Between Then & Now || Currently Editing for Wattys 2022

4.

Something tells me that Sarah doesn't even know that she can get to the roof from the window of the third story guest room.

Something tells me that Sarah also tends to forget that she even has a guest room. Or a guest.

The gravel on the shingles scrapes against my shoes as I push myself up a bit further onto the roof. Today, I turned in my last official college paper. In four days, I'll be walking down the aisle to get my degree. I figured it was time to celebrate.

And how better to do that than alone on a roof forty feet above the ground while drinking stolen Bacardi from your cousin's liquor cabinet.

I spin the cap off of the bottle and pour a few generous shots into the kombucha I already had in one of her stemless wine glasses. Something tells me she won't be missing any of it.

The mixture is sweet but a little bitter as I take a sip, looking up at the sky. There aren't really any stars visible, but the view's better than my phone or a TV or a laptop screen. Lord knows I've definitely had enough time staring at those in the last four years. Four long years.

All over. Just like that.

Ah, shit, I forgot to say a cheers to myself.

Sarcastically, I raise my glass in the air. "Congratulations Lala. Congrats on the graduation. I am so, so proud of everything you've done. Thrown three years of dating down the drain. Successfully applied to fifteen jobs and gotten exactly zero of them."

"Ah, yes. So successful."I chuckle to myself, looking down into my glass as I take another drink. "And all on your own, too!" My right eyebrow rises as the mixed drink touches my lips.

With a sigh, I set the glass next to the Bacardi and kombucha on the white window sill behind me, the only flat space available. Even without stars, the sky is rather beautiful, though I doubt it cares what we think. It is just a sky, after all.

My Papa never really bought into my Ma's hippie lifestyle, but if there was anything she got from him, it was a love for nature. He always used to say that there's a reason Mother Nature never asks us about our opinion of her–because why would someone who already knows their worth need to get validation from someone else?

Really, our job isn't to make opinions about the Earth, about which parts are beautiful, which parts are valuable, which parts are worth saving, he would say, because, at the end of the day, we are just another part of nature. And who are we to say we are worth any more than any other part.

Of course, at eight, I really had no fucking idea what he was talking about. But I would nod enthusiastically, little head bobbing, and say, yeah. Because, back then, my grandpa was my best friend and one of the smartest people I knew.

And something told me that a man who could befriend wild deer and hummingbirds enough to be able to tell them apart and name them knew what he was talking about when it came to nature.

I chuckle and grab my glass from the sill, taking a sip. If my grandpa was ever reincarnated as an animal, it would probably be a deer. A deer would be perfect. As a human, he was always wandering around, almost silently with his little home camera, taking videos of literally any memory he could find.

It was probably those videos that kept his heart up high enough until the end. Until he couldn't recognize me. Or Ma. Or grandma. Until he was all alone.

The rest of the drink burns down my throat, and I set the glass back on the sill, looking up at the sky. If he were still here, I'm sure he would be cracking dry jokes about Micheal, trying to make me feel better. Bring up how he forgot our first anniversary. And second. But he didn't forget our third–he made sure to put a reminder in his phone! Or he would be sitting up with me until three in the morning, job hunting, perfecting my resume, giving me a pep talk with each rejection.

The year my dad left my mom and me was a rough one. I was just starting middle school, going through all the awkward stages of puberty and socializing that every kid has to go through. My mom was still working fifty, sixty hours a week at the local diner, trying to pay our bills and save up money so that she wouldn't have to be a waitress past the age of 40. She'd come home, hair falling out of her slicked back ponytail, unaware that I was still awake, peeking through the crack of my barely-open bedroom door. My father was long asleep, but my ears perked up, listening as my mother got my lunch ready for the next day, brown paper bag crinkling. And, one day, out of the blue, I came home from school to find my father's truck gone.

And all of his things.

And him.

My mom never told me why, though I'm sure she knew. We didn't really ever talk about it, either. I think probably because it was just as tough on her as it was on me.

But my grandpa was there. And, from that day forward, he committed himself to teaching me all the things a father should.

Checking the oil when my car got out of the mechanic and they claim to have changed it but didn't really, thinking they could get away with it because I was a teenage girl and how would I know.

Responding to my male classmates' misogynistic "jokes" with confusion to make them feel stupid in their ignorance.

Taking time to cry over a broken heart but not ever letting a boy define my own worth for myself.

Gosh, I can see him shaking his head already.

I shake some hair out of my face, a slight breeze coming over the roof and cooling my alcohol-reddened cheeks. My chin tilts upward as I scan the sky line, connecting the stars together in arbitrary patterns. For a moment, I just breathe.

Then, I turn around and grab the glass off the window sill and the bottle of rum and pour another shot.