When We Collided(79)

Silas’s plate clatters in the sink, and he sees me as he turns back. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.”

I grunt. He swats me with his apron as he passes by.

“Silas,” my mom calls over her shoulder. “Before you go off to work, leave the dorm packing list out, okay? The one from the website? I’ll see where we are with it.”

“Okay,” he calls, hurrying up the stairs.

“Jonah,” Bekah says. “What toppings do you want?”

“Um. Strawberries and chocolate syrup.” I sit down on a stool. Leah grabs the whipped-cream canister and sprays it into her mouth. My dad used to do that with us. We’d all shriek with joy. It was too good to be true, eating straight whipped cream.

“Hey,” my mom says to Leah. “No spoiling your breakfast with pure sugar, missy.”

“Swrry,” Leah says, with her cheeks puffed out. She’s clearly not sorry.

My mom shakes her head but in an oh-you-kids kind of way. “Morning, pal. You want some coffee?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She pulls another mug from the cabinet. Naomi slides a waffle to Bekah, who tops it with whipped cream and strawberries and passes it to Leah. They’re an efficient assembly line, like the kitchen staff at the restaurant. My dad would be proud.

“Isaac,” my mom says. “Put the fruit down and eat your food.”

One of the midair oranges hits the counter with a thud.

When the coffee is ready, my mom fills up the mugs and hands one to me. She sits down at the kitchen table with a plate of waffles. Bekah and Isaac sit on either side of her. I stay seated at the island between Naomi and Leah.

I have to find a way to tell Leah that Vivi’s leaving today and probably won’t stop in to say good-bye. I wait until she takes a bite, so she’ll have a second to process it. I use a calm, quiet voice.

“I’m going to see Vivi today, before she has to move. Do you want to draw her a picture or something?” I texted Vivi yesterday, to see if she needed help packing. She said no. I was so disappointed that I almost went over anyway. But then she told me to meet her at the park today. Of course—it’d be a dramatic farewell, with a meeting time and anticipation. I’m half dreading it. I’m half desperate for it.

Leah shakes her head. “I already gave her one. She came over yesterday morning, and we played.”

“Vivi came over while I was at the restaurant?”

“Yep! We played ponies and stuff.”

I glance at Naomi for more information. “Were you here when she came over?”

Naomi nods, not looking up from her waffle. “We all were.”

In a quieter voice, I ask her, “Why did she come over? To say good-bye?”

She chews a bite and swallows. “She came to pick up something of Sylvia’s, she said. I think she actually said ‘seeya’ as she was leaving. She was just . . . I don’t know. Being Vivi.”

I turn it over in my mind. I’d understand if she wanted to slip out with the shadows, after all she’s been through. Instead, she came over here, when she specifically knew I wouldn’t be home. To spend one more happy day with my brothers and sisters. My throat aches. I don’t think it’s the too-big bite of waffle I just tried to swallow.

Leah swings her feet below the island ledge. “I wish Vivi didn’t have to leave. It makes me sad when I think about it.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

Naomi shakes her head. There’s something ironic in her smile. “You know what? Me too.”



I shower and shave and try to make my hair look presentable. There’s a sailor’s knot in my throat. I’m supposed to walk to the park, toward Vivi, and that part’s fine. It’s the walking away from her that I can’t imagine.

On my way, I think about how Isaac is obsessed with archaeology. I get it. The dinosaur bones and ancient artifacts and excavated graves—it’s cool. It comes to mind because Vivi climbed into my life with her fossil brush, and she swept away the dust. She rediscovered me under all that rubble, and that means I’ll always be a little bit hers. How am I supposed to say good-bye to someone like that?

I’m still yards away from the park when I realize she’s not here. You can feel a girl like Vivi. She shifts the ground under your feet. And I don’t sense them, the tremors beneath me.

There’s a note pinned to the oldest tree in the park—a tree scratched with her name. So this is how it will be. She gets to say good-bye. I don’t. I should have known.

Dear Jonah,

I lied. “Good-bye” is my least favorite word in my entire vocabulary, much worse than even “squish” or “protuberance,” and I just can’t say it to your handsome face. Give your family kisses from me, will you? I think I fell for all seven of you a little more every day. But mostly you, Jonah. Mostly, madly, beautifully you. Don’t tell okay? He’d be crushed.

Maybe in my next life, I’ll be a wave in the ocean, and you’ll be a mountain, and we’ll spend years and years brushing up against each other. You’ll shift so painfully slowly, and some days I’ll crash right into you and other days I’ll approach gently, licking your sides. That sounds like us, doesn’t it?

Or maybe we’ll meet in this same life. Maybe I’ll be working as a costume designer for a movie that’s filming in a city where you’re the chef of your own restaurant, and our eyes will lock in the middle of a busy street, and I’ll whisper, “It’s you.” Maybe I’ll sneak into your little bungalow house while your fiancée is out of town on business, and we’ll make love like we have in past lives and in this life. That doesn’t sound like something you’d do, but a girl can dream.