Begin Again

“The thundersnow didn’t kill us, so you thought you’d freeze us to death to finish the job, huh.”

I halfheartedly swat at Milo’s arm, my gloved hand barely thudding against his giant coat. He’s not wrong, though. It’s brutally cold for late March. I’m surprised the lake isn’t frozen over.

“You volunteered to help,” I remind him.

Milo peers out at the lake, at the thick woods at the edge of it and the towering mountains beyond. It’s a sight every bit as breathtaking as the cold. Glittering frost and still water, woven trees and jagged peaks, a crystal blue sky.

“Did I?” says Milo, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. “Seems irresponsible of me.”

Just then Milo’s older sister Piper pops her head out of the kayak rental stand. She’s every bit as tall and lanky as her siblings, her dark curls spilling haphazardly out of a frayed beanie. “You said four people, right? Four kayaks?”

“Yes, but—if you could do two single kayaks, and one double,” I tell her.

Piper frowns. “We’ve got plenty of single kayaks. I can pull two more out.”

“Nope, no, one double and two singles would be great,” I say quickly, flashing her a very large and perhaps too aggressive smile.

Piper casts her bemused eyes from me over to Milo. “Gotcha, boss.”

Milo lets out a sigh deep enough to cloud the air in front of us. “At least Piper will tell Mom I loved her after the hypothermia ends us.”

“Thanks again for pulling these strings,” I say, sidestepping his morbid declaration. He can pretend all he wants, but the only reason we’re here this late in the afternoon is because he made us wait until after he got off his Saturday shift. “I didn’t think I’d get this close to re-creating the boat scene in Valeria’s manuscript, but you know what? It works. Like, if you squint.”

Squint hard enough to pretend you’re on a summer sunset ride to steal a bejeweled, enchanted crest from a secret ocean cave when you’re living in a place so cold that your eyebrows are threatening to accumulate ice, that is.

Milo shrugs. “What is having all these siblings lingering around campus for if not to get discounts on our own icy demise?”

Just then my phone rings with Connor’s familiar ringtone. “Quick sec,” I say, walking toward the snowy end of the parking lot.

“Try not to lose a toe,” Milo calls after me.

Connor’s voice is warm but rushed. “Hey, I’ve only got a minute but I saw you called last night. What’s up?”

Maybe it’s the cold or the week I’ve spent working my ass off or the god complex I am somewhat flexing now trying to get Valeria and Shay together, but I feel oddly buoyed. I don’t hesitate.

“I’ve been going to office hours. Pulling my grade up. I told my professor how serious I was about trying to get back on track. She’s trying to help, and I—I feel a lot better. Even if you don’t transfer back, it’s probably not too late for you to turn some of your grades around, too.”

Connor lets out a breathy laugh. “Blue Ridge has grown on you, huh? You really don’t want to come back to Little Fells.”

The hurt is so quiet, so unexpected, that I have to hold the phone from my ear for a moment.

Grown on me. As if this weren’t my parents’ school. As if this weren’t my mother’s school. As if I hadn’t planned to be here for so long that it was practically one of the first conscious thoughts I could remember having—that one day I’d come to Blue Ridge and be a Knight, too.

Does he really think I only transferred because of him? That he’s the only driving force that brought me here, that could compel me to stay?

I’ve been walking up the edge of the parking lot, but this is the thought that stills me: It doesn’t matter what brought me here or what didn’t. Blue Ridge isn’t just a school for me anymore. It’s starting to feel like a home. Not because it grew on me, but because I’ve grown in it.

“No, I’m not coming back,” I say, quiet but firm. “I want to be with you. I’m not coming back, though.”

It doesn’t feel that scary to say because it doesn’t quite feel like a risk. At least not yet. Not before we know what is going to happen next year or where we’ll even be. It’s like Milo said—So you’ll just be long distance. We’ve loved each other for years. It shouldn’t be that hard.

Connor’s quiet for a few moments.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay?”

“I hear you. I get it.” He eases out a breath. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll get back in, and none of this will even matter.”

I don’t miss the implication behind that. “And if you don’t?”

“Let’s just—say I will, for now. We can cross that bridge if we ever get to it. And hope we don’t.”

“Right.” My voice sounds chipper, too bright against the bright piles of leftover snow. I realize my face is stretched into a smile. The syndicated-talk-show one.

“I mean, I’ve gotten out of tougher spots before.”

The words feel like the whine of a car brake. I’ve watched Connor face enough “tough spots” to know he doesn’t always get out of them by trying. When push comes to shove, he’s either relied on charm or his parents for help.

It’s something I’ve been able to dismiss in the past, calling it luck, or part of his nature. Maybe even something I’ve been able to dismiss because there were undoubtedly times I benefitted from it, too.

But maybe I’m being unfair. It’s not like either of those factors means anything up against the Blue Ridge State admissions team.

I swallow down my unease and say, “Let me know how it goes.”

“Yeah. And I’ll send you some more of my essays,” says Connor. “You always know just how to tweak them.”

As soon as the call disconnects and his words sink further in I feel a flash of anger that jolts me with how immediate it is, like it’s been waiting for me to notice it for much longer than I’ve felt it. But there’s no time right now. I wad it up in myself and push it back down, hustling back over to the rental shed where Milo’s waiting, crunching some frosted grass with his boot.

“All good?” he asks.

Shay and Valeria mercifully interrupt, laughing so hard about something that we hear them before we see them coming from the parking lot. “Sorry we’re late. There was the dumbest deer in the road. Truly just like. Magnificently dumb.”

“We must have honked fifteen times,” Valeria giggles.

Shay shakes her head, grinning. “That little dude thought we were singing him a lullaby.”

I’m so relieved to hear them back in their usual rhythm that for a moment I forget that in this little stage I’ve concocted, I’ve got the next line.

“Do you guys mind sharing a kayak?” I ask. Before Piper or Milo can interrupt me, I say, “Milo’s already a pro and I’m kind of new at this, so it’s probably better if we’re in our own kayaks. And since you’re both at the same level, it’d make sense for you two to share the double, right?”

Valeria’s not the only one who can mess with the only-one-bed trope in this squad.

Luckily, she doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss. “Sure,” she says. “Good with you, Shay?”

“Fine by me. Gonna need a hell of a lot of Eternal Darkness to warm us up after this though, huh?” she says with a mirthful look at Valeria.

Valeria shivers, leaning in closer to Shay. “Amen to that.”

I clench my fist triumphantly as they walk ahead of us, waiting until they’re out of earshot to say, “Phase one is a go.”

“Be more emotionally invested, I dare you,” says Milo.

I stick out my tongue. Milo rolls his eyes and cocks his head toward the water. “C’mon. I’ll help you get started before you capsize trying to eavesdrop on them.”

I almost wave him off—it’s a silly little boat, it’s not that complicated—but approximately five minutes later I am drifting off and making absolutely zero progress in so much as holding the oars correctly, let alone using them to move.

Milo paddles behind me, following my aimless zigzag through the water with embarrassing ease.

“This is how sailors get lost at sea, isn’t it?” I mumble, despairing as Valeria and Shay get so far ahead of us there’s no way to overhear them. “Someone’s going to have to write a sad sea chantey about me.”

“It just takes some getting used to,” says Milo, narrowly avoiding the splash of me cutting my oar in the water with accidental violence. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

Not before I end up clear on the other side of the lake. The woods look more than a little haunted, but at least Milo seems committed to making sure we all get back in one piece.

I sigh. “Well. Maybe it’s for the best. I’ve set all the conditions, so now it’s up to them.”

“Well, hey.” Milo’s breath makes its own little cloud of fog that hovers for a moment, just as hesitant as he is. “Since we’re out here and all. I was wondering . . . if I did leave.”

“If,” I say, more to myself than to him. I’m glad it’s still an “if” and not a “when.”

“Well. I know you’ll probably say no. But I thought I’d ask just in case.”

Despite the absurd chill, my cheeks are suddenly blazing. “Ask me what?”

The words come out too fast, my teeth chattering and my heart skipping a beat. I can’t even explain why. But there’s some kind of potential energy in waiting for his question, something thrilling and scary, something I want to hear and don’t want to hear at the same time.

That is, until he asks something I’m not expecting at all.

“I just wanted to be clear that it was an actual offer, not just a joke—if you’d be interested in taking over the radio show.”

The confusion hits before the panic slides on in, knocks it aside, and fully takes over.

“Oh. Yeah. Um, still no.”

Milo’s oars go still, our two kayaks drifting closer to each other even in the still of the water. “Can I ask why?”

“Because . . .”

It’s not that I’m afraid anymore. I mean, at least not petrified, the way I was. And it’s not even the pressure of trying to live up to my mom. Being on the radio was her dream; it’s just one means of many ends for me.

“I like being the Squire. It’s what I want to do. The broadcast element of it—it’s not really my thing.”

For a moment I expect some kind of shift beneath us, like the lake is going to spontaneously whirlpool and swallow me whole. Some kind of punishment for disrespecting my mom’s legacy, when it’s been closer to me than it’s ever been.

But I’m startled to realize it’s the truth. What I do as the Squire is meaningful because it’s mine, because it’s connecting me to people in a way I’ve shied away from for years. But now that I’ve been in the thick of The Knights’ Watch for so long, now that I can see past my fear and the whole enigma of her legacy, I can appreciate it for what it is: something my mom accomplished. Something I don’t need to prove myself worthy of, now that I’m finding my way back to goals of my own.

“Well, you know each of the Knights has their own ‘thing.’” Milo tilts his head at me, like he’s inviting me to consider something. “Advice giving could be yours. You can make the rules as you go. I mean, we’ve technically been pirate radio since the nineties. I say ‘fuck’ enough times in the first ten minutes of each show to make the people who assign movie ratings cry. Who’s gonna stop you?”

I laugh, even as I set aside the idea to mull over later. The trouble is that it’s hard to picture it right now. Hard to picture anything right now, with so many factors up in the air. “I guess that’s true,” I say.

Milo nods, accepting that as the only answer I can give for now. “Well, if I do leave, at least go easy on my replacement,” he says, the mirth in those clover eyes distinct even in the fog. “Unless they’re wildly more attractive than I am, in which case, feel free to bully them.”

I mime splashing him from the lake.

“So you’re still trying to decide?” I ask.

“More like putting it off,” says Milo. I’m too cold to give him a hard time, but he ends up beating me to the punch anyway. “I know, I know. But procrastinating on major life decisions is a Flynn family varsity sport.”

“That and actually knowing how to maneuver one of these neon death traps,” I say, referencing the kayaks under us.

Milo lets out a low chuckle. “Yeah, let’s figure that out before we turn into Popsicles. Here. I’m gonna pull up ahead. Try to mirror my oar strokes.”

He cuts through the water with the kind of grace that has me watching the cut of his shoulders, the smooth, steady way they propel him forward. I shake my head, turning to my own clunky oar.

“Your extremely tall-person, long-armed oar strokes?” I say before he gets too far ahead.

He lets his kayak glide for a moment so I can catch up. “I’ll keep it at Polly Pocket arm speed.”

“I resent that!” I call after him.

“Good. Use it as your motivation not to freeze to death.”

Shay and Valeria have long since left us behind, going on a thorough and controlled loop around the perimeter of the lake. Milo and I are aimless in comparison, mostly just trying to keep our kayaks from bonking each other’s as he helps me figure out my strokes. At some point we make it to the dead center of the lake, where everything’s so hushed and still it feels like we’ve slipped into some other world.

We both stop unconsciously, breathing it in.

I turn to meet Milo’s eyes, but his are already on mine, waiting with this small, conspiratorial smile. For once, I don’t feel the need to say anything, to fill a silence or worry about setting another person at ease. We just sit in the quiet of it. Soak everything in.

Eventually a bird flies low in the fog, surprising us both. I laugh and Milo startles and we both look over at the dock, where Shay and Valeria are drawing near.

“Cool Ranch Doritos,” I mutter, trying to jerk the kayak around. “I lost track of them.”

“Slow down there, sailor,” says Milo. “It’s not like they’re going to leave without us.”

“But I had one job and it was to try to fix this thing.”

“Why’s it your job?” Milo asks, rerouting his kayak to follow me as I tear into the water.

His voice is careful, the way it was when we first talked about my “fix-it thing” all those weeks ago. You know you don’t owe anyone your help, right? he’d said. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

And the words hit home. Enough that it feels like half a lifetime has passed since he said them, because I’ve considered them in everything I’ve taken on since. But this time feels different.

“Because—because I’m the one who might have blown it,” I confess. “I think Valeria was the one who called in the other day. About being hung up on an ex?”

“That caller who sounded like they swallowed a bug?”

Sheesh, can’t these stupid oars go any faster?

“I think she was trying to disguise her voice. And anyway, if it’s true, then I totally put her off Shay by pushing long distance with some other guy, and like—maybe that wasn’t the right call! Maybe I was just saying that because of my own stuff, you know?”

“Maybe you should slow down.”

“And if I’d known that it was Valeria, no way in heck would I have pushed for the other guy, because he’s a dishrag who left her in the middle of nowhere and made her cry a whole bunch of times, so—”

“Andie, your kayak—”

“—if she and Shay have a shot, which I think they do, don’t you? I kind of owe it to them to set the right conditions to—”

There’s this lurch in the kayak followed by a lurch in my stomach, the kind that recognizes impending doom. I’m especially grateful for Piper’s long lecture on life jackets and safety protocol as the kayak unceremoniously flips both itself and me over into the icy lake.

After that, pretty much my only thought is that nature had a lot of nerve letting water get this cold.

Fortunately Milo’s wits are still about him, because mine are almost too numb to move. Before I can even fully process the depth of my stupidity, he yanks me by the hand and pulls me over to his kayak.

“Shit. Are you okay?”

I splutter lake water, my teeth already chattering so violently they don’t feel like they belong to me anymore. “I think I saw the kraken.”

Milo sets my hand on the surface of his kayak to keep me there, then busies himself with flipping mine back over. “Well, he’s a friend of the family, so he probably won’t fuck with you.”

“L-Let him,” I moan, my legs kicking frantically underneath me despite the life vest and the anchor of Milo’s kayak. “Then I don’t have to die of embarrassment later.”

Milo pats my kayak. “I’ll hold it steady. I’d get back in fast if I were you, before the adrenaline wears off.”

I hook my arms back over the kayak. “Don’t look at me,” I moan, trying to flop myself back in and feeling like a baby seal.

“I feel morally obligated to never look away from you, considering the sheer amount of nonsense you’ve gotten yourself into this week.” I wince at the legitimate edge of concern in his voice. The last thing I wanted to do was make anyone worry about me. As if he senses this, Milo adds, “Remind me to never team up with you on The Amazing Race.”

As I’m clambering back into the kayak, every single one of my nerves starting to scream from the cold, I catch sight of Valeria and Shay on the dock. They’re locked in a tight hug, Shay’s arms wrapped around Valeria’s puffy coat, Valeria’s chin resting on Shay’s cheek.

“Oh no,” I mutter.

I can’t pinpoint the precise genre of this hug, but judging from the faint disappointment on Shay’s face, it’s not the one she was hoping for.

Milo nudges my kayak with his oar. “We’re not that far. Are you good to get back?”

“Yeah,” I say, although I’m none too eager to get there.

I really thought I was on the mark with Shay and Valeria. I’m not used to being wrong, but it’s not just that. I’m not used to being wrong about people I know this well.

But maybe I’m just leaping to conclusions. First priority: talk to Shay and figure out what actually happened. A priority that gets unfortunately pushed aside when Shay claps eyes on us approaching the dock and lets out an audible gasp.

“Holy shit. What happened?”

I wave a hand at them, only to realize said hand is so numb from the cold that I can’t actually feel myself doing it. “I, uh. Fell in.”

Valeria’s eyes are just as wide as Shay’s. “Your lips are fully blue.”

“There’s like—frost in your hair,” Shay exclaims.

“Elsa isn’t the only one who can pull this look off,” I joke, hoping we can get off the subject of my complete and utter idiocy so I can gauge what happened here. That hope is further abandoned when Piper offers her hands to pull me onto the dock and I realize it’s not just my hand, but my entire body that’s gone numb.

Luckily Piper’s got some muscle on her, because she heaves me back up with the ease of someone who is used to fishing terrible kayakers out of the water.

“Aw, crap. You better get her to the house,” says Piper.

Milo has somehow already gotten himself on the dock and lightly puts his hands on my shoulders, steering me toward the parking lot. “C’mon. Let’s get to Stella before people try to rent you out as an ice sculpture.”

I follow his lead, but not without looking back at Shay and Valeria. “B-but—what about you guys?”

“We’re gonna go grab some coffee,” says Shay, deliberately nodding toward Milo’s car with an unmistakable Go.

So maybe my hopes aren’t completely dashed after all. It doesn’t exactly bring back any of the feeling in my limbs, but it’s restorative nonetheless. I follow Milo to Stella, confused that my legs are still moving me forward even when I can only half register that they’re still attached to me. I’m busy staring down at them when the weight of Milo’s coat is unexpectedly over my shoulders. It doesn’t do much to warm me, but that familiar smell does—that mingling of citrusy soap and coffee and warmth.

“Th-thanks.”

“I’d say anytime, but I’m optimistic that’s the last time you’ll catapult yourself into a below-freezing lake,” says Milo.

He jerks the heat all the way up in Stella despite the house being right down the road, casting a glance to take quick stock of me before he pulls out of the lot. Piper must have sent their mom a text to expect us, because Jamie is walking out the front door and clucking sympathetically at me before the car even fully parks in the driveway (no easy feat, considering the chickens nipping around).

“C’mere, doll,” she says, grabbing Milo’s coat and helping me shimmy out of my other one. “We’ll get you in the shower. I’ll leave you out a change of clothes. Nobody’s lost a finger to hypothermia in this house yet, and I’d like to keep our record clean.”

I stammer some frankly unintelligible thank-yous before bringing my human body slowly back to life in the guest shower. There’s a pair of boy’s jeans, a T-shirt, thick socks, and an oversize flannel waiting for me just outside the door, with my underwear that Jamie stuck in the dryer for a quick cycle. I pull them on gratefully, most of the chill finally shaken off, and pad out to the living room.

Milo stands up from the couch when he sees me, making Bozo the dog whine petulantly at the loss of his body heat. There’s a split second his eyebrows lift when he takes me in, the floppy socks and the faded jeans, the flannel that goes all the way down to my knees. It occurs to me then that these used to be his.

“Oh, good,” he says, his expression neutral by the time he settles on my face. “You’re alive.”

“Yeah. Thank you again.” Bozo hops off the couch and comes over to nuzzle me on the leg. I lean down to scratch his ears and he lets out a low, appreciative woof. “I should, uh—get back to campus. Figure out what’s going on with Valeria and Shay.”

Milo sucks in a breath. “Sorry. No can do.”

I knit my brows in confusion, pausing mid–ear scratch. “Is Stella broken?”

“No. But your priorities might be a little on the fritz.”

“Excuse me?”

Milo does that deep “I’m the RA” sigh he usually only reserves for drunk co-eds yelling in the halls.

“Andie. Shay and Val are adults. They’ll work their own stuff out.” He takes a step closer, and only then do I see that he has my backpack full of textbooks on the couch. He pulls it up by the strap incriminatingly. “You need to study.”

“Well. Yes. After I figure out how to help.”

The itch is back, the compulsion. It wasn’t when I first planned this whole thing for Valeria and Shay. But it came back the instant Connor and I hung up the phone. That knee-jerk reaction to prove myself. To make myself useful. To know that even if the rest of my life might be a mess, there’s one thing I can do right.

Milo crouches down on the other side of Bozo, leveling with me. “I’m no Squire, but is it possible that you’re hyper-focusing on someone else’s problems to avoid your own?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Touché.”

He tilts his head toward a door on the other side of the room. “We call that Flynn Family Jail. No distractions. No internet connection. Just couches and textbooks and like, one window, because we’re not total monsters.”

“You’re . . . putting me in study jail?”Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

“Scarlett’s already in there. Grad school thesis. So at least you’ll be in good company.”

Before I can think of any further protests, he unceremoniously walks over to the door, opens it, and deposits my backpack on the other side. Bozo follows me hopefully until Milo sticks a leg in front of the door to cut us off from each other.

“See you in two hours.”

With that, he shuts the door behind me, leaving me in a small, white-walled room occupied by a very stressed-out-looking person I immediately identify as Piper’s identical twin. The only differences are Scarlett’s hair is slightly longer, her eyes are entirely more sleep-deprived, and her outfit is decidedly more cottagecore to Piper’s wilderness-guide chic.

“Hello, fellow inmate,” she says, as if it is perfectly normal for strangers to get locked in a room full of inspirational prints that say things like WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU WILL MAYBE AT LEAST MAKE YOU SMARTER AND DON’T FUCK THIS UP! BUT IF YOU DO AT LEAST THERE’S CAKE.

“. . . Hi,” I say, settling into the chair across from hers and pulling a blanket over myself, half certain I’m hallucinating.

Scarlett shoves an open box of Oreos at me. “Godspeed.”

Four Oreos and a boatload of statistics problems later, Scarlett lets out a loud yawn. I look up from my pages to see that it’s entirely dark outside.

She taps my book. “We need sustenance.”

“Yeah.” I am still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that the Flynn family just short of academically kidnapped me, but I’ve gotten a lot of work done. More than I thought I’d get done today, with Shay and Valeria top of mind and Connor just behind them. Scarlett stands up and stretches and I follow suit, closing up my books and wandering out with her.

The lights are dim in the living room and even Bozo is nowhere to be seen. Scarlett ventures out toward the kitchen, then stops abruptly. I figure out why a beat later: The kitchen table is empty save for two people. On one side is Milo, his shoulders tight and his eyes trained on his hands, which have worked themselves into a knot. On the other is Harley, slumped in his own chair, tired eyes set solely on Milo.

I open my mouth in a silent oh of realization, backing up before Scarlett does.

“Okay if I drive you home?” Jamie asks quietly, appearing behind us with the kind of quiet that probably only a mom of seven could master.

I nod, pulling my backpack up over my shoulder and following her out to the family minivan.

“Thank you,” she says, once I’m firmly in the passenger seat.

“Thank—for what? Thank you,” I say. “You’re the one who just took in a random icicle for the evening.”

Jamie’s lips press into a very Milo-esque, knowing smile.

“Those boys . . . they’ve needed to work their shit out for a while. I’ve got a pretty strong feeling you’ve got something to do with Milo finally being willing to listen.”

I’m glad for the darkness of the car, because my cheeks immediately flush. “I don’t know about that.”

Jamie reaches out and nudges my shoulder none too gently. “Take credit for your shit.”

I let out an unexpected laugh. “I mean—if I did help—I’m glad. I know Milo isn’t sure what he’s going to do about school yet, but I think this will help him decide.”

She nods at me in the rearview mirror. “He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

I’m beaming like a star, directing all the energy into my lap, only because it’s kind of embarrassing how much her praise means to me. The only thing I can compare it to is Mrs. Whit’s approval, and that feels so much harder to earn.

But this—this feels just as earned. Just as meaningful. The difference is I didn’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to make it happen; Jamie seems to just appreciate me for being me in the first place.

Jamie catches my eye in the rearview mirror, her smile teasing. “I’m hoping your little swim didn’t scare you off looking into the outdoor volunteer group next year.”

Next year. The words feel more solid, more like a promise than they ever have. The call with Connor may have left a lot of things up in the air, but it solidified the thing that mattered to me most: I’m staying, no matter what.

It feels like I’ve lived a lot of my time here only letting my roots sink in halfway. Trying to hold on to the old parts of me—the “Bed of Roses” column, the fix-it urge, the ribbons for Connor. But now that I know I’m here for good, it’s like the last of the old strings holding me back are falling away. Like I can really find that balance Professor Hutchison talked about, because nothing about my time here feels conditional the way it once did.

And part of what I want—what I’ve wanted since I got here—is to spend more time exploring these grounds. To reconnect with the kid I was back when my parents took me out for adventures, and I soaked up every word they taught me on them so one day I could take them on my own. To find satisfaction in something that feels like it’s just mine.

It would mean kissing the idea of more yellow ribbons goodbye, but for the first time, it doesn’t send a streak of panic through me. I’ll either have enough of them for the group my mom was in or I won’t. That’s something I can’t control, but this—this is something I can.

“Actually, my weekends are freeing up,” I say. “I’d really love to join now.”

Jamie’s eyes are warm as she says to me, “Well, take your time. You’re welcome whenever. But I’ll get your email from Milo and send you some details.”

We spend the rest of the ride exchanging funny stories about Milo—me tattling on him for the time he set a “no crying to Disney power ballads in shared spaces after eleven p.m.” rule in the dorm, her sharing that Milo is the one who individually named each of their chickens and gets extremely offended when other members of their family mix them up. On my way out of the car, she hands me two aluminum-foiled sandwiches and two containers of tomato soup. The warm weight of them suddenly makes me want to cry.

“For you and Shay,” she explains. Then she winks. “One of these days you’ll eat grilled cheese with us at a table, huh?”

I grin back. “Sounds good to me.”

As I bound out of the car and head back to the dorm, I let myself imagine it: a crowded table. People talking over each other. Massive amounts of food and laughter and eyes to catch anywhere you look. Something I’ve wanted my whole life; something I thought I’d just have to wait for.

But maybe it isn’t. Maybe that kind of table is a lot closer than I think, if I just give it a chance.

I pull out my phone and check the calendar app, then text my dad the next Saturday I have free. He responds within the minute: Works for me, A-Plus! See you then.