty members, people I’ve come to think of as friends, taking time out of their busy lives to help surprise me like this. But then something hits me.
“Did you say that you started this right after you found out about winning the Harler Grant?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That was when I was still so…scrunchy toward you.”
“That is true,” he says with a laugh that warms my insides. “But it’s like I told you… I always saw the light in you. It was only a matter of time until it came out.”
I can’t help it. I run to him, throwing myself into his arms and crushing my lips to his, saying without words everything that’s in my heart. Well, not everything because that would mean we’d have to kiss for hours. Not that I’m opposed to that, but maybe here isn’t the place.
“Austin,” I say, attempting to pull some air into my lungs. “You have made this the best Christmas.”
“I mean, technically, we still have two days until Christmas. So, wait to see what I have planned then.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “I can’t believe we’re here. Like, how did this winding road get us to this place?”
“Well…” he begins, leaning behind me and plucking a molasses cookie, one that we made together, from the box. “Your grandma did say that cookies bring people together.”
I smile up at him. “She was definitely right about that.”