But my favorite was the one tucked into the hoodie Cam had brought me during one of her few trips home for different clothes. It was Kaiden and me leaning against a tree with a grave between us. A grave labeled with Lo’s name.
He didn’t say a word. I didn’t either. I just reached into my pocket and touched the wrinkled paper when I needed a moment to collect myself.
My eyelids want to droop and close from lack of sleep at this point, but I don’t tell Kaiden that, so we keep going down the hall. Besides some random ramblings, he’s been quiet almost the entire time. Once in a while he’ll make comments on the old photographs on the walls, making fun of the old portraits of patrons and founders. He teased me when I finished all my finals, calling me a nerd. A senior nerd. Since then, he’s barely spoken a peep.
There’s a set of vending machines by the elevators at the end of the hall. Kaiden stops the chair right in front of one and pulls out his wallet. I watch carefully as he inserts a dollar and presses a couple buttons before a Reece’s falls out.
“Split it with me?” he asks, knowing I won’t say no. He wheels me over to the closest lounge, where Dad and Cam give us space. They linger just up the hall, glancing between the window and us.
I give a small wave to Dad.
He tries to smile.
When Kaiden unwraps the candy and passes me one of the peanut butter cups, I play with it until chocolate melts onto my fingers. “I used to get an Almond Joy all the time at the hospital back home. There were five vending machines lined up in a long hallway that led to the building across the street from underground. Lo and I used to pretend we were on an adventure. Dad would take us down there and feed us sugar before going back up to see Mama and leaving.”
He watches me bite the chocolate-ridged sides of the cup off first, leaving only the middle left. “I know. I heard him telling Mom that once. You’d get angry when the machine would give you a Mounds because you hated them.”
My lips part. “He…？” I shake my head, peeling the top layer of chocolate off. “I don’t like just plain coconut. The almonds make it taste way better. Did he really say that?”
He nods, rubbing his lips together. “I didn’t hear about you often from him, but I don’t think it was because he didn’t think of you. It probably hurt him knowing he agreed to stay away when your mother asked him to. Anything I heard was something he told Cam. The Almond Joys, the days you went to work with your mom at the hospital…”
For a moment, he stares at his untouched candy in contemplation. “I’ve been to your house before October break.”
His voice is no more than a whisper that I think I mishear. “You…what?”
He sits up straighter and meets my eyes hesitantly, shyly. “Not long after your Dad moved in, I was trying to figure out how to get him out. It seemed like he was running from something, but he’d barely talk about his old life. He moved hours away, I knew that much, and used to be married. Mom mentioned that he had kids, a girl around my age, but that was the extent of the information they offered me.
“I got some information on the town you lived in and searched for his old address. Honestly wasn’t too hard to do, which should probably alarm people. Anyway, I skipped school one day and drove there. I’m not sure what I planned on doing or saying if anyone was home. It seemed safe considering it was the middle of the week. But…”
My breathing hitches just knowing he was there, fitting himself into my life long before we ever officially met.
“I saw your grandmother through the front window first. She was holding a bowl of something and talking to someone, and when I moved to the other side of the house, I saw you on the couch with a blanket over you. The one with the blue birds on the edges.”
“Grandma made that,” I whisper.
He takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I saw you there smiling at her like you didn’t care that you dad was gone. You seemed happy. I walked around the town for a little bit before coming back to your house and couldn’t knock on the door or ask anyone about you guys. So, I walked around the side until I found you under the sycamore tree talking to someone. I didn’t realize it was your sister’s grave until I’d come back during break last year.”
I let every word he speaks seep into me, as I play with my peanut butter cup. The chocolate is all over my fingers, so I pop what’s left in my mouth and lick off my fingertips.
“Your grandmother caught me,” he admits, sinking back into his chair.
My eyes widen.
He has a small smile on his face. “When I was trying to sneak back to my car parked down the road, she stopped me and asked what I was doing there. I lied and said I was lost and wandering around, but she saw through me. She noticed you out by your sister’s grave and then looked at me like she was connecting the dots.”
Grandma never said anything to me about a random boy showing up, and not once during break had she outed him. “Did she say something to you last year?”
His smile turns into a grin. “She told me that I was full of shit, but she already sensed that about me. The first morning she made breakfast she asked why I’d bothered coming.”
I wait for him to continue, wondering why he showed up the first time and wasted time saving me before I realized I needed it the second time around.
He shrugs, staring at the floor. “I’m not sure I have an answer, even now. Sometimes you just know when you’re needed, even if nobody says they need you. That’s why I came there for break. I had plenty of shit I could have done, but I wanted to be there with you.”
We sit in silence for a long while, finishing off the candy bar. He throws the wrappers away in the garbage can in the corner of the lounge before gesturing towards our waiting family.
I hear Mama and Grandma talking, which means they must have finished breakfast already. Both of them give me smiles when they see Kaiden wheel me over to them.
Grandma winks at him.
Mama reaches out to hold my hand.
Dad and Cam squeeze Kaiden’s arm.
I look at Mama, then glance at everyone else. “Can we have some time alone? I just want…” I just want Mama. “I’d like to be with Mama for a while.”
Everyone nods except Kaiden, who hasn’t let go of the wheelchair. Cam puts her hand on his shoulder and gives him an encouraging nod.
He lets go and kneels in front of me. “I expect you to be at every game, Mouse.” His voice cracking has my heart doing the same, a big split right down the middle. “Best friends support each other. They’re there for each other.”
The smile I grace him with is genuine. “I promise I’ll be at every single one.”
He wets his lips and nods once before standing, stepping back into Cam’s hold. Mama smiles down at me, Grandma brushes my hair behind my ear, and Dad offers me a single head bob like Kaiden.
It seems so final. Yet not final at all.
A beginning.
Kaiden will go to college.
Dad and Cam may have a child.
Mama could be happy. Date. Get remarried. Have more children.
There’s nothing that would hold them back. No excuse or emergency would cause them from living their lives, and the thought calms me completely until my body sinks lazily into the chair that Mama pushes.