Six. Five . . .
Wade does the same, knowing he’s about to need his hands, too.
Four. Three . . .
I’m getting ready to reintroduce him to the world.
Two. One . . .
My heart is out of control, but I’m not as I pull Wade to me, kissing him with the force of everything happy. A lot of that unexpected happiness is thanks to him. Once my parents pull apart from their own kiss, they’ll be expecting to embrace me, and they’ll find me in arms they were never betting on finding me in. I stay in Wade’s arms because “Auld Lang Syne” comes on, and, damn it, Theo, last year was so impossible and trying, I don’t know how I got out of it alive. But I know how I’ll be surviving this year.
And I still know the hardest part of my survival is ahead of me.
Wednesday, January 4th, 2017
Sharing a cab to your house with your ex-boyfriend and my not-quite-yet-but-maybe-one-day boyfriend seems like the start to a bad joke. But the only thing funny so far is that Wade threatened Jackson, warning him to stay ten feet away from my dick at all times or Wade will chop his off.
That was all in good awkward humor, I think.
Jackson got here with good timing because I’m returning to school tomorrow. Luckily I’ll have Wade by my side: Team Mountain. It sounds like Jackson isn’t quite ready to return yet himself, and I won’t fight him on that decision.
We get out of the cab and head straight upstairs to your apartment, where your parents are expecting us. Russell and Ellen give us the warmest hugs. They seem in good spirits. I’m sure it makes you happy to see them getting better and better every time, right? On a scale of happiness, no one wants them stuck on the unhappy side, unable to lift themselves up and move on.
Your mother prepares iced tea while Jackson and Wade talk to your dad and Denise tells me everything she got for Christmas. Every single gift . . . I’m rescued shortly because Ellen knows the conversation the three of us want to have with her and Russell isn’t Denise-friendly and we don’t want to upset her, so she sends Denise to her room to play her racing video games.
“So what’s going on?” Ellen asks, crossing one leg over the other while sipping from her hot tea.
We—Jackson and I—tell your parents how we’re responsible for your death. We tell them how if we hadn’t been feuding, we possibly wouldn’t have driven you so crazy, you needed to distance yourself from everyone. I tell them about the voice mail that sent you there, but not why I called you in the first place. Jackson apologizes for not being brave enough to save you himself.
“Oh my God,” Ellen says, shaking her head. “No. No. You cannot do this to yourselves. Theo’s death isn’t your fault. Griffin, unless your voice mail was some sort of hypnosis trick where you convinced Theo to walk into the ocean, then you’re not to blame.”
“Right,” Russell says. “Same for you, Jackson. No one ever expected you to go running in there to save Theo. He was in danger, and you could’ve drowned, too. Theo’s death was an accident and unpredictable.”
“We play the blame game, too, I promise,” Ellen says. “What if we never sent Theo to school on the West Coast? What if we put him in better swimming classes when he was younger? We will drive ourselves crazy forever coming up with new what-ifs.”
“Leave that insanity to us,” Russell says.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling guilty,” I say.
“That’s because you love Theo, wherever he is,” Ellen says. “All three of you. You know this already, but you have to live for him, and you have to love for him.” Ellen eyes me and Wade, probably because we’re significantly closer to each other than we are to Jackson, and there’s so much space here that we could man-spread if we wanted to. “You’re not supposed to be stuck. Do not feel guilty for falling in love again.”
“It’s scary and the last thing on my mind right now, but I doubt I’ll ever be ready for that,” Jackson says.
“Whenever you’re ready, that’s the right time,” Ellen says.
“Might even happen before then,” I say. I turn to Wade and take his hand in mine, locking fingers with him. I’m scared to look up, but he squeezes back and gives me strength. Both Ellen and Russell are grinning and nodding. Their approval means the universe to me, because I know they want what’s best for you, and if they can see that me moving on is a beautiful thing, then I trust that’s how you would’ve felt, too.
Ellen and Russell tell us how we’re very much family. The three of us are their extended children, and we’re all older siblings to Denise. We call Denise back into the room and set up her new Wii out here and play the racing game with her.