I’ve learned in my sixteen and a half years that there are things that will surprise you because you don’t see them coming. They can be hard, painful things, and it’s those ones that will live with you forever, bound to your soul in layers that grow thicker each year. Hopefully those layers will eventually dull the pain.
There can also be awesome surprises. Again, ones you don’t see coming, but when they find you, you wonder how you ever lived without them.
And sometimes, someone surprises you in a way that kinda knocks you on your ass. Nathan was one, but this afternoon it was Gram who held that honor.
After an amazing breakfast, spent watching Nathan do everything in his power to charm Gram, he left to go home for a quick shower and I’d been told that I was spending the day with Gram in New Orleans.
She said we were going to have a girls’ day. That she wanted to shop for some new furniture, stuff for her porch and the newly refurbished one at the main plantation house.
Surprise number one. I was excited to go.
Surprise number two came just after we’d finished lunch at a cute little bistro and settled back into her old Matlock. She fired up the engine and turned down the radio.
“So, Monroe. Tell me something.”
I buckled my seat belt, smoothed the hem of my yellow sundress, and glanced up.
“Yes?”
“Are you on the pill?”
Wait. What?
“The pill,” I repeated. “Like the…” Jesus, I couldn’t even say it. What was I? Twelve?
“Yes.” She nodded. “The birth control pill.”
Shit. Was I really gonna have the birds and the bees talk with Gram? First off, we covered that stuff in fifth grade and secondly, seriously?
I opened my mouth to say something, but since this was one of those surprises that rips into all of your normal thought processes, I didn’t have anything. There were no words. There was just…
Hot cheeks, a sweaty brow, and suddenly a very dry mouth.
Gram pulled out into the road, signaling her turn, and stepped on the gas in precise, measured movements. She acted as if everything was normal and nice and as if she hadn’t just asked me about…
“I’m just wondering is all. You did spend the entire night alone with a boy.”
Now that I thought back, surprise number one had occurred at breakfast when she hadn’t said one word about the fact that Nathan and I had spent the night in the maze. She’d let him ramble on and on about meteor showers and comets, and I spent the entire time watching him…just watching him.
Because he made me feel light.
So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d decided to corner me for the big “talk.”
“Gram, that’s…I’m not…I mean, we didn’t.”
“I’m not saying you did, honey, but as a young woman, you should be protected and so should he. And birth control pills aren’t the only thing a young woman should have.” She glanced at me and arched her eyebrow. “Condoms. You should have condoms as well.”
Oh. My. God.
“Monroe, are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m good. I’m okay.” I was so not okay.
I took a moment and then, well, I had to take another one. Gram had always been open with me, but still, hearing the word “condom” come out of her mouth was just wrong.
“So, if we did…I mean if I wanted to, you know, do that with Nathan, you wouldn’t have a freak-out?”
“Monroe, stop putting words in my mouth. I would very much have a—” she navigated a turn and then glanced at me, “freak-out. But I also know that hormones, emotion, and a hot Louisiana night are a recipe for all kinds of things.” She shook her head. “I may have gray hair and more than a few wrinkles on my face, but I remember what it feels like to be young and in love.”
Jesus!
“I’m not in love with Nathan Everets,” I said hotly. I mean, I couldn’t be, could I? Didn’t you have to know someone a lot longer than a few weeks to fall in love?
Oh God. Was that what all the heat and emotion and burning inside me was about? Was I in love?
“How do you know when you’re in love?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Gram’s eyes were straight ahead, the radio on low. “If you can’t picture your tomorrow without a person in it? Then you’re in love.”
“Oh,” I said shakily.
I glanced out the window, at the storefronts that blurred as we drove by, and tried to calm my suddenly frantic heart. It took a few moments, but eventually I settled against the seat.
“I told Nate about Malcolm.”
Gram’s eyes were on the road. She didn’t say a word, but her right hand crept over to me and clasped mine in a tight grip. She didn’t let go until we got to some old, rickety store that supposedly sold the finest antiques in the state of Louisiana.
With one hand, she maneuvered her big car into the smallest spot imaginable, something any trucker would be proud of. She cut the engine and squeezed my hand once more before letting go.
When she turned to me, her eyes were soft and pretty…but sad.
“I’m glad,” she said haltingly.
“Me too.”
I swallowed hard. “I miss him so much, Gram.”
“I know.”
The one question that had haunted me since that awful day pressed in hard. I tried not to think about it. I tried to concentrate on the sound that the fan made as it blew out cold air into the car. The radio was still on, the volume low, an old Elvis Presley song played. “Heartbreak Hotel.”
Kind of appropriate.
“I want him to forgive me,” I whispered. “Do you think he can?”
Her hand was on my cheek but my eyes were squeezed shut.
“Your brother loved you, Monroe. There was never anything to forgive. Remember that.”
She stroked my hair and I let out a long, shuddering breath. It felt so good, her touch, her smell.
“Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?” I asked suddenly. I’d been given that line of bull from a lot of different people, and every time I heard it, I wanted to scratch their eyes out. I used to think they said something like that because they just didn’t know what else to say.
I got that. What do you tell a teenager whose brother died on her watch? There were no words, no right thing to say.
“I believe in fate,” Gram said softly. “And I believe in choice. Sometimes the two connect and sometimes they don’t.” She shook her head fiercely. “But Malcolm’s death wasn’t your choice, Monroe. Do you remember what I told you back then?”
Slowly, I nodded. I hadn’t thought about that in forever.
“You told me that I would be fine. That Mom and Dad were going to be fine. That we would all get through this.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “And what else did I tell you?”
I had to think hard for a minute. There was so much about that day that I had pushed away. Stuff I didn’t want to think about or remember ever again. Gram had been there with me for the worst of it, and I remembered her warmth, the scent of vanilla. And I remembered her tears.
“You told me that I was going to fall a long way down before someone caught me.”
“Yes.” Gram nodded slowly. “I begged your mother and father to let you come to me this summer because I truly believed it was time for you to come back to us. It was time, and I thought that I was going to be the one to catch you.”
She shook her head and smiled. “But it wasn’t me, my darling girl. It was Nathan. He caught you.” She squeezed my hand again. “And I think that he’s still waiting.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Why, for you,” she said in a very serious voice, before she opened her car door and glanced back at me. “To catch him.”