Page 65 of Here We Go Again

She did have a full scholarship. I remember that part distinctly because we were together when she got the email. Maybe she wasn’t able to keep it?

She already said nursing school was brutal. If she lost her scholarship and that’s why she had to take out additional loans, then I really put my foot in my mouth.

“Theo, I can hear you thinking,” she says from across the table. She reaches over and squeezes my hands. “I promise I’m fine. You didn’t say anything wrong.”

“I did,” I say, hoping she doesn’t hate me for pushing back. “Your body language changed.” I pause before asking, “Is it because I mentioned the scholarship? Because if you lost it, that’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I’m sorry I stuck my foot in my mouth.”

She tugs her hands back, her shoulders dropping as they fall into her lap. “It’s not that. I mean, I did lose it. But not because of academics.” She takes a deep breath, like she’s resolving herself to a conversation she didn’t actually want to have. “I lost it because I didn’t go. At least not at first. It’s never easy to say this out loud because I know that what I experienced pales in comparison to losing your dad. But I still had a really hard time the summer after we broke up. I’ve since learned through therapy that it’s called disenfranchised grief. I lost you, and I wanted to be sad about that, but you lost something bigger. So I felt guilty for my own sadness and just … bottled it up. I stopped talking to my parents, stopped going to see my grandma.”

She pauses, fidgeting with her napkin, lining it up perfectly with the knife and spoon she never used. “I lost weight,” she continues, “even though I was hardly leaving my room. I basically just shut down. My parents were obviously worried, but they kept talking about school like it would be the thing that fixed everything. I’d snap out of my funk, make some friends, maybe start dating again. But I never made it to Austin. Move-in day came and went, and I was still home. Still stuck.”

An ache formed in my chest the second Becca started this story, and it’s only grown worse, expanding, tightening around my ribs and making it hard to breathe.

It’s my fault.

I hurt her so badly that she couldn’t even go to school.

“Becca, I…”

“Please don’t say anything,” she says. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d feel responsible. But I don’t blame you.” She hesitates. “At least, not anymore.”

“You were right to blame me,” I say. “I don’t even know what to say. I just wish I’d known. I could have⁠—”

“You could have what, Theo?” she says, her tone gentle. “You were dealing with your own grief. You didn’t need to be saddled with mine. It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Whenever I thought about losing Becca, I convinced myself she was better off without me. I imagined her in college, attending classes, hanging out with friends. In my mind, she was always happy. Always thriving.

To find out that wasn’t the case, at least not at first—it’s the worst kind of gut punch.

No wonder she didn’t want to see me.

I didn’t just break up with her; I derailed her entire life.

“I think my grandmother getting sicker had a lot to do with it as well,” she continues. “I just felt like everything was slipping away, you know? I did eventually climb out of the fog. But by then, I’d missed too much school to catch up. So I lost my scholarship, and then Nana had to go into memory care, which was so much more expensive than we expected, and Mom and Dad couldn’t really help pay for school. I probably should have done community college, but I knew I’d need a BSN to qualify for grad school, so I went to Austin like I planned and took out every loan I qualified for to make it happen. That’s why I’m travel nursing. The money is so much better, and right now I need all the help I can get.”

“I’m so sorry you went through that,” I say. “And I’m sorry about your grandmother. I know how much she meant to you.”

Tears well in her eyes. “Yeah. The timing was rough. By the end, it felt like a relief when she died. She couldn’t remember any of us.”

“That had to be hard on your dad,” I say, and she manages a small smile.

“Honestly, he was the toughest of all. Most of us stopped visiting because she’d get agitated if we acted like we knew her or like she should know us. But Dad started telling her he was the gardener taking care of the rose beds at her memory care facility.” She lets out a little chuckle. “Dad couldn’t grow a rose to save his life, but Nana could. She was always willing to talk to him about her roses.”

“I remember her rose bushes,” I say. “They were enormous.”

“Except for the one you drove over when you came to pick me up there one Saturday.” She smiles again, and it goes a long way to ease the ache in my chest. “Do you remember?”

“That was one serious scolding your nana gave me,” I say.

Becca reaches over and takes my hands again, giving them an encouraging squeeze. “I don’t want you to feel bad about this,” she says. “It was a sucky situation all around. But it’s behind us.”

“Not entirely,” I say. “You’re still paying down your loans. Which, come to think of it—” It’s a wild idea, but I can’t stop myself from saying it out loud. “You should let me pay those off for you.”

She huffs out a disbelieving laugh. “Um, yeah. That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not? I have the money, Bec.”

“I’m sure you do. But it’s your money, and I haven’t been working this hard to have someone swoop in and solve my problems for me. Thank you for offering, but I’ve got this.”