And now it was too late on both counts.
A thought whispered, You could still tell your dad.
I shoved the idea away, quickening my pace down the sidewalk.
The Averys had decorated their house tastefully for the holiday, with a few pumpkins lining the walkway up to their front porch. The pumpkins, instead of being carved, were painted with several shades of blue to spell out their last name.
My pulse jumped a little in my chest as I stepped up onto the porch, ringing for the doorbell.
Mrs. Avery pulled the wide oak door open, and something similar to disappointment bloomed inside me. “Blaire, good to see you,” she greeted with a smile, pushing open the storm door. “I just got off the phone with your grandmother. Come inside, and I’ll get the pitcher. Delia and I made hot cocoa. You have to have some before you go back.”
I puffed on my cold fingers, stepping over the threshold. Heat wrapped around me in a comfortable, warm hug. “That would be amazing, Mrs. Avery. It’s getting colder and colder out there.”
Despite Lucas and I being broken up, it still felt extremely normal to walk into his front entryway like old times. I could almost pretend like nothing had changed.
But as soon as I stepped further into the house, a warm smell hit my nose, like cinnamon and spice and something a little nutty. The smell instantly triggered a memory, almost rendering me immobile over the threshold.
Again, the last Halloween we’d spent together as a family came to my mind, and the only reason the memory stood out in any sort of contrast was because I remembered Dad baking pumpkin seeds. Or, rather, burning pumpkin seeds, as the entire kitchen had had a hazy smoke over it. Dad had been completely unbothered, though, and had assured me that everything he did had a purpose.
“I want them to smell like that,” he’d told me, waving his hand to clear the air. “Once you try them, you’ll see.”
And I remembered Mom, who sat at the kitchen table, merely smiled. “Or you’ll hate them, like me. But the smell—you can’t hate the smell.”
My chest now pinched so tight as I imagined Mom’s cheery smile, the pitch of her voice. Remembered Dad’s laugh, his confident pumpkin-seed baking.
“Mmm, those seeds are smelling so good.” Mrs. Avery inhaled deeply as she headed toward the kitchen. She left me behind, my legs unwilling to follow. “Lucas and Delia love them. Speaking of, you can take a hot chocolate thermos home and give it back to Lucas tomorrow at school if you want.”
I hadn’t smelled the scent of baked pumpkin seeds in years. The sparking sensation of it almost made my world feel turned over, as if it toppled on its side and I’d lost my footing. I could imagine Mom, plain as day, smiling at me from the table. Dad leaning against the countertop, trying to convince the two of us that baked pumpkin seeds were the best thing in the world. “Especially with cinnamon,” I could practically hear him say in that deep tone of his.
And he’d smile like he’d told a joke, that wide and happy smile, completely contagious.
He’d flip my hair over my shoulder and say, “Once you try them, you’ll see, Blaire.”
Everything in me shuddered as a fissure worked its way through my chest, cracking a jagged line from my stomach to my throat.
“Mom, who are you talking—Blaire? What are you doing here?”
I looked up to find Lucas on the other end of the hallway, poking his head out from his bedroom door. His dark hair was ruffled, as if he’d just gotten done running his fingers through it. I could almost imagine him tugging at their ends.
Lucas could look at me and know. As he came closer, eyes tracing whatever expression rested on my face—I was too numb to be able to feel it—the line between his brows thickened. “What’s wrong?”
So many things, I wanted to say. Donnie and I are fighting, and we never fight. And I miss you—I miss you so much that it hurts to breathe. I got a letter from my dad, and I’m too afraid to open it—too afraid it’s going to make me forgive him.
I kept my mouth shut, not letting the words escape.
“Here’s the pitcher for your grandmother, and the thermos for you,” Mrs. Avery said as she came back out into the hallway, offering me both items. She spotted Lucas. “Oh, I pulled your pumpkin seeds from the oven. They looked done.”
His blue eyes flicked over to her. “Thanks, Mom.”
Mrs. Avery’s attention went back to me—or, namely, back to the items she still held out to me. The thermos and the pitcher. I hadn’t taken them. “Blaire?”
In that moment, I felt like a ghost, a shadowy figure spotted from the corner of someone’s eye, easily dismissible due to an overactive imagination. There, but not there. Seen, but not seen. Because Lucas and his mother saw me clearly, standing directly in front of them, but they didn’t see me. Breaking apart, dissolving to the thoughts that rummaged in my brain, lost in the wave of negativity. Drowning.
I took the thermos and the pitcher, my fingers shaking as they curled over each item. Though my hands quivered, my voice did not. It sounded stiff and formal, but not shaky. “Thank you, Mrs. Avery. I’ll make sure to give the thermos to Lucas tomorrow.” My boots squeaked on the wood floor as I stepped backward. I slipped the thermos into the crook of my elbow to open the door. “Have a good night.”
As I stepped out into the October air and sucking in a shallow breath, the action felt dooming, absolute. And I couldn’t figure out why. Why would shutting the door on Lucas’s house feel like a final goodbye?
It didn’t take long to figure out why. Because for the first time when I walked away, Lucas didn’t follow.
I stared at the ceiling fan that hung from the middle of my room, counting the lazy rotations it made. Shadows cast strange images on the walls, and sometimes when the occasional car would pass, their headlights would glance off my window. My eyes drooped, but I couldn’t quite close them all the way. Couldn’t quite turn my brain off.
My body had been still for a while now, long enough for there to be an ache blooming in my hip. I knew I needed to go to sleep—I had school in the morning—but I was a light bulb with a broken switch. I was a bottle of soda, shaken up, ready to explode.
I could’ve screamed—screamed a rasping noise that scraped my throat raw. The pressure of it built in my chest. It rested there, on the tip of my tongue, and yet…it never came out.
I watched the fan spin once, twice, around and around.
Why was everything falling apart? Why couldn’t some semblance of my old life remain? When things had been easy, good, happy. No trace of those things existed now. Donnie, Lucas, Dad. All the boys in my life.
What would your perfect life look like? my brain whispered, its soothing voice almost hypnotic as the ceiling fan spinning. Donnie, Lucas, Dad—how would those pieces fit into your life differently than right now?
Well, for one thing, Donnie would be on my side of things. I took his never-budging loyalty for granted. Or, apparently, his loyalty was budging. Either way, I’d have him in my life. I’d have him not be mad at me. I’d win his forgiveness, and we’d go back to normal.
Lucas. My perfect life with Lucas…what would that look like? I could imagine him pulling up in front of the apartment, Crushed Beanz coffees already in the cup holders, the scent filling the car. His hand warm in mine, squeezing my fingers playfully as he walked me to class. His skin against mine, lips offering a glancing kiss.