Remember Me Not

THIRTY-FOUR - AFTER

The day of Thanksgiving is more of the same, but I get through it, and that feels like the main thing.

Mom cooks for twice the amount of people at the table, even after Vanessa and Stephen's emergency grocery run she still forgets the gravy, and we all eat until we feel physically sick.

Nobody mentions Josh, or the article, which comes as a huge relief. It means I don't have to figure out how to explain anything, how to tell the truth about my own experiences while making sure my words don't negate the validity of someone else's. It means I don't have to talk about how much I miss him, or how that doesn't make sense now I know what a horrible person he was. And it means I don't have to remind everyone that, like some horrific curse, this is the second death our family has been shaken by in five years.

I stay home for the rest of the weekend. Classes don't start again until Monday, and the longer I stay here the less appealing the thought of going back to my empty dorm room becomes. I haven't heard from Elliot, Fazia, or Adam since being here, but I know they're spending the holiday with their families—Elliot with his latest foster family. If I head back, I'll only be alone to wallow in everything I'm feeling, so I might as well stick around.

"Morgan."

The voice catches me on Saturday morning, when I'm sitting at the dining table and halfway through a bowl of Vanessa's weird ultra-healthy cereal. She and Stephen are out on a run; they invited me to join, but I wasn't exaggerating when I said I'd rather take my chances with the early death.

So I'm alone when Mom pokes her head through the kitchen door.

"Hey," I say. "What's up?"

She steps into the room and approaches the dining table. Before she says anything, I can tell there's something on her mind. "Do you have plans for today?"

I shake my head. "No, why?"

"I only ask because I thought you might be seeing Hanna, or something. She must be back for the holiday too, right? But anyway... I wanted to ask you a favor."

The mention of Hanna catches me off guard. I don't know why I haven't thought about it, but of course she would be home for Thanksgiving too. No matter how busy she is at college, with GXRL and her hordes of friends and everything else going on, she would never pass up the opportunity to go home and spend the time with her mom. It means she's only a ten-minute drive away.

"Oh, she had a lot on," I say, by way of an excuse. Mom still doesn't know that we haven't been on speaking terms for months, and I plan to keep it like that for as long as possible. "I'll see her when we get back. But yeah, I can help out. What do you need?"

She pauses. "I was thinking about starting to clean out the basement."

This stops me in my tracks.