Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
Georgie
Idon’t know how Logan’s mom handled such long absences from her husband without closing her heart the way my mom did. Logan is so warm and loving in his texts and calls and FaceTimes, and I want to match his energy in every interaction.
It’s so much harder than I expected.
But then, he had loving examples showing him how to do it every day. He watched his mom keep her heart open and his dad go to such great lengths to stay present and involved while working away from home.
Closing my heart off would only be a Band-Aid over a wound, anyway, one that would fester. Sunlight, as they say, is the best disinfectant. Being open about how I feel keeps the wound clean so it can heal.
Right?
I have to believe that’s right.
And it’s that choice to believe that makes me send him a tired selfie at 4:58 AM before opening the truck.
Georgie
I miss you more than I miss sleep.
Also, I turned in my final five minutes before midnight and it already got graded. I officially have three credits left in my degree! I will be a college graduate by Christmas!
Logan answers a couple of hours later, which is understandable given the time difference and the fact that only serial killers would willingly wake up in the four o’clock hour.
Logan
You will be taking a nap today, right?
Georgie
No, but my FINAL CLASS EVER doesn’t start till next week, so I’m planning to go to bed at 8. Does that work?
Logan
Only because you used caps.
Now, let’s get back to your original text, shall we?
A) You look way too pretty in my hat.
B) You are amazing and should be so proud of yourself!
C) Sleep is the best, ergo if you miss me more than sleep, I must be the best to you, which means you’re crazy about me.
D) I miss you more than I miss oxygen when I’m holding my breath in a super long tunnel.
E) Oh, and I love you. I cannot emphasize that last point enough.
Georgie
A) I didn’t realize until now that my dream man needed to be the type to casually use “ergo” in a sentence.
B) I look tired in your hat. But also, any and all hats that you send me are officially my hats, your number on the side notwithstanding.
C) I amend my earlier statement. I miss you more than I miss hot chocolate. (Alma ran out yesterday and our supplier won’t be able to ship more for another two days. I may have sobbed.)
D) I sobbed.
Logan
My dream girl definitely has to use “notwithstanding” in a sentence.
I miss you more than I miss my pillow when I’m on a road trip.
Georgie
I miss you more than I miss the page in my copy of P&P that fell out from overuse. (Yes, it was Darcy’s second proposal to Elizabeth.)
Logan
I miss you more than I miss the feeling of listening to Project Hail Mary for the first time on audio.
Georgie
I get what you’re saying, but I’m also not positive I get what you’re saying.
Logan
Yes you are.
Georgie
I’m going to need you to be a little clearer.
Logan
I miss you with my whole soul, Georgie. I am in awe daily that somehow, every road I thought was taking me the wrong way, every faltering step, every trip and fall and dead end somehow led me to you. I will never stop being grateful that I get to be with you for as long as you’ll have me.
Georgie
Oh, is that what you meant?
Logan
GEORGIE.
Georgie
I love you. So much. Saying that doesn’t come easily to me. Just allowing myself to feel it has been hard enough. But I hope I’ll be able to show you someday how deeply I mean it.
Logan
This is more than enough. <))
I’m still thinking about our texts when I get home that afternoon to my apartment, which smells like the cinnamon-orange-clove candle I was burning last night.
I drop my bag and the keys to the coffee truck on the table and fall on to the couch.
There’s only a single book on it since Logan got me my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
My new Firebirds hat falls off my head, and I place it on the coffee table in front of me.
Then my gaze sweeps over the shelves, where Logan’s Mudflaps hat rests next to so many familiar spines in their haphazard order that could only make sense to me.
The way Lucas’s girlfriend drinks coffee—based on vibes—is how I organize my personal library.
A knock sounds on the door, and I call out, “It’s open!”
Liv’s head pops around the door first, followed by the rest of her.
She’s wearing a thin sweatshirt that’s fine on the coffee truck but can’t be good enough for the mid-fifties weather today.
Like always, her eyes rove around the room beneath her long bangs, stopping on the wall of rejected mugs, piles of half-finished projects, mountains of crocheted blankets, and stacks of pot holders.
“Hey, come in,” I tell her.
“Sorry to bug you. I just forgot to grab the truck keys for tomorrow,” she says, her eyebrows threading together as she looks at my bookshelf.
Her eyes stop on the very bottom two rows, which are reserved for all the books Mama loved that I, well, don’t.
“Why do you have all of those misshapen mugs in front of all those books?”
Heat creeps up my neck. “Those aren’t my favorite books. Or mugs.”
“Why do you have them?”
“They were my mama’s.”
“So?”
I almost shake my head in confusion. “She passed away. I’ve told you that, right?”
“Yes,” Liv says. “I don’t understand why that means you have to keep them.”
“Because they mattered enough to her that she kept them.”
“So did her toothbrush,” Liv says, walking into the apartment all the way now.
“That’s not the same,” I say.
She crouches in front of the bookshelf. “Of course it is. You don’t like these things or need them. They’re no better to you than her toothbrush.”
Her argument is so blunt, so brutal, so … true. And it’s the truth that makes me feel so defensive.
“But they remind me of her.”
Liv walks over to the bookshelves and crouches down to move the mugs and run her fingers over the spines of my least favorite books. “Are you actually afraid you’ll forget her if you get rid of Madame Bovary?”
“No, but—”
“Do you have a special memory tied to this gray mug with the painted … is this a weasel wearing another weasel as a scarf?”
I squint. “I—I have no idea. And no, not really.”
She picks up another mug along with the book The Picture of Dorian Gray. “Do you have memories associated with either of these?”
“Maybe,” I say.
She stands up and crosses to the huge basket of blankets next to the other huge basket of blankets. I’m glad she doesn’t know about the ones in my closet.
“How many crocheted blankets do you need?”
“Liv—”
“I’m not telling you what to do with them. I’m asking how many you need.”
“Maybe six.” I’m pushing it. If my mama’s crocheted blankets were unique, I could probably get away with saying more, but as it is, most are variations of the same colors and patterns. The difference is in which ones are symmetrical and which ran out of yarn mid-square.
Liv is walking all over my small apartment now, looking at the stack of pot holders, piles of discarded watercolor projects Mama once started, and even the old Chuck Taylors that pinched my toes for so long—until Logan bought me a pair that actually fits.
And suddenly, the apartment looks different to me. Not cozy and comforting, but cramped and claustrophobic. Less museum, more mausoleum.
“I—” I sigh. “It’s hard, okay? It’s complicated.”
Liv shakes her head, her short hair whipping around her face at the movement. “Don’t listen to me. If it doesn’t fit in my backpack, I don’t take it.”
“You don’t have anything from your family? From growing up?”
“Those aren’t memories I want to keep,” she says simply.
I look around, looping my fingers through the holes of one of the crocheted blankets, thinking about the way Mama once held up one of her more tragic projects—with holes far too big in some places and too small in others—and looked at me through two big lopsided holes.
I swallow the heat crawling up my throat, but it doesn’t budge. “A lot of these are tied to memories I do want,” I say, feeling almost guilty for having such an embarrassment of riches in the memory department.
“I can tell. You clearly love your mom,” Liv says, walking around my couch, through my small kitchen.
“But the way I see it, your apartment tells me a lot about what your mom loved and almost nothing about what you love, other than her.” She stops and looks at me.
“Where’s the space for you to make new memories when you’re so busy guarding hers? ”
“That’s not fair,” I say, my lungs feeling heavy and my nose stinging. “I love books and … coffee.”
“And Mullet Ridge baseball,” she says, pointing to the pennant, like she’s throwing me a proverbial bone.
I squirm. “I have dreams, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t know that you want anything other than what your mom wanted then and what your stepmom wants now.”
“Ouch,” I whisper.
“I’m not trying to be harsh, Georgie,” she says.
“I know,” I say, looking around my sad apartment like I’m wearing a pair of glasses with two different lenses in it. Past and …
Past.
All of it is past. One lens may make the past look rosier than the other, but they’re both showing me the same picture.
I chew my bottom lip, wishing I didn’t feel so weak and lifeless. “If I put her things away, it feels like I’m DNF’ing the book on my own mother—on our life before she passed.”
“DNF’ing?”
“It’s a reader term for a book you abandoned partway through. Did not finish,” I say, my throat aching.
Liv gives me a kind smile. It’s not that it looks out of place on her face, but it feels like she has to drop a piece of armor to show it.
“I didn’t know your mom,” Liv says, “but if she’s as good a mother as you say she was, then you’re missing a pretty huge plot point, G.
She was writing that book with you. About you.
I bet wherever she is, she’s eagerly waiting for you to stop rereading the chapters you two already wrote together so she can see where you take the story next. ”
Warmth floods me at her words, spilling out of my eyes.