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“Hey, you’re the one who tainted her first impression,” Talia laughed.
“I just wanted her to be safe!” Grammy defended.
“You know the school supplied those for free, right?” Verla told her.
“What if the health services center ran out?” Grammy asked.
“Believe me, Grammy, I did not run out,” I said, before picking up another piece of paper. “I remember finding a box of condoms in Nadine’s room—you guys! Is this all you think about?”
“Apparently,” Talia snickered. “That one has to be Chloe. She broke into our room Freshman year.”
Chloe cringed. “Sorry about that. But it makes for a good story, right?”
“Yeah, because you’re my excuse when I say I didn’t run out, because my condom box was sabotaged!” I joked. “You’re forgiven, Chloe.”
I kept pulling memories from the basket. A lot of them were funny, but most of them were really sweet. My heart felt full the more I read.
“I remember Nadine decorated an ice cream cake for my birthday. She accidentally left it next to the stove, and it melted.” I read the last paper aloud, smiling lightly.
“That’s got to be Talia’s,” Onyx guessed.
“It wasn’t me,” Talia said. “I’m guessing Helena.”
Grammy smiled proudly. “Yep. It was my sixtieth birthday, and she was only ten years old. I don’t blame her for leaving the cake out. She gets points for effort.”
I stood. “I think I might be able to make it up to you, Grammy. Hold on.”
I’d had this planned for a while. I knew it was my special day, but Grammy was turning seventy tomorrow. She insisted she didn’t want a party when we’d celebrated Grant’s birthday last weekend, but I wanted to do something special for her regardless.
I opened the freezer and pulled out an ice cream cake, then grabbed two candles I’d stashed in the back of a cupboard. I found a box of matches and lit them, then returned to the living room.
“Happy birthday!” I exclaimed.
The room burst into song, and Grammy threw her hands over her mouth. “Oh, Nadine! You didn’t have to.”
“No, I didn’t, but I wanted to,” I said. Lucas and I made a run to Hok’evale a few days ago to refill my prescriptions, and we’d picked up the cake while we were gone.
I set the cake on the coffee table in front of Grammy. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “That’s so sweet of you. Thank you.”
Grammy blew out her candles, and we all cheered.
I had the best time laughing and chatting with my friends. We spent the rest of the day playing games, doing puzzles, and snacking on leftovers from breakfast. It was the most fun I’d had in a long time.
I joined Grammy in the kitchen that night to help her wash dishes. The other women were still chatting in the living room, and the guys hadn’t come in from outside yet. I listened to my friends’ laughter as I scrubbed cocktail glasses in the sink.
“Is everything all right, Nadine?” Grammy asked. “You’re awfully quiet.”
I wasn’t quite aware of the thoughts going through my head until Grammy brought attention to them. I noticed the rocks settling in my gut. I wasn’t ready for this day to end.
I set a glass on the drying rack and sighed. “I had the best day with you, but I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. It seems that any time something good happens, something bad has to come along to even out the scales.”
“I don’t believe in that nonsense,” Grammy said as she dried the dishes.
“I don’t want to believe it, but it feels true,” I admitted. “Lucas and I won our trial, but Everly died. This kind of stuff happens to us all the time.”
“That doesn’t mean the events are tied together by cosmic forces,” Grammy stated. “Perhaps good and bad things just happen, and one doesn’t depend on the other. It’s okay for good things to exist independently.”
Verla’s laughter rang from the other room, and I looked over to see her clutching her stomach.
