State of Grace | ONGOING

Chapter 18

I probably should have been devastated. I probably should have spent a couple of weeks in my bed going through boxes of tissues and pints of ice cream. And the night I'd (sort of) ended things with Bo I'd spent hours like that, sitting with my roommates, sobbing and eating ice cream and laughing too hard at my friends' attempts to cheer me up.

I'd already tried to go back on this break once and Sunny had tackled me for my phone. Despite the fact that I hadn't really warned my friends, they thought that my logic made sense. Not that I'd shared the Theo part of it yet, but I'd told them about wanting a break to sort out my future independently and they thought it was a smart idea.

So when I'd tried to text Bo, they talked me out of it. And held my phone hostage.

Today was better. It was only Monday but it was the day my roommates and I were going to the pumpkin patch. We'd all piled in Sunny's car for the drive out of Salem and into the flat patch of farmland just outside of it.

As it was a Monday, the parking lot wasn't too packed as we found a spot and all piled out in our cutest fall outfits. Part of the tradition we'd set up was to take an obscene amount of photos in the pumpkin patch so we could change into sweats at home while we carved the pumpkins. While I was happy to sit this one out this year and start off the afternoon in sweatpants, my roommates had objected vehemently.

"First things first: photos," Anna announced, marching us into the field. It had been raining over the weekend so we were all in boots as we trekked through the mud and the vines of the pumpkins to find a spot to take photos that would have the minimal number of small children in the background.

"I can't believe this is going to be our last year of doing this," Simi said quietly as Anna started with capturing photos of Billie, who usually ran out of steam first.

"Yeah, there's a lot of change coming at us really fast," I agreed sadly, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a side hug.

"Change is good, though," Sunny chimed in. Ever the optimist. I might have hated change, but Sunny thrived with it. She liked to be kept on her toes and not know what her next move was whereas I was a nervous wreck unless I sat down and planned out my life six months ahead.

That's why Theo threw me off so much.

I wasn't a girl that took a chance or made a leap. I was a 'two steady feet on the ground' kind of girl.

"I hope so," I told Sunny. "Because if you're off getting a PhD on the other side of the country and I don't see you for five years, it had better be worth it."

"I'm applying to places on the West Coast too, you know," Sunny said with a fond smile playing at her lips. I knew she'd miss me too, even if she would never be able to admit it without ruining her carefree persona.

"Yeah, Stanford," I shot back. "I know you're the smartest person alive and all, but Stanford?" As much as we all believed in Sunny and her intellectual superiority, she was applying to some of the most competitive schools in the country.

"The professor I reached out to there was really impressed and saw my presentation at that conference over the summer," Sunny pointed out smugly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I've got a fighting chance."

"Of course you do," I agreed immediately, because I never wanted to knock down the level of confidence my best friend had in herself. "I could drive down to Palo Alto from Portland for a weekend for a lot cheaper than having to fly to New York."

"But Columbia, and living in a shitty apartment in Manhattan," Sunny whined. "All of the hot lesbians live in New York."

"CJ's going to be in San Francisco, stay on the West Coast," Simi argued. We all knew that CJ had a standing offer to join a tech company in Silicon Valley upon his graduation, so the two of them were heading to California in the spring.