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  For Gram’s ears, I stated louder, “I don’t really feel like talking. Maybe tomorrow. But today, right now, the wound’s still a little fresh.”

  She tsked me with a shake of her head. “Fresh is the best time. You don’t get in there now, that shit’s gonna heal all wonky.” She distorted her face dramatically.

  “Did you take extra meds this morning?” I asked sarcastically.

  Her answering wink scared me. “Only on Tuesdays.”

  Tomorrow was a Tuesday. Plan: Avoid Gram.

  Laying back on my bed, she stretched out, propped her feet up on one of my toss pillows, and sagged back into the headboard.

  I settled into my desk chair and swiveled mindlessly, content to keep my distance from geriatric psychopaths. And with a click of the remote, I pushed play on the Matchbox Twenty in my CD player and set the volume to low. Talking to Gram earned me at least one of my wants.

  “So come on. Out with it.”

  “Look, Gram,” I hedged, giving myself time to figure out what I could and couldn’t tell her. “It really doesn’t have all that much to do with me…at least not directly…and it’s not really my story to tell.” Shrugging, I finished with the understatement of the year. “I’ve just found myself in the middle of it.”

  Pushing her wrinkle-lined, peach lipstick covered lips together, she offered, “It’s that long-haired boy, right? He knocked up that plain girl, Fanny?”

  “WHAT?!” I roared, launching myself up off of my desk chair and throwing all 110 pounds onto the bed beside her. “How in the hell do you know that? And it’s Franny. And don’t call her plain.”

  Yeah, yeah. Shut up. It’s different.

  I said it in my head. Gram said it out loud.

  Alright, fine. I was an asshole too. Man, I hated when my thoughts sank to the shallow level of most teenage minds. Or Gram.

  I tried to be better than that.

  “So what’s the deal?” she asked as she pretended to examine her nails. “There’s no way that kid is leaving that girl hanging in the breeze. He’d carve out his own eyes if it meant she could keep shitting rainbows. No doubt he’d do the same for the little monster inside of her.”

  “Geez, Gram!”

  “What?” she asked innocently with a shrug of her shoulders, her deep brown eyes moving away from her hand in order to find mine. “You know I’m right.”

  “I’m not agreeing to you being right about anything,” I stated defiantly, the fact that she was right inconsequential.

  Shifting even deeper into the bed and settling her hands behind her head with her elbows out like chicken wings, she proved just how much she didn’t need me to agree to anything. “Fine. I’ll just keep guessing. I’ll either be right or interesting, and I may even be a little of both.”

  Falling face first into the pillow next to her, I smothered the second rolling of my eyes.

  “Let’s see. I’ve known those kids a long time, been coming around plenty. From what I can tell, I’m dead on about the boy at least. He’s got that look about him.”

  Unable to contain my curiosity, I untucked my face from the pillow and settled my ear in its place. As I faced Gram straight on, I asked, “What look?”

  “Oh, you know,” she said with a wobble of her head, “Intensity. Strong and true. The kind of thing that suggests he was a full grown man even when he was swimming in the womb.”

  Yeah, that sounded about right. Blane had carried himself like an adult since the moment I met him when we were twelve years old.

  “He used to point that intensity at you,” she stated boldly with a point of her finger. “But thickheaded as you are, you never noticed.”

  “No he did not!” I yelled and sprang up to my knees at the same time, rocking the bed and bouncing Gram a little bit in the process.

  Gram thought that was funny for some reason if her evil cackle was anything to go by. “Sure he did, girl. You’re pretty. Got the curves that all that testosterone craves.” Waving her hand in a curve that suggested an hourglass, she emphasized her point. “But he got over it pretty quick. Actually, he seemed to like it that you didn’t look back at him with diamonds and fantasies in your eyes.”

  It felt like my heart would burst through the bones and flesh containing it, but I knew that in reality it was just a rush of emotion. It amazed me that it could feel so physical. I mean, there were no actual spikes in my chest, but it sure as hell felt like it. Additionally, I could almost taste the sand in my mouth from all the time I’d spent with my head buried in it. Completely fucking oblivious. To his feelings. To my own.

  Gram, equally oblivious to my stage four breakdown, kept talking.

  “He came around a lot. That part you know. And then Fanny showed up. It took a little time, but after a few smiles and a lot of dropped signals from you, he was all hers,” she explained with the expertise of someone who’d been watching very closely for quite some time.

  Without really even thinking, too busy considering the possibility she had laid out, I corrected, “Franny,” once again.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gram answered with a wave of her hand. “I’m an old lady. I have limited space in the memory bank, and stupid shit like remembering names takes up an unnecessary amount of it. I need a place to put the juicy stuff.”

  “Juicy or not, it’s none of your business,” I scolded, picking away at the case on my pillow.

  “Pshhh. It’s all my business. I used to read your diary when you were younger. I was really sad when you outgrew it, and my main source of drama dried up. Almost cried. I really liked the part where you got your period.”

  “Gram!” I screeched, slamming my hands down on the bed beside my knees.

  This. Was. Horrifying.

  “You were excited!” she screamed through a fit of hysterical laughter. “Bet hindsight’s twenty twenty on that one, huh?”

  “Oh my God!” My headed lolled back. “You’re ridiculous!”

  “Better than boring. Or dead. These days, both of those are real possibilities.”

  “Whatever.”

  Flopping down on my butt, I kicked my legs out in front of me, careful to keep my shoes off of the pillows. A courtesy Gram didn’t find important to show me, her shoe-clad feet digging in almost comically into the fabric beneath them.

  “Yeah, whatever. Stop avoiding the real subject. Where the hell do you fit into all this? I’m hoping you stuck your hand down his pants and a love triangle is about to ensue.” She widened her eyes and rubbed her hands together, gearing up for tales of hidden trysts and the like.

  Shaking my head back and forth, I asked, “Where do you get this stuff?”

  “Mostly Soap Operas,” she supplied matter-of-factly.

  “I thought Mom told you to stop watching those when you accused dad of carrying his imaginary lost sister’s baby?”

  The edges of her lips curved upward as she explained, “You’re mom’s not the boss of me. I’ve got a torn up vagina that says it should be exactly the opposite.”

  God Almighty.

  “Still, she’s sneaky. And always around. So I usually come down here, climb under your covers, and watch on your TV.”

  “You get under my cov—” I started to shout.

  Wait a minute.

  It was like she was trying to push all of my buttons.

  Which meant that was exactly what she was doing.

  Pushing my buttons. On purpose. In order to meet some sort of goal or quota.

  Were all Grandmas like this? Did they have meetings where they talked about technique, what worked and what didn’t, and laughed about the horrified faces of their family members?

  My guess was that it was just my Gram.

  “You’re gonna keep freaking me out until I tell you all the details of my so-called drama, aren’t you?”

  Her lips extended unnaturally. “Youuu betcha.”

  “Fine.”

  Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself to have a discussion I one hundred percent, absolutely d
id not want to have.

  With one of the most sarcastic, abrasive women on the planet.

  Swell.

  Unfortunately, there was no avoiding this, so I didn’t waste time.

  “She aborted the baby,” I blurted on an exhale. It felt like all of the readily available oxygen fled the room.

  I looked up from my comforter just in time to see Gram make hasty work of separating herself from the headboard.

  “What?”

  Her face was serious—a true rarity—and her already pale skin became ashen.

  “I took her yesterday,” I whispered shakily as my thumb and forefinger picked mindlessly at the cotton of my bedspread.

  For some reason, I felt ashamed sharing that with my Gram. Maybe it was knowing the part I had played in Blane’s heartache. Or maybe it was that saying it out loud made me feel like I had played a part in making a baby that once was, be no more. A substantial part, and one I couldn’t avoid dealing with.

  “Oh boy,” Gram breathed out on an absolutely tortured sigh. “Why couldn’t it have been the junk touching? I could have handled a discussion about the one-eyed snake.”

  “Can you please be serious?”

  “Oh I am,” she argued. Counting them off on her fingers, she continued, “Two things I’m serious about are abortions and penises.”

  Why couldn’t this woman be serious? Couldn’t she see how devastating this whole scenario was?

  No one had won.

  Not a single one of us.

  Defeated, I sank my head into my hands and battled the urge to pull all of my hair out at the roots.

  “Oh, relax,” she huffed, reaching out to cup my chin in the palm of her well-aged hand. “Laughter never hurt anyone, Whitney. Not even in the most dire of situations does it lose the ability to heal, even if it’s just a little. You’ll do good to remember that.”

  Searching her knowledgable eyes, I questioned, “What am I gonna do, Gram?”

  Dropping my chin, she settled back into the headboard. “The only thing you can do. Keep pushing forward, be the girl I know you are, and do your best to be there for the people who need it. You can’t go back. You can’t undo anything that’s been done. You played your part, but I’m guessing you did it from the warmest part of your heart.”

  “I know,” I said.

  And I did. I knew that no matter how much I hated where I was now—where we all were—I had acted with only the most honorable intentions. I saw Franny, broken and scared and desperately in need of support without judgement. And Blane—facing a long, hard life, working and grinding to support a family he started too young.

  Unfortunately, my practicality had obscured my view of his powerful character. For him, dealing with the loss would be harder than supporting the gain.

  And I wasn’t sure how I had allowed myself to miss that.

  “But what about Blane? I don’t want to lose my friendship with him, and I’m afraid I already have.” I paused and looked down to the judgement-free zone of my bedding once again, wondering if I really wanted to tell her what I was really feeling. It didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t really have anyone else to talk to. Or anyone who would give it to me any straighter than Gram would. “And…I think I realized that it’s more than that. Today, the way he was…Oh, Gram you should have heard him. He was so passionate, so sure. And even in the face of his devastation, he still did what he does best. He was nice to me, and he looked out for Franny. God, I think I might have fallen in love with him. Just, boom, stick a syringe in my heart and pump it full of love.” When silence overwhelmed me, I finally looked up and met her eyes again. They were steely and determined, but still managed to be shiny with compassion. “What else can I do?”

  Easing herself out of my bed and into a standing position, she reached a hand out for me to take, making my exit from the bed far more complicated physically, but bolstering it emotionally. “You’re gonna go upstairs, eat your mother’s mediocre lasagna, and wash it down with a pound of garlic bread. Trust me, ten years from now, your ever-growing ass and thighs won’t let you. Do it now.”

  “How does that help me?”

  “Garlic bread helps everyone. But besides that, Blane needs time. You just give it to him, but be there waiting when he’s done. Tomorrow is a new day,” she told me with a gentle squeeze of her hand.

  Dropping it and making her way to my bedroom door as I followed dutifully behind her, she turned back to point out, “That said, he won’t be ready tomorrow either. Maybe Wednesday. Wednesday is also a new day.”

  GRAM AND I WALKED INTO the kitchen to find that dinner had already been started without us.

  “What the heck?” I shrieked without thinking about the consequences.

  “Excuse me, Whitney Marisella Lenox!” my mother scolded, giving my middle name a workout. “I’ll tell you what the heck! Ma ignores me, and you usually aren’t all that hungry when you’re PMSing.”

  “What?! I’m always hungry when I’m PMSing.” It only took a moment to sink in before I added, “And I’m not PMSing!”

  Gesturing to the table in front of her, my mom conceded, “Okay, whatever. Sit down and eat then.” But then, under her breath, she mumbled, “Sure seems moody to me.”

  Gram pulled out her chair and burst into a full belly laugh at the same time. So I did what any real family member would have done.

  I turned on her.

  “Gram has been watching Soaps.”

  All at once, my father’s eyes widened and he started to choke on noodle, ricotta, and ground beef, my mom yelled, “Ma!”, and Gram turned to me, pursed her lips, and accused, “You little shit.”

  Hey, the rules of my family were simple. During internal disputes on little issues, look out for numero uno—yourself. On internal major issues and all external issues, little or gargantuan, look out for one another.

  Of course, this rule was unwritten, but I’m pretty sure it was part of the family crest many centuries ago.

  As chaos reigned, a smile of my own tugged at the skin around my lips. It was half-hearted, stifled by the circumstances of my day, but at least it was something.

  “I thought I told you to stop watching those Soaps,” my mom carried on.

  Not one to back down for anyone, Gram answered, “Cut the crap, Lydia. What makes you think I have to do anything you tell me to? Now pass the garlic bread and shut your trap.”

  Looking from my stunned mother (for no reason, since this was how dinner always went) to me, Gram explained, “I’m allowed to eat ten pounds of garlic bread too. My hips don’t matter to anyone anymore. So what if your father has to spring for the extra-wide casket?”

  Feeling the smile fill my face all the way up to my eyes, I reveled in Gram’s ability to make no apologies for who she was. She was herself, always.

  “I love you, Gram.”

  She knew what I was feeling, the helplessness of a years long friendship hanging in the balance, and she knew that she could do nothing to help.

  Except give me something to laugh about. Something else to focus on.

  So that was what she did.

  Her words said wild. But the look in her eyes said love.

  “You have no idea how much, kiddo.”

  I loved that my Gram said what she thought and thought what she wanted.

  And I loved that despite our quirks, we were a family until the end.

  Most of all, I loved that on the heels of a really horrible day—a day cursed with the beginning of a life-long unrequited love—I still had many things to be thankful for.

  Overshadowed by the haunting events of September eleventh, not many people remember September tenth of 2001, but for me, both days would live in infamy.

  THE NEXT DAY, AS I walked through the blue locker-lined halls that made up a good deal of the scenery in my nightmares on my way to second period, my ears perked up at the sound of increased anxious chatter.

  Of course, being in a New Jersey high school, there was always needles
s gossip and fodder filling the air. But this was different. I could feel it like a pulse of electricity through my veins. Bodies thrummed with more nervous movement than normal, and the shriek of female, teenage voices was a couple of octaves above average.

  Personally, I was jittery from lack of sleep, and my eyes were puffier than a dragon compliments of an all-night crying jag.

  I hadn’t been able to get Blane out of my head, and the more I thought about it the more upset I became. Deep down I knew this was it for him.

  There wouldn’t be drama or a throw down, drag-out, fan-faired end to our friendship.

  He was too straight forward for that.

  It would just be done, and the churning in my gut told me it already was.

  Turning the dial on my full-length locker, I focused on the numbers passing me by on the way to my combination.

  Franny wasn’t in school today, again, and it seemed like Blane’s prophecy about her mental health was coming true. She wouldn’t answer my calls, and for the first time, I started to fear that I was going to lose both of my friends.

  No.

  Shaking my head, I found my resolve.

  That couldn’t happen.

  In that moment, I promised to go over to her house that afternoon if she rejected my calls again.

  Sneakers squeaked against the square tile floor, and the echo of slamming lockers acted as percussion in their accompaniment.

  “I heard some sort of plane hit a building or something,” a girl named Jackie told Christine at the locker next to mine.

  Having the last names Lenox and Lennville, this was our fourth year sharing book storage space, and Christine had been a known gossip for every last one of them.

  Frankly, I was surprised she wasn’t the one imparting the wisdom in this scenario.

  “What building?” Christine questioned eagerly, readying her nose to sniff out the next big scoop.

  Personally, I couldn’t be bothered. It was sad, and I was sure a couple of people had been hurt or killed, but small plane accidents happened all the time. I had AP Biology to get to.

  Plus, Blane would be there. In the desk next to mine.

  I hoped.

  Shit.