Page 90 of Hypothetical Heart
“Genevieve, it’s your turn!” Logan calls from across the table, snapping his fingers.
She turns away from Jameson and back toward the group, dragging her legs off from across his lap as she throws down a card. “Your turn,” she says, looking at Logan.
Everyone else continues throwing down uno cards whileI stare at my full hand of green cards, having to draw a new one every time.
“Somebody did not shuffle these cards properly,” I groan when I find another green card being handed to me.
Somehow, we have ended up in Taylor’s Diner. Originally, we came to get dinner, but then we found a deck of uno cards on the bar top, and we’ve been stuck here since.
The rest of the table is deep in their own world, but I can’t stop thinking about how everything’s changing. This moment—sitting here, laughing at the terrible shuffling skills and everyone’s overdramatic complaints about losing—is one of the last we’ll have like this. We’re all hanging onto it, pretending like everything is normal even though we know better.
Logan catches my eye from across the table, his smile faltering slightly as if he’s reading my mind. He’s always been good at that, knowing when I’m stuck in my own head, especially when I’m too quiet.
He raises an eyebrow, silently asking if I’m okay. I force a smile, not ready to have that conversation, not here, not yet.
“So,” Luke says, throwing down a wild card, breaking the silence. “When are we doing this again?”
The question hovers awkwardly in the air, and we all glance at each other. Luke’s always been the optimistic one, the glue holding us together when things get tough, and I think some part of him believes that we can keep doing this—keep pretending the world isn’t about to change.
Eloise lets out a soft laugh, her smile a little sad. “Luke, we’re not going to be able to play Uno every weekend.”
“Well, we should at least try,” he argues, crossing his arms over his chest.
Eloise sighs, a hint of frustration mixing with the sadness. “Yeah, we’ll try.”
But we all know that’s a lie. Even Luke knows. We won’t admit it, but the reality is that after tomorrow, everything will be different. Eloise is leaving first, and then the rest of us will follow.
No more late-night hangouts at the diner. No more spontaneous sleepovers or lazy afternoons by Hagen’s Lake. These are the moments we’re going to look back on and miss, the moments we’ll talk about when we’re all too far apart to make new ones.
I stare at my cards, the game feeling more and more irrelevant by the second. My throat tightens, and I feel a wave of nostalgia wash over me, thick and heavy.
When did time start moving so fast? One minute, we were teenagers, worrying about homework and curfews, and now… now we’re adults, packing up our lives and leaving everything we’ve ever known behind. It’s a weird feeling.
“I’m going to miss this,” I say quietly, more to myself than anyone else. But the words hang in the air, and suddenly, the game feels like background noise, a distraction from the truth we’re all too afraid to confront.
Genevieve stops mid-laugh, her expression softening as she glances around the table. Her hand rests on Jameson’s knee, and she leans into him slightly. “Me too,” she adds softly. “It won’t be the same, will it?”
“No,” Logan says, his voice steady but with a weight to it that matches the sadness in the air. “It won’t be the same, but that doesn’t mean it’s over.”
His words hang in the air, and for a moment, there’s a sense of relief. He’s right. Things are changing, but we aren’t saying goodbye forever.
Our lives are about to go in different directions, but thatdoesn’t mean we’re done with each other. We’ve been through too much to let distance break us apart.
I glance around the table at the people I’ve spent nearly every day with for as long as I can remember.
Eloise, who’s always been the bravest of us.
Genevieve, whose strong will has kept us all afloat.
Jameson, who constantly acts so nonchalant but loves fiercely.
Luke, the jock who has proven himself to be so much more than a meathead football player.
And Logan... Logan, who’s always been the steady one, the person who anchors us all, even when we don’t realize we need it.
“Alright,” Logan says, picking up his cards with a grin, breaking the tension. “Enough of the mushy stuff. Who’s ready to lose?”
Genevieve smirks, grabbing her discarded zip-up jacket off of the booth and launching it at him. It hits him square in the chest, and the rest of us burst into laughter, the heaviness of the moment lifting for just a second.
