I push off the bar, waiting for a response I know won’t come. “Come get us when you’re ready to leave.”
* * *
It’s four a.m. and I can’t sleep. Theo is curled up on the floor, facing the wall. He drank steadily for another thirty minutes after he stonewalled me, then stumbled out the door.
“I guess that’s our cue to leave,” I grumbled. The ride home was thick with silence.
I worried I’d have to help him get ready for bed, but he clanked and stumbled around in the bathroom before coming out with gym shorts on. I watched him while he wrangled extra bedding out of the linen closet and arranged it haphazardly on the carpet.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”
He stopped, his back to me, and for a second I thought he’d capitulate. But then he shook his head, dropped to his knees, and wrapped the blanket around his body before stretching out. Five minutes later, he was snoring softly, and I was staring at the ceiling.
I fell asleep, but my restlessness woke me. For lack of anything better to do, I pull up TikTok and rewatch my videos, eyes filling at the pictures of Gram, the map, this introduction to their story I’m still learning.
I have to remember why I’m here. This is the story that matters, not whether Theo wants to pour his heart out to me. I’ve started to mistake our parallel paths on this journey for something it isn’t. I can’t keep doing that.
With a sigh, I kick off my covers and roll out of bed, grimacing when the mattress squeaks. But Theo is out like a light. His shoulders are bare, curving over the top of the blanket, hair mussed and dark against the white pillowcase. I grab my phone and the duvet from the bed. This room feels too small with both of us in here.
It’s cold outside, the air like soothing fingers brushing over my flushed cheeks. I drop into one of the rocking chairs and lean my head back, staring up at the velvet sky.
The peace that settled over me driving here has gone and come back two times over. Now, tracing my eyes across the stars above, I urge the feeling back into my chest where that ache never really leaves me.
But the peace is gone now, in its place that grief that always lingers.
“Gram,” I whisper up at the sky. “Where are you?”
The air is still. Not even a breeze.
She’s not here, I know it. But in case she’s somewhere, I start talking. “Your favorite song played at this bar I went to tonight, and it hurt thinking of you and Grandpa. But then a boy started dancing with me, and it hurt a little less.”
I wipe impatiently at a tear. “I have unfortunate news there: I like him.” I point up at the sky. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? This is a secret. It’s complicated and it can’t go anywhere. Paul’s his granddad—weird, I know, but stay with me—and he’s traveling with us while Paul tells me your love story, the one you never told me.” Wet emotion soaks into every word. “I like Paul, too. I don’t have any of you left, and he’s so nice. I get why you fell in love with him, although I’m still learning why you didn’t end up together.”
A star winks down at me. Realistically I know it’s probably a plane, but I look for her everywhere, always.
“I’m afraid that once this trip is over, I’m going to go back to not knowing him.” I don’t even know who I’m talking about, Paul or Theo or both of them. “I’m really tired of losing people I care about.”
It’s so silent. It infuriates me that she can just be gone. That she left me like this, floundering for answers, talking to the sky.
I cover my face with my hands, my palms pressing against wet skin. “God. I don’t know what I’m doing, Gram. Please help me.”
Nothing. Nothing.
My eyes fill with tears. I want to scream. Instead I sigh, standing up.
But then my phone buzzes, slipping off the duvet wrapped around me. It clatters onto the wood porch, buzzing again.
I pick it up, illuminating the screen. It’s an alert for a TikTok DM. Curiosity piqued, I open it.
I watched the videos about your grandma. Omg, incredible! I also looked back on your feed and your older photos are amazing too. Have you gone to Yosemite yet? I’m looking for a birthday gift for my mom next month—she loves Yosemite and has been looking for the perfect prints to put in her house. Pls let me know if I can buy some!
My heart races. Is this a sign or coincidence? If Gram had the ability to communicate with me from wherever she is, would it really be through a TikTok DM?
The uncanny timing is undeniable, though. I’m so desperate for any glimpse of her, even this way, that I tell myself it’s possible.
The urge to create something new sneaks into my veins. If Gram were truly here, she’d encourage me to do it.
It’s why I creep back into the house to get my laptop, then sit on the porch for an hour, maybe longer, sending shots to my phone. I compile them into a sixty-second clip that showcases my best edited photos of our time in Yosemite.
Once that’s done, I respond to the DM with a link to the video so she can see some of the pictures I’ve taken. I volunteer to send her additional watermarked photos if none of the ones in the video pique her interest, and I only pause for a beat before hitting send. The adrenaline and vulnerability hit me like a wave as it hurls through space to land in a stranger’s inbox.
It’s been so long since I’ve shared my work with anyone. I forgot what it’s like, how terrifying it is. How it strips you right down to the bones. I forgot, too, how good it can feel to hear I like what you did.
A small step, but it’s a step nonetheless, and the heaviness in my chest lifts, just a little bit.
There’s one thing still weighing me down: I want to end the night with Theo smiling instead of shutting me out. It should’ve gone that way—me with salt on my skin from hours of dancing against Theo’s body, my limbs stretched and tired, mind cloudless.
My thoughts drift to that video of him and Paul at the picnic table in Yosemite, Theo’s head thrown back in laughter. I imagine what it would look like if I made him laugh like that, and how it would feel.
I want to memorialize it. Isn’t that the magic of capturing moments like that? The ability to go back and visit that exact time again and again? I certainly will.
I stitch together that video with a couple others, including one of them hiking, Theo with his shirt slung over his shoulder, his backpack hiding most of his bare skin. At one point, he looks over his shoulder into my camera, and he doesn’t smile exactly, but his eyes are warm.
The introduction to Paul and Theo is compelling, and it’s only partially a testament to my talent. It’s their bond. It sings.
Everyone is going to fall in love with Theo.
That’s fine, I tell myself, caught in the lingering midnight blue of his eyes. As long as it’s not me.
Eighteen
By now, my response to Paul reaching for a letter is practically Pavlovian, so when he pulls one out on our ride to Zion the next morning, my hand is already outstretched.
Theo’s motionless next to me, his sweatshirt hood pulled over his head. I heard him in the bathroom early, when the house was still dark. He was trying to be quiet, but it was clear he was miserable.
I knew he wouldn’t let me in if I knocked on the door. So instead, I stared out the window, tracing the blackened lines of the mountains, only closing my eyes when Theo padded back into the room, the floor creaking under his feet.