History Is All You Left Me(47)

Jackson, with both socks on, approaches and crouches before me, almost like I’m strapped to explosives and may self-destruct any second now. “Griffin, what is it?” He adjusts himself to be on the other side of my right knee. “Is it an angle thing?”

I found my sixth first: today is the first morning I’m allowing Jackson to help me find sanity. He’s been helping me out with grief. I push him away when it comes to my compulsions. You’ve been there for me since pretty much the beginning, and I’ve turned to you. It’s hard to control something that has control over me. No one understands, but it’s freeing to let someone else in to try.

“I’m okay.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my head. “I got stuck in my head.”

“Was it an angle thing? How can I help you next time?”

His thoughtfulness reminds me of you.

“It was a counting thing. Let’s drop it for now because I’ve spent enough time in my head already.” That’s the nature of having a brain that spins, I guess. I know brains aren’t supposed to spin—minds can, not the actual brains themselves. But there’s a lot going on in my head I don’t understand and may never understand, and it seems silly to cling to the idea that my brain is this fleshy thing that stays in its place, this thing that behaves like other brains.

“I’m sorry,” Jackson says.

“Not your fault,” I lie. I can’t let it slip that this particular train of thought derailed because of him; he’s the source of counting these firsts.

I’ve imagined many easier lives in alternate universes—somewhere Jackson no longer exists and some where he never existed in the first place—but I never counted on living in a universe where Jackson is a welcome and helpful addition to my life. I would’ve never predicted a universe where I’m actually careful about how Jackson feels.

I get up from bed and look out the window. The blizzard is going strong and is expected to reach four feet today, maybe six by Sunday. “You sure you still want a snow day?”

“I’m sure,” he says. “I want to send my parents photos of me in the snow.”

I’m betting Jackson’s father won’t call until closer to noon, though I’m hoping he’ll prove me wrong. Until then, we’ll keep blaming it on work. Maybe he’s up in the air and unable to call. Maybe he’s surprising his son by visiting New York to see him. I have my doubts on that one. I hope Jackson isn’t counting on it, either.

“It’s your day,” I say. We’re definitely waiting until the snow isn’t pounding down like this, but I am determined to honor his wishes. “How are you feeling about seeing Anika and Veronika?”

“I’d be surprised if that still happens,” Jackson says, still staring out the window like it’s the last time it’ll ever snow. “Veronika is always looking for excuses to cancel. She hates leaving the house. I’m sure she cancels everything now that weather is a factor.”

“No wonder you and Theo couldn’t risk being late the night he wanted to take you to the park,” I say.

I think this was really mature of me to bring that up, by the way. You owe me a high five.

“Exactly,” Jackson says.

“We should have a back-up plan, just in case.” My heart isn’t trying to blast its way out of my chest anymore. Helping Jackson out is rescuing me from my own head. “Think of it as a snow-day plan for your snow-day birthday plans. What else would you want to do? Something you can only do in New York?”

“Theo used to talk about the High Line,” Jackson says.

I move away from the window so Jackson doesn’t see me blushing. I am blushing, right? My face is burning again. I wonder if you brought up my name when you mentioned the High Line, if you told him how we would buy lemonades and laugh at the ice vendor who was sneakily eating Popsicles when she thought nobody was looking. Maybe you avoided telling him about how we would hold hands and create stories about the lives of the people we could see working in offices. Maybe you left me out completely so you wouldn’t hurt his feelings.

“If your friends suck, we will go to the High Line,” I promise. It’s been a while since I’ve been there. “Jackson?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy birthday, by the way.”

Jackson finally looks away from the window and smiles. There’s no mistaking the sadness in his smile, like maybe he was hoping to find you when he turned around. But when someone is grieving, a genuine smile is a small victory in the big battle. “Thanks, Griffin.”

I don’t mean to speak for you, but I know you’ll feel better having these words of yours thrown out into the universe. “And a happy birthday from Theo, too.”

Jackson is a little surprised, but his smile doesn’t break—no sadder, no happier. Sometimes neutrality is a victory, too.

“What’s a colder word for freezing?” Jackson asks, bundled from head to toe in my dad’s coat, hat, gloves, and the scarf I forced on him.

“Fucking freezing?”

Jackson nods. “It’s fucking freezing. I’m not sure I really want a snowman best friend anymore.”

I smooth out the snowman’s base. “Nope. No backing out. We didn’t work this hard on his ass to give up now.”