Page 30 of You've Got Hate Mail
Mabel sticks her tongue out in return.
“Mabel’s is bigger. She wins,” Ginny announces.
“Grown-ups are so annoying,” Lavender grumbles.
Ginny links her arm in mine. “Let’s go check out your new digs. And then I’ll help you get your luggage moved and your pick of any clothes or anything else you need from what we have downstairs.”
The past week has been a series of unplanned crap that has spiraled so far out of my control that I don’t even know what control is.
Not that I was ever the kind of control freak certain members of my family are, which has presented its own kind of challenges over the years. Or possibly since I was born.
But this?
Moving into Heath’s basement one day into my attempt to heal and process in a safe space?
I am so far away from control that I don’t know what it is anymore.
But this is the option I have.
So this is the option it’ll have to be.
6
DRAMA AND OTHER FIVE-LETTER WORDS
Heath
I sleep like shit,partially because I keep rolling onto my right side and waking myself up when I squish the bruise around my eye, partially because I’m still stressed about Lav’s arrangements for the summer, and partially because I’m keenly aware that Cricket is in my basement.
Even though I could theoretically sleep in since it’s Saturday, I’m up before the sun.
I make myself coffee, rescue Fluffy from inside a bag of Lava Cheese Puffs that I definitely didn’t buy, then carry the cat out onto the porch with me to watch the sunrise while I ice my eye.
This week was a lot.
But I fall into a rhythm of the breathing techniques I’ve used since childhood, and before long, my shoulders relax, my coffee tastes better, and the first rays of sunlight brightening the sky and illuminating the morning fog brighten my soul a little too.
Lav and I are so fortunate to live here.
Things aren’t easy, but in the mornings, in these quiet moments to myself, I know things will be okay.
That’s what I’m thinking as a blob appears, headed this way through the fog.
I squint at it.
It’s a person.
Did Cricket go somewhere?
Is she lost?
Or—
“Hello?” she says directly below me. The guest apartment’s door and concrete patio are beneath my deck.
“Morning,” Ginny’s voice replies, drifting through the fog. Ah. Soshe’sthe blob. “I woke up and saw your text about breakfast and thought I’d come say hi and see how you slept and if you want someone to walk with you back to the house.”
I start to move, but my cat decides this is the perfect moment to display her love by leaping her hefty self onto my lap and collapsing into a massive, furry pile of purrs.
