Chapter 5

Sara hates moving.

The packing, the coordinating enough help to transport everything. All of it. Now, she's staring at her small apartment, the living area a maze of half filled boxes, and finds herself exhausted all over again.

Beside her, Jen reties her ponytail, dark hair still swaying well past her shoulders when she's done. Setting her hands on her hips, she eyes the boxes warily. "You sure you don't want help unpacking?"

Sara sighs, running a hand through her hair—flinching at the amount of sweat beading on her scalp. It's hot—muggy in ways that make her want to just curl up on the floor and lay there, but she knows she'll probably hate herself later if she turns down the help. Classes don't start for another two months, but she knows Jen has her hands full with wedding planning—particularly since her mother and her have been butting heads on everything from the color of the invites to the dates. Jen handles it in stride, but Sara suspects Mrs. Foster's real problem is with having a black man for the groom.

"Yeah," Sara says, dread dripping from the word. "Ok."

"Well, don't sound so excited about it," Jen teases, bumping her shoulder playfully. "You ready to introduce Mr. Man to his new place?"

Sara looks at the (suspiciously silent) cat carrier at her feet. Ansel had yowled pitifully the entire drive, only quieting the moment they parked. Even with Jen borrowing her dad's truck, it had still taken two trips to get everything. Not for the first time, Sara wishes Miles wasn't away visiting family the one weekend she needed his help moving into her apartment.

Fiddling with the latch, Sara wonders how long it'll take her to earn Ansel's forgiveness. When she finally gets it open, he merely stares at her from the back corner.

"Come on," she coaxes. "It's not much, but it's still a lot better than in there." Ansel stares, unblinking, but doesn't budge. Sara sighs.

"Just leave it open," Jen suggests. "He'll come out when he's ready."

They shove two of the boxes labeled ‘kitchen' closer to the cabinets. Sara can hear her grandmother's old set of dishes rattling between the thin sheets of newspaper and says a small prayer that nothing broke during the move. It may all be a mishmash of donations Oma collected from her friends, but she's thrilled to have something to call her own. The 70s poppy themed stoneware dishes may be outdated, but they hold a soft spot in Sara's heart… they're the same ones she grew up with. The same ones she and Oma shared slices of cake over. She has no plans to replace them (even if she had the money for it).

Feeling her phone vibrate, Sara reaches into her back pocket. The number on her screen is unfamiliar—she almost lets it go to voicemail—but knowing her luck it would be someone from the college. She accepts the call, bringing the phone to her ear as she cuts into another box. "Hello?"

The answering silence is broken by the occasional rasp of static. Sara frowns, suspecting an automated call, but it doesn't stop her from repeating, "Hello?"

Frowning, she glances at the screen only to realize the caller disconnected. Huffing on a sigh, she rolls her eyes and puts it back in her pocket.

"Scam call?" Jen asks.

"I guess. They hung up."

Jen rolls her eyes with the same level of annoyance Sara feels, her hands going back to work unfolding the newspaper wrapped around her Dollar Store drinking glasses. "So… how are you doing?"

Sara freezes, eyes closing. She'd known the question was coming—it had been sitting between them, the elephant in the car, all day. Still, she wishes it could have stayed that way. Under wraps and undiscussed. Talking about it just makes it feel more real; more permanent. Shaking, she tries to busy her hands with unwrapping another mug—the unicorn one she had gotten as a joke last Christmas. "I'll be fine."

Jen leans against the counter, eyes dark. "You know, it's ok if you aren't. Right?"

Sara swallows hard, teeth indenting her lip. "I—honestly? I just really don't want to talk about it."

Jen nods, the action somehow free of disappointment. "Ok." She opens another box, the edge of the scissors sliding effortlessly through the tape. "Do you remember that first year? In second grade?"

Sara breathes a sigh of relief at the change in conversation. "Yeah, I remember."

Honestly, it was hard to forget. Their small town didn't get a lot of newcomers—most of the residents were made up of the same people that were born there—but even Sara remembers how everyone was all abuzz the summer before school started.

It was rare to get a newcomer, but someone foreign? The town just about tore itself inside out with gossip when the Foster's decided to adopt outside the country. They all assumed it would be Russia—tons of babies there, she remembers overhearing, no need to look anywhere else. So when Jen—Zhen before her adoptive parents twisted it into something else, something more American—arrived with her dark hair and tan skin, speaking Cantonese instead of English, she was all anybody talked about for weeks.

Most of it wasn't good.

Sara always thought it was funny—adults were always so careful to censor their language, but never their prejudice. If not for her father's influence, she wouldn't have known any curse words despite being seven, but that summer she learned just about every racist, hate-filled term for Asian from the community's lips.

She doesn't remember what she said, only that it was something terrible and parroted, but she can recall the way Oma's face darkened and the shame she felt vividly. She remembers the feel of her grandmother's hands, palms still dirty from weeding in the garden, pressed against her cheeks and the way she knelt in the grass so they were at eye level. Sara remembers realizing how grave it all was; how the tears started falling as fast as the apologies.

"Listen to me, Sara. This is something you need to understand. People can be ugly and terrible to one another," Oma said, thumb brushing away a tear. "But no one, and I mean no one, deserves your ugliness just for being who they are."

Sara had nodded, blubbering, but hadn't fully understood. Then school started, and she saw Jen for the first time, scared and alone at the corner of the playground. She heard the scathing words—the same ones she learned from the adults—being tossed her way by the other kids. She could see by the look on Jen's face that she didn't need to know English to understand the hate in them.

Sara started sitting with her after that. They made up games that didn't require words; found ways of communicating with just gestures and smiles. That year, Jen learned basic English and Sara learned that the world was so much bigger than the little corner she grew up in.

She stares at the mug in her hand, eyes tracing the animated unicorn's grin with a smile.

"There were a lot of days I couldn't tell you how horrible it all felt," Jen says softly, fingers picking absently at the cardboard. "But you sat with me anyway, and honestly? That made all the difference." Her eyes, dark in ways Sara has always found intensely beautiful, lift. "I just want you to know, I'm here. I'm sitting with you. Ok?"

Sara's throat tightens, her eyes brimming with emotion. "Jen," she laughs, a wet sound, "that's got to be the sweetest, cheesiest thing you've ever said to me."

Jen waves her hands under her eyes, her smile watery. "I know, I'm sorry." She runs the tips of her fingers under her eyes, careful to avoid smudging her winged eyeliner.

Sara hugs her. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," Jen sniffs against her shoulder, returning the hug. "Seriously, don't though."

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone," Sara assures her, giving her another squeeze before letting go. Aside from Oma, Jen has the kindest heart she's ever met—naturally empathetic in ways that Sara (admittedly) has to work for.

She wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand, not bothering to be discreet. "I promise, if I need anything, you'll be the first to know. Ok?"

Jen nods. "Deal." She looks around at all the remaining boxes. "Do you want to finish? We could just binge on some Netflix on your laptop? We could even watch that one you keep bugging me about. That ghost one."

The fact that Jen, who absolutely hates anything remotely scary, is offering to binge a series about a haunted house is more telling than it should be. "Jen, I'm fine. Honestly."

"It's just, with you and—" She almost says his name—Sara can see it, the vowels flirting around her lips—before she catches herself. "And, well, this." She gestures to the apartment. The one they both know she was supposed to be sharing. "I just, I know I would feel really sad spending the first night alone."

Honestly, the aspect of what would come after Jen left hadn't even occurred to her. For the past two weeks, her life has been an impossible blur of planning and packing. She hasn't had the chance to stop and think about what her life would look like after the list of to-do's were done. Hasn't thought of the silence, or the loneliness, that would fill the voids that David left behind.

Sara looks around the apartment, at the barren walls and stacked boxes, and feels her stomach sour. It's not home—not yet. Maybe in a week or two, when her life isn't hidden behind cardboard, she will be able to call the little one-bedroom apartment hers, and it will ring more true than hollow. Maybe then, the emptiness of it will be more comfortable than lonely.

"Actually," she says, fingers rubbing circles over the ceramic mug in her hands. "Let's do it. It's been a while since we were able to have a girls' night, anyway."

They unpackfor another hour and a half before binge watching four episodes. Sara's mattress is on the floor, bare except for the two pillows and two of the crocheted blankets Oma sent with her back when she started her freshman year at college. She doesn't have a bed frame (or a table, or nightstands, or any other furniture other than the old wingback chair Oma donated from her living room) but, for now, they balance her laptop on a stack of old textbooks and it all works out. And even though Jen jumps at every little sound the entire night, Sara's glad she stayed.