spend time with my grandpa. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the little things about our daily lives, like making him a coffee in the afternoon and sitting with him on the porch, him in his rocking chair and me on the porch swing. Music played in the background while he told me about things that happened during my time away. He only kept a handful of friends since retiring, so most of his stories involved trips to the store, or the bank, or the church, and he’d relay almost word for word entire conversations he had with people. I sometimes worried that he was lonely, but he lived such a peaceful, quiet life, and he seemed so content to just… exist.
While being there felt like home, I couldn’t help the constant awareness of the emptiness that existed within me. Every time a car drove by, I’d get that hint of excitement to see Tammy or Holden, and it took me a moment to remember that they were no longer there. I couldn’t just hop on my bike and pedal the ten minutes to see them. The tire swing on the tree by the driveway—assembled by Tammy and put up by my grandpa—still had our names etched into the rubber, the memories of our childish laughter continuously plaguing my mind. For now, they were staying with Tammy’s parents in Tennessee. Tammy had spent her entire adult life being a mother and a wife, and now… now she didn’t know what to do. Holden would call every day and do his best not to show how much the move and the separation were affecting him, and I’d do the same. But I wasn’t as strong as him. I hadn’t been much of anything without him. Every time I’d cry, he’d hand the phone to his mom. And then I’d cry some more. Every time we got to the goodbyes, I had to stop myself from asking them to please, please, remember me.
And then there was Leo. He called occasionally, but mainly, he kept to text messages. Short ones. Ones that didn’t hit any cord, even though I wanted them to.
I was gone for four weeks, and really, I had no idea what he was doing during that time, and technically, I didn’t have a say. Still, it didn’t stop me from missing him. From waking up at 4:20 without an alarm, and wishing that he’d be there, waiting at the bottom of the stairs with that sly smile on his face, ready for another sometimes silent, sometimes informative adventure. The butterflies were the strongest those first couple of minutes with him, and they never really disappeared. Just faded. Slightly.
Obviously, I was crushing on him. Hard. But I didn’t know the first thing about what to do with those feelings, and now that we had at least a semester to work it out, I wasn’t all that worried about time.
“I’m proud of you, baba,” Papa says, both hands on the wheel as he focuses on the highway in front of us. “I know it’s tough for you with Holden gone. You were always his rational voice, and he was always your strength, so I know how hard it is to put yourself out there, to go out of your comfort zone.”
I squirm in my seat.
“This is the best thing for you, I think. It’s not good for you to limit yourself. You’re at the age where you make lifelong friends and build relationships, and you become who you want to be.” He glances at me, smiling. “And you—you can be anything you want. You can be a lawyer or a doctor or the President of the United States of America.”
A giggle bursts out of me.
“I’m serious,” he says, turning up the radio. “A Change is Coming” by Sam Cooke fills the cab, fills my heart with joy when my grandpa chuckles. “This is America,” he shouts over the music, his accent thick. “Land of the free. Home of the brave.” I lean into his touch when he strokes my cheek. “You’ve always been the bravest girl I know, Mia Mac. And I know you’re going to make me proud.”
I lied to Leo when I told him that my greatest fear was being forgotten.
My greatest fear was disappointing the one man who never stopped believing in me.
We’re a half-hour away from the Preston house when my phone alerts me to a text.
Leo: So I was thinking about school. I don’t think I