Ten Things

Ch.31-The Dissolution of the Universe

Cole

School was out for four days. I stayed one more night at Grace’s and went home. I was running on happiness, excited energy. It outlasted any nagging feelings that burned a hole into my mind, when I called her and she didn’t pick up.

When I called her ten times, and I was met with the automatic machine voice, because she hadn’t taken the time to personalize her voicemail.

But I couldn’t let it invade my thoughts, because for once I felt wholesome. I felt real. I felt like there was some purpose for getting up and dragging my ass to school.

And I looked forward to seeing her. Stopped by her locker. Stood there the entire morning.

And Grace didn’t show.

I couldn’t focus in class. My phone stayed in my hand, eyes routinely flitting to the screen looking for her name to pop up across the ID line. It never did. It was just the large digital numbers of the clock blinking up at me.

Football practice seemed pointless without Grace’s soft voice mingling in with that of Coach Wilson’s. Dull. Routine. Unimportant. It passed with occasional phrases from Malachi that served to tick me off, but with the growing worry eating away at me I had to focus my energy elsewhere.

After practice I drove straight to Grace’s. I couldn’t help but think how right her sunny daffodil house was for her, how it seemed to be a structural embodiment of her personality. I knocked three times on the door, hoping desperately to receive an answer. The door opened and her mother met me, looking sagging and weary and my heart began to pound.

“Cole,” she greeted, voice raspy. I would say from crying but if I did that I would start to panic and Cole Winters didn’t panic.

“Grace wasn’t in school today,” I told them, like they wouldn’t know the whereabouts of their daughter.

“I know.”

“Why?”

She had this pathetic-looking shawl wrapped around her shoulders. It made her look meager, weak; like she’d given up. “She isn’t feeling well.”

“May I see her?”

“I think she’s asleep.”

I swallowed hard, pushing passed the emotion clogging my throat. “May I see her, Mrs. Loving?”

She nodded, sensing my determination and unwillingness to leave. She stepped aside and I entered, politely kicking off my shoes and hanging up my jacket. As I slowly maneuvered my way through the lower level, I saw little memories of us. And as I thought about that, it made me think about other things. Like, how Grace was probably the greatest person I knew, and from an early age she had had to wage the impossible war with herself—with cancer—and that even though you think you may win some battles you really lose. And after I thought that, it kind of bummed me out, so I pushed it aside and walked into her room.

Her mom was right. She was sleeping, her breaths punctuating the otherwise still silence. It didn’t seem right, seeing her all fragile in that bed. You always expect people who had been through something big and life-changing to come out larger than life on the other side. But not Grace. She was a thin and fiery girl containing a warrior’s spirit and it made me angry that something as stupid as cancer was trying to put it out.

I knelt by her bed, just staring at her. She was buried in blankets, but still shivering, somehow staying asleep through the whole thing. And maybe it was because she was used to abrupt bouts of coldness, ice that settled into her veins and prohibited her from getting warm. I pushed her hair away from her face, grazing my thumb over the freckles along her cheeks.