Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“I’ll be there,” he said.
“I hoped you’d say that.”
Malachi laughed softly. “And there’s nothing you want for me to bring you? I don’t think I can show up without a gift. That’s not how it works, is it?”
“Yourself is great, Malachi. You’re perfect.”
“Out of the two of us, I think that’s definitely you. I should have told you that before. There’s something right about us”
For all the wear Gracen had put into the kitchen floor with her nervous pacing, it took nothing for her to come to a complete stop. “You feel it, too?”
*
“There you are,” Delaney said as she leaned in the doorway of Gracen’s bedroom.
Peeking over a pile of packed and taped boxes, Gracen beamed. “Here I am. Did you manage the groceries without me?”
In other words—did she have any problems?
Sometimes, just shopping in their town could bring Delaney face to face with less than kind family members. Even if they didn’t hurl insults at her in the grocery aisles, their blatant shunning and silence was still abusive.
Delaney shrugged. “I plugged my EarPods in and—” She waved her hand. “Just went.”
Gracen grinned. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Good.
Delaney creeped further into the bedroom, and peered around the changing space. Most of the decoration and trinkets that made the space feel like Gracen’s had been packed away. Even her bookshelves were cleaned of books. A task that took a handful of days because she couldn’t just pick up and move her books. If she touched one, she had to look at it, too. Flip through the pages and remember the first time she read it.
Really, a lot of her possessions were like that for her. It all—in one way or another—made up the story of her life.
“Remember when we fought over who was going to get what room when we first checked this place out?” Delaney asked.
Gracen cackled. “We were gonna throw some hands that night.”
“Never,” her friend returned.
“Except the first time, right?”
That go-round, it was Delaney’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, well ...”
“The good news is the bedroom’s all yours for at least three months. More, if you’re planning on extending the lease.”
Delaney sauntered around the bedroom, but otherwise, said nothing in return. It was obvious to Gracen that her friend hadn’t made a firm decision on what her next few months would look like as the two of them made some changes.
“And I mean, there is that apartment over the garage at my new—”
“I think I want to learn how to be alone,” Delaney interrupted quietly, looking back at Gracen from where she’d come to a stop at the foot of the bed. “And maybe learn how to like it, as well.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Delaney nodded. “I keep telling myself that, too.”
“Keep doing it.”
Eventually, she’d start to believe it.
Gracen pointed at two boxes near the open door. Neither were taped. “Those are for Bexley. Clothes—stuff in my closet I haven’t touched in more than six months to a year. And some bedding and towels we had in storage.”
“The extra?” Delaney asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t want to take those to the new house?”
Gracen smiled.
New house.
Because she called the farmhouse as much, Delaney had started referring to it that way, as well, despite the home being forty years old. New-to-her in a way, she still found a deep sense of comfort walking through its rooms and halls where memories whispered to her, too.
“Bexley’s gonna need stuff for her apartment more than I do,” Gracen returned, shrugging.
Stuffing her hand in the pocket of her high-waisted skinny jeans, Delaney eyed the boxes of things. “All right. At least I know what to buy for you.”
“Nothing, that’s what. I don’t need anything.”
“People bring gifts to housewarming parties. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Gracen only rolled her eyes.
Delaney moved to shove the boxes out into the hall. “I was going to make a trip to Freddy this weekend to take some things down for Bexley’s place.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You wanna take a road trip?”
“Are you driving?” Gracen replied.
Back in the doorway, Delaney said, “I can.”
That was that.
The eighteen-year-old’s small, two-bedroom apartment in Fredericton was paid up for the year. Gracen was going to regret pulling the cash from her investment account come tax time, but it felt like she had been able to do something tangible and meaningful for Delaney’s cousin that would help her with the struggle she faced ahead as she stepped out on her own and broke away from her family’s controlling reach.
Leaving home wasn’t easy for anyone when coming of age. Leaving home when you knew it would also mean your family would shun you, you’d have no support, and you were barely an adult stumbling into the real world? No way.
Everything was mostly sorted for Bexley—from beginning her education in nursing to having a place she could call hers that couldn’t be taken away. The girl could focus on getting settled into her first year at college and learning a new city. She didn’t have to worry about paying rent at the same time. It was one less thing.