Georgie, All Along (88)

“There’s only one person I know who can solve problems the way you can, Georgie, and that’s because you’ve never lived your life ten years into the future. Ten days or ten hours. You’ve always lived for making things better in the moment. That’s why you came up with the fic. Not to plan our future in high school. But to make things better for both of us, in the moment.”

I don’t want to say it’s like lightning, hearing her say it. I don’t want to say it’s anything bright or loud or shocking. I want to say that it’s like the river creeping higher in the rainy season, slow and quiet right up until it’s not anymore, right up until it’s flowing over everything that’s been built to control it. I want to say that the wall inside me is coming down—softening, then crumbling, then collapsing entirely.

That the blank space is finally filling in.

All this time, I thought what I was waiting for was something about my future to fill up that void I’ve been carrying around from the past: that I’d figure out my future job, that I’d figure out my forever home, that I’d decide whether I wanted to get married or have kids or be a world traveler or whatever. But what Bel has said—that I’ve always lived for making things better in the moment—I think it means that what I’ve really been waiting for is something from my present.

That I’ve been waiting to realize I’m okay, and that I’ve probably always been okay.

That I’m not like Bel or Nadia or Mrs. Michaels or anyone else. That I was good at my jobs not because I didn’t know anything about what I wanted but . . . but because I did. I wanted to make things better for someone in the moment, and it didn’t matter what those things were. That’s why I excelled at what I did for Nadia, and all my bosses before her. And if I got lost along the way, too caught up in their lives sometimes, that’s okay, because now I figured out the things I want for myself in the moment, too: I want friends and colleagues and fun, I want to love Levi and have him love me back, I want movies and making out and swimming in the river, books and knickknacks on shelves, throw pillows a decorator didn’t pick out. I want to do projects with my mom and to laugh at my dad and to go out dancing on nights when I’ve had enough.

I want to be myself. The in-the-moment myself.

I’ve matched my breathing to Bel’s; I’m pressing my hand against the fullness that’s inside me, too—inside my chest, where my heart beats heavy and steady.

Levi, I think, wanting to call him right now, wanting to tell him every single thing, because I know he’ll understand. I think of him that night out by the rock, telling me there’s other things in life than clubs and colleges and grades. He’s always seemed to understand.

But Bel winces again, this time more dramatically, and I give her my hand again. I hear it before she does—Harry’s footsteps coming down the hall, a flat run—and I watch her laboring face, waiting for the moment she realizes he’s finally here.

“Annabel,” Harry says from behind me, all out of breath, and Bel’s eyes open and she raises her head from where she’d pressed it back into the pillow, and then she’s crying again—the soft and steady and streamy kind. I back away, Harry’s hand replacing my own.

“Annabel,” he repeats, bending over her, his face a mask of terror and regret and exhaustion. “I’m so sorry. I’m—I never should have left.”

“I made you leave,” she says, stroking a hand through his hair, but he’s shaking his head.

“I shouldn’t have gone. I would’ve been here sooner, but the traffic. Also, I pulled over twice to throw up. I’m sorry.”

Bel meets my eyes over Harry’s head and rolls her eyes, but her smile is indulgent and relieved. Henry Yoon, prince among men, who throws up when he’s scared. A mess like the rest of us, doing his best in the moment.

I gesture over my shoulder, a question in my eyes. I’ll step out? I’m saying, and she nods.

“Thank you,” she mouths, and I smile, full up. Fully confident in her.

And maybe, for the first time in my life—in myself.





Chapter 20


Levi


I get Georgie’s first text not long after 9 a.m., when Micah and I are leaning against the bed of his truck, alternating between sipping the coffees Laz brought us and arguing over whether the property we’re working on has enough wind shelter for a floating dock. Micah says yes, that if we do articulating joints we’ll be fine. I say no, that the shelter problem’s only going to get worse unless a lot more natural cover gets planted for miles down the shore. Laz stays neutral, chewing on his egg sandwich and chuckling when Micah calls me a tree hugger.

When my phone pings, I try to tamp down the smile that pulls at my cheek, since I’m trying to make my position on the wind shelter issue real clear. But when I read it, I know I’m not succeeding.

at hospital with Bel. BABY COMING! definitely need to get my car cleaned <3

The last part is the kind of non sequitur Georgie often offers up in her texts, and that makes me smile as much as the good news about Bel. I think back to last night, before things went to hell, Georgie’s best friend out on that dance floor, and I sure do know it isn’t my place to say, but I thought she looked ready to pop. I hope she has an easy time of it; I hope I get another text from Georgie soon with a picture of a wrinkled, grumpy-faced baby in one of those hats they always get put in at hospitals.