Page 2 of What I Like About You

“Maybe this was …” Ollie lets the thought trail off, incomplete.

A mistake. That’s how Ollie’s sentence ends. I know this because I’m wondering it too.

I twirl Grams’shamsanecklace between my fingers. “It’s only been six months.”

Ollie nods. “We’ll check your email downstairs? Together?”

“Let’s go,” I say.

Ollie places my charger in my palm and I smile. Ollie knows all about my blog life. He knows how important this email is. He read the pitch I sentfive timesbecause he’s the best. He reads YA for me and I understand baseball stats for him. It’s just what we do.

I follow him down the stairs and through the living room to the kitchen, ignoring the pictureless walls and absent bookshelves. I fixate on the back of Ollie’s head and swallow the emotion that’s lodged in my throat because Grams wouldnevertake down the pictures.

All the pictures in my life live in folders on screens. At Grams’s and Gramps’s, the pictures lived on the walls. Photographs were everywhere—in the living room, on the kitchen walls, lining the staircase, in albums on the coffee table. Familiar faces. Foreign faces. Whenever we visited, we got a new story based on one of the pictures. One story per visit, that was Grams’s rule. So we had to think about, and fight for, which picture we wanted.

One day, we’d know all the stories. That’s what Grams said.

I wanted to stay in Grams’s house.

This isn’t Grams’s house.

“Found her,” Ollie says. “Lured by a phone charger.”

Dad sneezes. “Typical.”

I open my mouth to retort, but stop short at the sight of him. He’s holding Scout, Grams’s adorable maltipoo—who is definitely the source of his sudden-onset sneezing—and sitting at aglass table.

How does a person decorate cupcakes on a glass table? It’s not made for messes.

The kitchen used to be a shrine to baking, with two shelves on the wall next to the stove to display Grams’s fancy standing mixer and all her quality cupcake creation equipment. The kitchen table was solid wood, perfect for spreading out all the ingredients for a long afternoon of baking.

Now the table is glass. The shelves are gone.

Gramps is gone. I mean, I know the man sitting next to Dad is Gramps.I know this.

But he’s alsonot. Like, at all.

He’s skinnier. Messier, too. My Gramps was always short-haired and clean-shaven. This Gramps has a full beard and a short ponytail sticking out underneath his baseball hat. He’s wearing a graphic T-shirt and cargo shorts. And Ollie’s Nikes.

“Hi, Gramps,” I say, my voice soft.

Gramps nods. “Hal.”

His smile is forced, lips tight and no teeth, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react. I should probably hug him, right? A handshake would be weird, right? I mean, this is Gramps.My Gramps, who taught me everything I know about Johnny Cash and read picture books to me until I fell asleep on his lap. My Gramps, who always made sure to interject himself into the near-daily conversations I’d have with Grams, calls where we’d go on hour-long rants aboutthe best books we’ve ever read,ever. Until the next best book we’ve ever read came along. Gramps would attempt to pivot the conversation toward narrative nonfiction and political memoirs.You ladies and your books, he’d say, giving up with a hearty laugh. Nothing ever put a bigger smile on myface from hundreds of miles away than his laugh.React, Halle. I’m the reason we’re here. I’m the one who’s been desperate to reconnect with Gramps in this post-Grams world. But now that I’m here, and he’s in front of me? Now that I’m about tomove in with him? I don’t know what to say.

That’s the problem with words. In my head, words are magic. My thoughts are eloquent and fierce. On the page, words are music. In the clicks of my keyboard, in the scratches of pencil meeting paper. In the beauty of the eraser, of the backspace key. On the page, the words in my head sing and dance with the precision of diction and the intricacies of rhythm.

Out loud? Words are the worst.

“Gramps was just asking us about college,” Mom says.

Gramps nods. “Still NYU?”

“Still NYU.”

It’s always been the plan, to follow in Grams’s footsteps.

NYU undergrad. Interning at the Big Five publishers. A publishing job offer after graduation.

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