She removes her robe completely.

Two…

She reaches for my phone and types away.

One…

She shows it to me. We have ten minutes.

I throw the covers off me and pull her down until she’s lying on top of me, her body flush against mine. “Have you learned nothing, Becs? I only need ten seconds.”

Fifteen minutes later we’re satisfied, but we’re still in bed, still naked, still delaying the inevitable. “I don’t want you to go,” I tell her, my lips meeting the skin just below her belly button.

One of her hands finds my hair while the other types away on my phone.

“I don’t want to leave you, either.”

“So don’t.”

“Josh.”

My mouth moves from her stomach to her hips and I kiss the bones sticking out beneath her perfectly smooth, dark skin. “You’ve lost a little weight since I’ve seen you last. Make sure you eat, okay?”

“I’m just busy,” the phone says for her.

I glance up at her. “Well, make time. You can’t be beating yourself up physically. It’s not healthy. Three meals a day, Becs. Make sure you drink lots of water, eat all your fruit and vegetables.”

She tilts her head and smiles down at me. “You like me.”

I make my way up her body so I can see her. See my emerald eyes clear of pain and despair, see her raven dark hair splayed across the pillow, see her lips… lips I’ve craved and now tasted, and I wonder how it’s going to be possible for my heart to function when she won’t be around to make it beat. Make it live. Make it ache in a way that lets me know that living is just breathing, but living with her means living with purpose. With awareness. With love.

Her smile turns to a frown as her eyes search mine. “I love you,” she mouths, and I convince myself that it’s enough. It has to be.

“You’re coming home for summer break, right?” I ask.

Moments of silence pass before the phone says, “St. Louis is my home.”

I sigh. “So that’s a no?”

She removes her hands from around my neck and brings them between us so she can type with both hands.

“I wanted to tell you in person but it never felt like the right time. I got offered this amazing paid internship on a statewide online newspaper and I’d be stupid not to take it.”

I drop my head, my forehead meeting the pillow beside her.

“But I’ve already told them that I want some time off.”

I lean up quickly, my eyes snapping to hers. “When? Give me the dates!” I take my phone from her and open up my calendar.

Now we’re both holding the phone while she swipes at the screen, looking for the date. Her hands freeze, her eyes cast downward, and it’s all I need to see for the disappointment to kick in. She taps on the dates and brings up my schedule in Hong Kong, then opens the Notes app:

I checked your website for your tour dates and it had nothing for these dates! I can’t change them. I had to fight for them as it was!

“I know. Hong Kong host this gnarly yearly event and they don’t announce a venue or the competitors until two weeks before. It’s invite only and it’s Nico’s first one. I promised I’d go.”

She pouts, looking as dejected as I feel.

I kiss her softly. “I’ll make it work, okay? I’ll find a way.”

27

—Becca—

I look out the window while the cab driver speaks. “You visiting family?” he asks, watching me through the rear view mirror. “Where you coming from?”

I point to my throat and shake my head, then refocus on the trees that line the streets and the rays of sunlight filtering through the leaves. I wind down my window and inhale deeply, feeling the spring sun against my cheeks. Then I close my eyes and rest my head against the seat. I recall everything I felt the first time this happened. The fear of uncertainty had wreaked havoc on my mind and I was so afraid of the woman sitting next to me, a woman I would later call Grams. She spoke to me softly, gently, like she knew how I felt but understood me anyway. Now, I’m feeling it all over again… afraid and uncertain, only this time it’s because I have no idea how she’ll see me, or if she’ll see me at all.

The house is eerily quiet when I get here. Maybe because I’m used to seeing Josh and Tommy outside, hearing their laughter mixed with Grams’s, or maybe because Grams isn’t in the kitchen or on the couch reading a book. Maybe it’s because I feel like an outsider and it feels strange that I just used a key to let myself in. I carry my luggage up to the guest room, glancing quickly inside Grams’s old, now empty, bedroom, and then into my old, now Sadie’s, room. I drop my bags just inside the room and decide it’s best to wait for Sadie and my grandmother outside. Being in the house brings out the fear, brings out the uncertainty. I start down the stairs and that’s when I hear the front door open and my grandmother’s voice. “I know, Joshua,” she says, clearly on the phone. “She should be here very soon. Oh, I’m so excited to see her. Did you lovebirds have a good time together?” … “That’s great! Is she just as beautiful as ever?”

I make it known by the loudness of my steps that I’m here and that I’m waiting. I think she sees me before I see her because I’m greeted with a squeal, followed by a whimper as she covers her mouth. Her eyes are already filled with tears, just like mine. Slowly, she stands up from her wheelchair and moves toward me. “I have to go, Joshua. My Becca’s home.”

Journal

It’s amazing—that one simple word can mean so much.

MY.

In most cases, my in front of your own name may seem wrong, like you’re nothing but a mere possession.

But it my case, it’s the opposite.

It means I belong, I’m loved, and I’m wanted.

And when you spend the first eighteen years of your life alone and discarded, searching for someone to claim you as theirs, my means everything.

My is the air in my lungs.

The light battling my darkness.

The hero fighting my villains.

~ ~

Grams feels so thin, so weak, so frail beneath my touch. I’m almost too scared to hug her back. Josh had sent me updates, along with pictures, but none of them could’ve prepared me for the woman standing in front of me. We only spend five minutes together, her asking me questions and me typing out answers, before it becomes clear she’s struggling to stay awake. Sadie notices too, and tells her it’s time for bed and that the walk they’d been on when I got here would’ve tired her out.

Grams doesn’t fight her, only nods and points to the bathroom. Sadie helps her walk there, and I watch, helpless and confused when I see Sadie go in with her. Maybe Josh was holding out on me, not wanting to give me the truth to spare me the pain of how bad things truly are with her. My mind switches from This is the new normal to Maybe she’s just having a bad day over and over in the few minutes it takes for them to finish their business in that tiny room.

Sadie gets her settled in her bed, and only now do I realize that it’s not her bed, not the bed that was here the last time I was, and not the bed I found myself crawling into when the pain, the suffering, the longing became too much. Now, it’s the same type they had in her hospital room, the same type I’ve spent countless nights in after feeling the wrath of my mother post “episode.”