Page 36 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Do I lie down in the bed Lucas vacated and fall asleep clutching the still-smells-like-Lucas blanket to me?

Yes, yes I do.

Do I also wrap myself in his old Pasadena City College sweatshirt that’s been washed to within an inch of its life?

Also yes.

Somehow, I can’t find it in myself to feel ashamed. Most days, I try not to think about Lucas, but between his sudden arrival at UCLA, his seeming interest in my project, and the upcoming wedding, I feel as though I’ve earned the right to wallow.

And as long as I’m wallowing, I might as well go all in, right?

I grip the pillow and try not to think about his note or how much he might have overheard.

I wake to a slew of text message notifications. First, there are my Grad or Die girls, who just want every detail I don’t have to share.

DAISY: We’re kind of dying for an update here, L. Did you go to Lucas’s talk?

GWENDY: Ha! The talk was sooooo yesterday.

DAISY: Yes, literally, it was yesterday.

GWENDY: Yesterday as in old news. b/c Lucas spent the night. That’s the lede I’ve buried.

DAISY: What?!?

GWENDY: That’s what you get for moving to Cambridge.

GWENDY: News on a three-hour delay.

DAISY: L? Lorelai? Are you around?

DAISY: Maybe he’s got her locked up in a secret sex dungeon?

GWENDY: Cambridge has changed you, Daisy.

GWENDY: All I’ll say is L’s door was closed when I left. Couldn’t see more without snooping.

DAISY: Since when do you not snoop?

GWENDY: I’ve matured so much since you left.

I give the last comment a HaHa! reaction without otherwise answering. This, of course, sparks a flood of new messages, but I tell them I can’t talk yet, and thankfully, neither pushes.

There are also texts from my sisters that I slept through. I never mute them, even though Harper and Wren (who, given that they’re eleven and ten, shouldn’t be trusted with smartphones yet) mostly send memes I don’t always understand on the phones my mother bought them.

Aurora, at sixteen, is another kettle of fish.

AURORA: This is your weekend. I have a competition and Mother wants her private time.

AURORA: Also, you said you wanted to see my college list. I finalized and shared it.

AURORA: You know my school provides counselors, right?

AURORA: Separately, we need to talk.

I’m not sure when my relationship with Aurora went off the rails. There was a time, especially before I left for college, when it was me and Aurora against the world. She was the only one old enough to remember our life before our father left for good. And especially during my undergraduate years, I relied on Aurora and my neighbor to keep me informed.

It always felt like too much responsibility to put on Aurora, but there just wasn’t an alternative. When she was younger, she seemed to almost relish her role. She’d tell me when our mother wasn’t doing well, helped me keep track of parent/teacher meetings my mother would have let slip through, learned to cook at really too young of an age, but again . . . what choice did we have?