Without Merit

I stare at him blankly. “What’s that?”

He reaches to me and takes my hand, pulling it to his lap. He turns it palm-up and touches my wrist, drawing an imaginary line across it. “Let’s pretend this is a normal stress level. Your baseline.” He drags his finger up my palm until he reaches the tip of my middle finger. “And let’s pretend this is your max stress level.” He moves his fingers down and touches my wrist again. “Your baseline is where you are on a normal day. Not too much stress, everything is flowing smoothly. But say you break your leg.” He runs his finger from the baseline at my wrist to the middle of my palm. “Your stress level would go up to like fifty percent because you’ve never broken your leg before.”

He releases my hand and flips his own hand over. He looks up at me. “You know how many times I’ve broken a bone?”

I shrug. “Twice?”

“Six times,” he says, smiling. “I was a rambunctious kid.” He touches his wrist and makes an imaginary line across it. “So if I were to break my leg, it would be stressful, but I’ve been through it before. So it would only raise my stress level to like ten percent. Not fifty.” He pauses. “You understand what I’m saying?”

I’m honestly not sure what point he’s trying to make. “Are you saying you’re tougher than me?”

He laughs. “No, Merit. That was only an example. What I’m saying is, the same two things could happen to two people, but that doesn’t mean they would experience the exact same stress over it. We all have different levels of stress that we’re accustomed to. You probably felt the same amount of stress over your family situation as I sometimes do about mine, even though they’re on completely different levels. But that doesn’t make you weaker. It doesn’t make you an asshole. We’re just two different people with two different sets of experiences.” He takes my hand again, but it’s not to prove a point. He just threads his fingers through mine and holds my hand. “It annoys me when people try to convince other people that their anger or stress isn’t warranted if someone else in the world is worse off than them. It’s bullshit. Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. You’re the only one who feels them.”

He squeezes my hand, and I’m not sure at which point during this conversation I fell for him, but it happened. I may look like I’m casually sitting on a bed next to him, but metaphorically, I’ve melted at his feet.

Between Luck and Sagan, the last couple of hours have been eye-opening.

I don’t even attempt to respond to all he just said to me. Instead, I rest my head on his shoulder as he wraps his arm around me. I think about what he said earlier when he told me I was really easy to like today. I find some comfort in that, because in the past twenty-four hours, he’s probably seen the most authentic side of me he’s ever seen. I close my eyes and readjust myself against him.

“You’re easy to like every day,” I whisper, right before I finally fall asleep.





Chapter Seventeen Even though it’s Saturday—a day I finally don’t have to pretend to wake up and go to school—I still wake up earlier than I want to. Sagan fell asleep in my room last night, so as soon as I open my eyes, I roll over to wake him up so my father won’t catch him in here.

But he’s not here anymore. On the pillow where he slept last night is a drawing. I smile and pick it up. On the back, Sagan has written, “I don’t even know what this is, but I drew it while I watched you sleep. I thought you might like it.”




I don’t know what it is either, but I love it. It might even be my new favorite. I tack it to the wall.

I pull on some jeans and a tank top and then head to the kitchen, but I come to a halt when I look in Sagan’s room. It’s a mess. The drawers are open, his wall hangings are gone. My heart starts to beat wildly in my chest and I try to sustain the panic I feel coming. I turn to go to the kitchen and find out what happened, but I’m intercepted right outside Sagan’s bedroom door by my father.

“Where’s Sagan?”

“I kicked him out,” my father says, matter-of-fact.

I bring my hands up to my head. “What?”

“He slept in your bed last night, Merit.”

This is unbelievable. “So you kicked him out? Without even talking to me?” I spin around and look at the guest room again, hoping I’m dreaming. Almost everything is gone. “Do you not have a heart?” I spin back around to face my father. “Do you not know about his family? What he’s been going through?”

My father sighs. “Merit, calm down.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me down the hallway, through the kitchen and to the back door. Sagan is almost to the other side of the yard, carrying a thirty-gallon trash bag over his shoulder. “He’s moving into our old house.”

I watch Sagan as he opens the gate and carries the trash bag to the back porch of our old house. “Oh.”

“I told Sagan he could live in this house as long as he wasn’t involved with either of you girls. He broke that rule.”

“We aren’t involved, Dad. We didn’t even do anything last night. We just fell asleep talking.”

My father raises an eyebrow. “Then why did he agree to move when I told him that was his only option if he wanted to date you?”

I press my lips together and look back out the door just in time to see Sagan disappear inside the house. “He agreed to move?” I ask quietly.

“Yep,” my father says.

Oh. That somehow changes my whole attitude. “Can I go over there?”

“No. You’re grounded.”

I spin around again. “Why?”

“Let’s see. For having a guy in your room. For stealing your mother’s medicine. For painting my fence purple. For . . .”

I hold up my hand. “Okay. That’s fair.”

“For dropping out of school,” he adds.

I scrunch up my nose and take a step back. “Oh. You know about that?”

“Your mother told me she’s been getting phone calls from the school.” My father walks into the kitchen and opens the dishwasher. He points at it, letting me know I’m getting all the chores while I’m grounded. He then turns to make himself a cup of coffee. I walk to the dishwasher and pull out a couple of plates.

“I met with your principal yesterday,” my father says. “He’s willing to work with you on catching up on missed assignments, but you can’t miss another day of school for the rest of the year. I’ll be taking you to school on Monday. And then I’ll pick you up after and we’ll go see Dr. Criss.”

I reach for a pan and open another cabinet. “We’ll go see Dr. Criss?” I say. “Does that mean you’re also going to therapy?”

I’m half-kidding, so when he says, “We’re all going to therapy,” I’m shocked.

I turn and face him. “All of us?”