Begin Again(25)

I’m snapped out of it when Shay walks back into the room and jerks her thumb toward the door. “Leave it in the comment box.”

I follow her out, plopping the coffee grounds in the box, and use the notebook in my bag to fashion a note, propping it on the top of the box so he won’t miss it: “Semi-Eternal Darkness—try switching to this after 2pm!”

“I maintain that the word ‘semi-eternal’ makes no logical sense,” says Shay.

I pat her pale pink coat sleeve. “Save that big brain of yours for trivia tonight.”

It’s a high-stakes situation for us both—yesterday before the broadcast, Milo got word from the Knights’ Tour organizers that the blue ribbon hunt events were starting this weekend, and would run on random Friday and Saturday nights for the rest of January. You could either participate on campus in the dining halls or opt to go off campus to a few participating restaurants that had their own incentives. I was resigned to eating what Milo affectionately called “an insult to food” alone on campus each weekend to collect enough ribbons, but it turns out Shay’s book club already has a trivia team that meets at a restaurant near Bagelopolis, and was more than happy to absorb me into it—particularly because the prize for trivia night is always a fifty-dollar gift card to the bookshop in the historic part of town.

Shay heads out to meet up with them beforehand, which gives me enough time to go on a long walk and center myself. I head toward the arboretum, which I’ve wandered along the edges of enough times to have a few favorite spots. One of them is a bench half buried in an overgrown bush—I can see out to the lake and the edges of campus, but unless they’re really looking, nobody can see me.

Once I’m there I take a breath and pull out my white ribbon, skimming my fingers along the edges of it. It’s strange to feel it so light in my hand when it has such a significant weight in my heart. A weight I’ve been carrying so long that it feels strange to be here now, about to do something with it for the first time.

It sounds ridiculous, but I’m almost scared. Like I’ve spent my whole life anticipating this ribbon hunt, but it never once occurred to me that I might fail at it. That it might be as hard of an adjustment as so many other things here have been—the struggle with keeping up academically, the strangeness of trying to fit into this new world, the tension of not quite knowing where Connor and I stand. The ache of sitting in the studio and answering listener emails, trying to avoid my mom’s static gaze from the picture on the wall.

Most of the time I can bury it. The faster I move, the more I keep busy, the easier it is to ignore. Because it’s not just the thought that I might fail at the ribbon hunt—it’s the understanding of how fragile everything really is, when I try to account for it. How easily plans can come undone. I spent my entire childhood with dreams that got smaller as I got older, but I’ve held fast to them. Now with every little setback I can’t help wondering if they’ll get smaller still.

I press the ribbon back into my bag and pull my coat tighter around myself. I’m not sure why I keep coming out here. Maybe I thought if I let myself feel it, the fear would go away. Or at the very least, become something I could better understand. But sometimes the longer I sit the more I feel like I’m in a tug-of-war with two versions of myself—the one who wants to face my fear head-on, and the one who doesn’t want to admit to having any fear in the first place.

Connor calls. For the first time I can remember, I consider not picking up.

“I am so sorry I missed our FaceTime date last night,” he says by way of hello. “I was totally slammed. My dad’s making me take on extra hours at his office.”

I wince, because I know how much Connor hates working part-time at his dad’s real estate company. Mr. Whit runs a tight ship, and when Connor’s on the clock, he’s no exception.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, genuinely meaning it. I don’t bother telling him I was slammed, too. It feels almost rude to tell him too much about what I’m up to here, like I’d be rubbing it in his face—I’m here and you’re not. “How was it?”

“About as fun as a root canal. What are you up to tonight?”

For a moment I feel this stupid little thrill, certain he’s asking because he’s considering coming down here or asking me if I want to come up. But the last buses between Little Fells and Blue Ridge State leave midafternoon, so he can’t mean that.

“Actually,” I say, pressing the phone closer to my face, “the first blue-ribbon event is tonight.”

“Oh, shit. You’re still grabbing them for me too, right?”

“Right,” I say, a fresh panic hot in my throat.

I’ve planned for that since I got here, but only now am I starting to understand how much of a wrench it’s going to throw into my life. We won’t know where or when on the weekends the ribbon-hunt events are until the Friday before. So if I’m really dead set on getting to as many as I can for both of us to have enough, I’ll never be able to make solid plans ahead of time.

“Just—you know it’s not going to work without a white ribbon, though?” I remind him.

I’m expecting him to blow out a breath, but instead I can practically feel the charm of his smile in the words: “I’m not worried. I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”