Chapter 46

46

Annika

The sun is too bright, but it would take energy to get up out of bed and close the blinds, so I don't.

It would take too much energy to tell my phone to text Bailey to come do it for me too.

Every inch of my body aches.

My calves. My thighs. My abs. My shoulders. My arms.

My teeth.

My fingernails.

My nose hairs.

I need six hours in one of Cooper's massage chairs, except I'm never seeing Cooper again, because I'm never seeing Grady again, and I don't get one without the other.

Not that I've ever in my life wanted Cooper.

And now my eyeballs are burning and I suddenly understand why my nose hairs hurt.

It's the roots.

They're in tender, swollen nasal skin.

"Oh my god, Bailey's late for school!"

I bolt straight up in bed, all of my muscles scream in agony, and I gasp at the overwhelming pain ripping through my ass.

My ass .

It's like I did an Ironman yesterday or something.

"Annika?" Mama says softly outside the door of my small bedroom. "Bailey caught the bus on time. Are you awake, sweetheart?"

She's tiptoeing.

She knows something's wrong, and she's tiptoeing, and will I ever stop crying?

"Yeah," I manage.

I flop back on the twin bed and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to the cracking ceiling.

They don't glow anymore.

They haven't in years, but they're still on the ceiling.

Exactly where I put them just before I started high school, when Mama moved us into the bigger house so we'd have room when Bailey joined us.

The dark wood door creaks open, and Mama shuffles in with my metal water bottle in hand.

My eyelids are sneaking shut again. "I slept through my alarm."

"You needed to catch up on your sleep."

"Duh-Nuts?"

"Amy has everything covered, and Roger made our bank run for us this morning."

"Thank you," I whisper when I want to say I'm sorry . "I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Bailey said you looked like you wrestled a bear when you got home yesterday."

Yesterday.

God .

Yesterday.

It feels like seven million years ago and two seconds ago all at once.

I could tell Mama I overdid it on my bike. Or that I swam too long. Or that I did, in fact, wrestle a bear.

Emotionally, I might as well have.

"I've been seeing Grady," I whisper.

"I know."

" What? "

"Well, I assumed it was Grady. Your clothes smell off, but I don't know whose laundry soap smells like that, and you only smelled different after you snuck out at night and came back home."

"Oh my god," I whisper.

"You're plenty old enough to decide for yourself to have a relationship. I assumed you'd tell me when you were ready."

"I broke up with him."

I haven't checked my phone, but I don't need to.

He won't call.

He won't text.

He deserves better than my breakdowns, and I deserve better than to be his secret.

Mama pats the edge of my bed, and I move my legs— ouch —and nod. "Right there. That's the end. Come closer to my voice."

She takes two steps toward the head of the bed, gets a better grip on the mattress and its orientation, and then sits.

"Why?" she asks quietly.

"I just don't have time for a relationship right now. And that's okay—it really is, Mama. Don't make that face. This isn't about you. I mean, yes, we're all adjusting, but?—"

"Annika. Stop."

I stop talking.

But I can't stop the hollow ache in my chest.

"Bailey will cope, you know," she tells me. "If Grady's biggest sin is where he was born, we can overcome that."

"It's not—well, it's not just that."

"I always liked him."

"Not helping."

"And he loved you all through high school."

"Again with the not helping ."

"But if you two can't find a balance with whatever happened, then maybe you're not actually meant to work out, but to learn something from each other."

"Marginally helping," I whisper, even though that's probably the least helpful thing she's said.

She's my mama.

She's supposed to tell me everything will be okay.

That we're meant to be and our problems will dissipate like the morning dew when the summer sun hits them.

But that would be a lie, and the one thing Mama has never done is lie to me.

Or pretend that life gets easier.

"You rest." She squeezes my leg. "You can't solve big problems when you haven't had enough sleep."

I don't want to rest.

I want to stretch my aching muscles and then go for a ten-mile run, because if I can just be permanently worn and exhausted, then maybe I won't have to deal with the emotions that are clogging my chest and making the rest of my life look like a bleak, dark cloud of loneliness and misery.

"Just another thirty minutes," I tell Mama.

She smiles knowingly and squeezes my leg again. "You'll get through this, baby girl. You always do."

Maybe Old Annika did.

But Current Annika?

She's still a hot mess.