“Lo’s bed.”
He grunts.
“Now do you get it?” I ask.
Do you get why it’s better?
Do you get why I had to leave?
Do you see I’m killing Mama?
“Yeah, Mouse,” he murmurs. “I get it.”
This time when we visit Lo’s grave, Kaiden sits beside me like I’m going to try falling asleep again. It’s colder now. I don’t want to stay long, much less curl up on the cold, hard ground.
Legs crossed under me, I tuck my bare hands in the soft lining of my jacket pockets. “I used to love coming here and talking to Logan about my day. If our old friends did something that annoyed me, I’d vent to her about it. After she died, everyone just moved on like it was no big deal. It seemed like I was the only one who really missed her.”
One of Lo’s closest friends was part of the cheer squad with us. Ria Chaplin. I always thought she was annoying, but Lo loved her. Sometimes I think more than me. I even remember Lo ditching our plans after school to hang out at Ria’s house with some of the other girls from the squad. They never invited me, but Lo would always tell me about the silly games they’d play and gossip they’d hear from Ria’s older sister after Mama brought her home.
Ria used to tell Logan she thought I was holding her back. I overheard them talking after practice one day about me not being as talented. I never wanted to join the team, I did it for Lo. She begged me to do it with her. There was no denying that my passion for cheer didn’t come close to matching hers.
I shake my head, running my tongue over my top teeth. “This one girl went to the funeral with her mother, but she wouldn’t even come over and talk to me. Some of the girls from the squad were in the back and all they talked about was how they wanted to leave.”
Kaiden shifts, resting an arm over his knee. “Maybe they weren’t handling it well.”
My jaw ticks. “They handled it just fine. Ria mentioned wanting to go to McDonald’s to get a shake before they all went home. I couldn’t eat for a month, and she wanted to go get a shake.”
He’s quiet.
My eyes graze over Lo’s grave before slowly making their way back to Kaiden. He’s watching me with no clear emotion on his face. At least there isn’t pity.
“Do you visit your dad?”
His eyes cast downward. “Yeah.”
I nod.
“Maybe you’re right.” I sigh. “Maybe the girls just didn’t know how to cope and I’ve been irritated with them since. Does it make me a bad person to like bad mouthing them to Lo? She thought Ria and them were great.”
He chuckles. “Nah, there’s worse you could say about people.”
“Like?”
He simply shrugs again.
I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my chin on them. “I think Logan is around sometimes. Like when I’m having a bad day or something, it’s like I feel her. In the wind. The sun. In music.” I angle my body toward him slightly. “Do you ever feel that?”
His eyes are unblinking. “No.”
I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. I wish there was a telltale sign, like a twitching eyebrow or a lingering gaze. It’s almost like he’s mastered the skill—like he’s had years of practice. How long as he lied to himself?
My head tips back up to the sky. “I read an article about people coming back as other things. This one time, a woman was doing a maternity photoshoot and a ladybug landed on her. The photographer snapped a picture when the woman explained her late mother loved ladybugs. Then, during the baby’s cake smashing photoshoot over a year later, a ladybug landed on his overalls. They got a picture of that too.”
He scoffs in disbelief. “You can’t honestly believe the woman’s mother was the ladybug, can you?”
“Why can’t I?” I challenge, staring only at Lo’s grave. “Sometimes we need those types of beliefs to get us through the day. Like when I see a rainbow, especially without any rain, I like to think it’s Logan.”
“That’s impossible.”
I question a lot of things—God, the afterlife, what comes after death. Everything about never existing anymore terrifies me. What if we take our last breaths and then that’s it? What then?
I scoot forward and put my hand on the cold marble stone in front of me. My fingers curl over the top, as though I’m holding Lo’s hand. “Maybe it is,” I agree softly. “But maybe it isn’t. Who’s to say what’s out there and what isn’t? None of us really know.”
So we pretend.
We pretend our loved ones are still close to us.
We pretend we’re okay.
It’s not denial.
It’s coping.
It’s reassurance.
It’s how we get through another day.
My hand is cold. “Ready to go inside? Grandma is probably going to be gone for a little while longer, which means we have the TV to ourselves.”
His head tilts. “You want to watch TV?”
“What else would we do?”
His lips quirk in a devious smirk. “I can think of a lot of different things, Mouse. A house to ourselves can get us into a lot of trouble.”
My heart does a little jig in my chest, but I silently tell it to stop. I stand up, brushing my leggings off. “I guess it’s a good thing I was never a troublemaker then, huh?”
Amusement lingers on his face as he joins me, standing a little too close. Then again, we literally slept pressed against each other, so I suppose the minimal distance between us now is welcoming.
“Admit it, Mouse.”
My brows pinch. “What?”
He leans in, his lips grazing my ear until the warmth of his breath causes me to shiver. “I think you want to know what trouble tastes like.”
I allow myself to close my eyes for a split second and absorb the moment before turning my head toward where his lips linger. If I move ever so slightly, our lips will touch. It could be my first kiss, and I bet it would be a good one. Kaiden seems like he knows what he’s doing, not that I want to think about him doing this with other girls.
How many people does he travel to see on school break? He already admitted he doesn’t usually take people to his special spot at the sycamore. Yet, for me, he does.
I let my heart absorb the win.
Then I bury it deep, deep down.
His breath caresses my mouth, invites me in. My nose nuzzles his cheek as I take in his masculine scent.
I exhale. “Pass.”
Then I walk away.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At some point during America’s Funniest Home Videos reruns, I fall asleep next to Kaiden on the couch. I don’t remember curling up or using Kaiden’s thigh as a pillow, but it’s how I wake up. His arm is draped over me casually, his breathing even.
I hear Grandma from the kitchen, talking and rattling around dishes, and realize she’s speaking to Kaiden. Pretending to still be asleep, I flutter my lids closed and try not to think about the hard muscle under my cheek.
“I think it’ll be good for them,” Grandma says quietly, her footsteps nearing. “I want nothing more than to see them get along like they used to. It’s been…tough.”
Kaiden doesn’t seem to buy it. His arm around me tightens gently. “And whose fault do you think that is?”