Chapter Text
“Grace!”
The moment Ryland Grace opens the front door, she practically throws herself into his arms.
Used to this by now, Grace tries to pry her off while stepping inside.
“Wait, wait. Let me take my coat off first.” He gently pushes her back just enough to slip free from her grip, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it over a chair. “Have you eaten yet?” he asks.
“No.” she answers almost proudly.
Before he can ask why not, she continues. “I waited so we could eat together when you got home.”
“I told you not to do that.” His expression says hopeless case.
“But eating alone is lonely. And you shouldn’t be lonely.”
“I’m not lonely...” Grace mutters as he pulls leftover chow mein from the second shelf of the fridge. She sticks close to him, talking nonstop.
“I got home kinda late today, so I didn’t cook. Ed and I went to look around that used bookstore I told you about, and time went by super fast. But I’ll cook tomorrow. I’m gonna make baked salmon. You like salmon, right?”
“I do.”
Grace puts the cold noodles into the microwave and presses the buttons.
“Make something you like instead of worrying about what I like. I’ll eat anything.”
“I eat anything too. Except celery. I can’t understand why people eat that.”
She pulls out two cups of Nissan chicken-flavored Cup Noodles from a box beneath the table. Grace bought the whole box last week at Sam’s Club because she liked them.
She pours hot water into the half-open cups, then drops them onto the table with a loud thunk.
Compared to the size of the apartment Grace has lived in for years — and that she practically lives in now too — the dining table is absurdly large.
The long table is usually covered with ungraded student assignments, science magazines, and academic journals.
Ever since she started spending time here, though, it’s been less messy.She’s good at organizing things.
“Chow mein and instant noodles,” she says, sitting down. “What a glamorous dinner.”
“So how was school today, Grace?” she asks through a mouthful of noodles.
“The way you say that makes it sound like I’m the student.”
She giggles.
“Nothing special happened... though there was a fight right outside my classroom after second period.”
“Between who?”
“George and Jake. George thought it’d be funny to steal Jake’s shoe and throw it down the hallway, but another kid accidentally stepped on it and got it dirty. Jake got furious and punched him. You can imagine the rest.”
“I wanna watch a fight someday,” she says dramatically, slumping her shoulders.
“You get to watch. I’m the one who has to break it up.” Grace awkwardly lifts noodles with his chopsticks. “I almost got punched myself.”
“That would’ve been terrible. If you got a huge bruise on your face, you’d look way too pathetic. Like some guy who got beaten up by thugs in an alley and couldn’t even fight back.”
“I’m not someone who gets beaten up in alleys.” Grace looks mildly offended. “And why wouldn’t I fight back?”
“Mm... because you can’t physically fight, I guess?” She says it so matter-of-factly. Grace wants to protest, but unfortunately she isn’t perfectly wrong.
As he makes the particular expression of someone who hates admitting a fact while fully knowing it’s true, she leans forward with her elbows on the table, resting her cheeks in her hands.
Her eyes sparkle. Whenever she looks at him like this, it usually means something ridiculous is about to come out of her mouth. Before Grace can brace himself, she beats him to it.
“Doesn’t this feel like we’re dating?”
He chokes violently on the noodles he was eating, coughing several times.
“What?”
“I mean, come on. You come home from work, we eat dinner together while talking about our day...” She’s still staring at him with bright eyes. “This is literally what couples do.”
“Don’t say things like that.” Grace’s face hardens immediately. “We already talked about this before. I thought you understood.”
“I was joking. Why are you taking it so seriously?” She shrinks back a little, though irritation flashes through her eyes too. “Fine. Okay.” She holds her hands up and shows him her palms.
“You liking me, is just a phase.” Grace rubs a hand over his face. “And what kind of teacher dates a former student?”
“You could be the first one.” She pouts as she says it.
“You seriously—”
“What, do you hate me that much?”
“You should date people your own age. A boyfriend fifteen years older than you is ridiculous.”
“That’s your opinion. And I’m an adult! There’s nothing illegal about it. I—”
“Let’s stop talking about this.” Grace cuts her off firmly.
“You’re seriously annoying sometimes. Idiot. I don’t even like people like you anymore.” She suddenly stands up so fast the chair legs screech violently against the floor.
“I’m sleeping at my own place tonight,” she declares before stomping toward the front door.
Grace raises his voice enough for her to hear. “Let’s not sulk...”
“Whatever!”
She lets out an irritated huff, grabs the skateboard leaning against the wall beside the door, and storms out of the apartment in seconds.
Grace sighs quietly as the front door slams shut.
Edmundo stands at the edge of the bowl in the middle of the skatepark inside the public park. He waves at her so aggressively she worries he might actually fall backward into the bowl.
“Over here!” he shouts through cupped hands.
She waves back while walking toward him. This skatepark is basically their hideout. Granted, it’s a pretty terrible hideout considering how many other people are always around.
They came here the day they first met too. She met Edmundo Hernandez during Montclair State University’s freshman welcome event, and even then he’d been carrying a skateboard.
She still has no idea why someone would bring a skateboard to a freshman orientation event, but she’d immediately been interested in him because skateboarding happened to be her hobby too, ever since she was seventeen.
Besides, the board Edmundo carried was from a pretty expensive brand — the kind anyone into skating would recognize instantly.
Maybe he noticed her staring, because he approached her first.
“Cool, right?”
When she nodded, he walked closer and showed it off more proudly.
“I bought it after working as a cashier at Walmart for three months. That job sucked, but honestly? Worth it.”
The underside of Edmundo’s board was covered in old-school graphics she absolutely loved. When he asked whether she skated too, she nodded again. That was how their friendship started.
They spent nearly all of freshman year together, and nothing had changed even now near the end of sophomore spring semester.
“Why do you look so grumpy?” Edmundo asks once she’s close enough for him to see her expression.
“I dunno.” She sticks her lower lip out dramatically.
“Come on, tell me. Who else are you gonna tell besides me?” He spreads both arms wide like he’s the most trustworthy person alive.
A girl walking past nearly gets smacked in the face by his arm and glares at him, but Edmundo either doesn’t notice or pretends not to.
“I joked that him and I looked like we were dating, and he got mad,” she complains.
“Mr. Grace?” Edmundo says immediately, like he already knew who she meant.
“Who else would it be?”
She crosses her arms.
“But you weren’t joking.” He grins teasingly. “You meant it.”
She rolls her eyes. “Ed, you know way too much.”
She drops her skateboard onto the ground. The underside has Darth Vader and Stormtroopers printed on it. Her father bought it for her after she asked for one because he thought she liked Star Wars.
She has never watched a single Star Wars movie in her life.
They skate for a long time.
Edmundo becomes obsessed with practicing a new trick while she repeatedly grinds a rail before hopping off the edge of a ramp.
At one point she falls, scraping the skin off her palm slightly. She licks at the stinging skin.
“You okay?” Ed suddenly appears beside her.
“It’s nothing. Worry about yourself.”
She looks pointedly at his knee. Blood is already running down one leg. Edmundo practiced new tricks aggressively, so there was almost never a day when his arms or legs weren’t covered in injuries.
“A true skater carries wounds of glory,” he says solemnly.
Then he smirks. “Ask Mr. Grace to put some band-aids on your hand.”
She immediately shoves him hard. “I’m not going back there anymore.”
“Not going where?”
“Grace’s apartment!”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“Worry about yourself. Have you even talked to Cohen Gardner yet?”
Cohen Gardner. An junior Edmundo has been crushing on for over a month now. A guy with effortlessly wavy hair.
Edmundo answers proudly. “No.”
“Exactly! So shut up.”
“I’m waiting for the perfect moment. Rushing things never helps.”
He looks completely unaffected by her attack.
Annoying, she thinks.
They skate for a long time.
Edmundo becomes obsessed with practicing a new trick while she repeatedly grinds a rail before hopping off the edge of a ramp.
At one point she falls, scraping the skin off her palm slightly.
She licks at the stinging skin.
“You okay?” Ed suddenly appears beside her.
“This is nothing. Worry about yourself.”
She looks pointedly at his knee.
Blood is already running down one leg.
Edmundo learned tricks aggressively, so there was almost never a day when his arms or legs weren’t covered in injuries.
“A true skater carries wounds of glory,” he says solemnly.
Then he smirks. “Ask Grace to put some band aids on your hand.”
She immediately shoves him hard.
“I’m not going back there anymore.”
“Not going where?”
“Grace’s apartment!”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
Edmundo grins obnoxiously.
“Worry about yourself. Have you even talked to Cohen Gardner yet?”
Cohen Gardner.
An upperclassman Edmundo has been crushing on for over a month now. A guy with effortlessly wavy hair.
Edmundo answers proudly.
“No!”
“Exactly! So shut up.”
“I’m waiting for the perfect moment. Rushing things never helps.”
He looks completely unaffected by her attack.
Annoying, she thinks.
Eventually Edmundo says he has to get back to the dorms to finish an assignment due at midnight, so they leave the park together.
She has the same assignment, and hasn’t even started it. Whatever. She’ll turn it in late.
The streets are mostly empty, so the two of them hop onto their boards and glide along sidewalks worn smooth by countless footsteps. Wind catches the sleeves of her t-shirt as she rides ahead.
A yellow cat darts past the front of a shoe store across the street. It’s slightly chubby, with white fur around its stomach and ringed markings along its tail. She gets distracted watching it and nearly loses balance.
Behind her, Edmundo bursts out laughing. “That’s what happens when you stop paying attention!”
She jumps off the board just before falling completely and glares back at him.
Meanwhile, her riderless skateboard keeps rolling farther down the street by itself. While she’s busy trying to murder Edmundo with her glare, the board drifts farther and farther away.
“Get your board! It’s gonna roll into the street!”
Only then does she realize how far it’s gone.
“Hey, that’s your fault!” She runs after it.
The skateboard rattles into the road at a three-way intersection between narrow alley streets. After glancing both ways and seeing no cars, she jogs into the street after it without hesitation.
The alleys are quiet. Hardly any traffic.
Then suddenly a black sedan barrels in from the left, filling her entire vision.
She once heard that deer often freeze in headlights, which is why roadkill happens so easily. Who told her that? It was when she was little.
Some movie had been playing on the old television in their house — the protagonist dragging the body of a deer off the road after it got hit so his truck could keep driving. The image of the deer glowed against the screen. Maybe her mother had been the one explaining it.
Back then, she thought deer were stupid. How could anything freeze like that?
The last thought that crosses her mind before the bumper hits her is the realization that she isn’t any different from that deer.
The scream of brakes.
The next second, she’s airborne.
Everything moves in slow motion.
The road rushes toward her.
Gravity violently drags her downward.
A sharp cracking sound tears past her ears. Did a branch snap?
Then she’s lying on the pavement.
A few meters away, she can see her skateboard. Broken cleanly in half. She’d need another part-time job to replace it. No idea how she’d even find one.
Her vision blurs.
She feels her body stop responding to her, and then lets consciousness fall away into empty darkness.
Everything happens too fast for Edmundo to understand what he’s even looking at for the first few seconds. He just stares blankly.
The dull sound of her body colliding with the car.
It feels like looking at some bizarre piece of art whose creator’s intentions are impossible to understand.
His friend’s body sprawled across the road.
The driver stumbling out of the car, shouting something incoherent.
The sharp smell of burnt rubber hanging in the air.
And then it all crashes into place at once. The reality of the situation slams into him like a tidal wave. Edmundo starts running, screaming her name like a siren.
“Oh fuck— fuck, what do I do—” The young driver pants out curses in blind panic.
Edmundo doesn’t even look at him. He drops to his knees beside her.
A dark red pool keeps spreading wider across the pale pavement.
He wants to grab her shoulders and shake her awake, scream at her to get up— but it feels like if he touches her too hard, she’ll shatter apart like glass.
Trying desperately not to look at the sharp white bone jutting through the skin of her right forearm, Edmundo yanks his phone from his pocket. His hands are slick with sweat. His fingers keep slipping against the screen. 9, 1, 1. He presses the green call button.
She lies there completely motionless. Her eyes are still open, staring blankly upward into nothing.
Grace is finishing the last of the comments on his students’ science essays when his phone suddenly rings loud enough to startle him.
He’d just finished writing notes beside phrases like cool as fuck, perchance, let’s fucking go, and filthy bourgeois pig — seriously, why was there a filthy bourgeois pig in a middle school science essay?
He picks up the phone and flips it over. Her name lights up the screen.
Honestly, he’s been uneasy ever since she stormed out earlier. Not because he’d done anything wrong. If anything, he’d only said what needed to be said, but still.
The fact that she’s calling first probably means she’s mostly over it now. Grace swipes the screen and answers. “You done being mad at me?”
Instead of her familiar voice, a trembling voice of a guy comes through the speaker.
“Mr. Grace?”
The temperature around him seems to drop twenty degrees instantly. He answers a second too late.
“Yes. This is Grace. Who is this?”
The young man hurriedly introduces himself as her friend. Edmundo Hernandez. Grace has heard the name before. Many times. She talks about him often.
Before Grace can even say another word, the sentence he has always feared hearing drives itself straight into him.
Isn’t this nice? All of us going on a drive together. You should roll the windows down a little.
“She got hit by a car. We’re on the way to the hospital right now. We’re in the ambulance, but—”
“Where?” Grace cuts him off sharply. “What hospital?” He’s already standing up before the answer even comes. The essays he’d finished grading scatter across the floor.
We should stop for gas at the next gas station.
“Summit Valley Hospital. She’s bleeding really badly. Her arm—”
Who reads research papers in a moving car? Don’t you get carsick? God, you’re such a nerd.
He wants to ask if she’s alive. If she’s conscious. If she’s breathing. But the words are stuck in his throat.
Dad, watch out! Turn the wheel— now!
Grace hears himself saying he’s coming. That he’s leaving right now.
Luke, duck!
At some point the line disconnects. After a short electronic beep, there’s only silence.
No no no no—
Grace practically throws the front door open with his body. Car keys are already clenched in his hand. He doesn’t even remember picking them up.
Ryland, you stay alive. You hear me? See you later.