Page 28 of Lucy Loves Him Not
“I just want some joy,” Olivia breathed out.
“I’ll take some of that,” my mom sat down on the couch. “I’m actually cutting back some of my hours at the hospital because I’m tired. But also—I want morejoy.”
“You deserve it, Mama,” Gracie said.
“We Rhodes women need some joy this summer.” I fell back onto the woven, ivory living room rug. “I want some joy.” As I said it, I remembered Olivia asking me what I’d do if love came knocking at my door. If I’d keep the door locked or let love in?
I thought about that door in front of my heart. All locked and bolted. What was it keeping locked? If joy was standing on my front porch—could it even get in?
That night Gracie came and crashed at my house. We slept in the same bed like we used to on vacations or when one of us had a nightmare.
In the morning, she strolled into the kitchen with her messy bedhead while I made us scrambled eggs in my fuzzy, pink robe. She asked me if Stevie still loved lullabies.
“She does.” I chuckled as I sprinkled cheese into the cooking eggs.
“Still theItsy Bitsy Spider?”
“It’s her absolute favorite. Specifically, when the sun comes up and dries up all the rain.”
Gracie sat in my borrowed polka dot pjs and sang theItsy Bitsy Spiderto Stevie, hand motions and everything. The night before she’d had trouble sleeping, tossing and turning, constantly waking me up.
I remembered her whispering into the dark, “Do you have any chamomile tea or anything?”
“Yeah, I can go brew you some,” I’d yawned. The digital clock on my nightstand blinking 2:08 a.m. “Why?”
“I think I’m stressed. My mind is reeling as I get closer to my summer session starting,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve been having trouble relaxing at night.”
I’d made her tea. We’d turned on a movie for her to watch as she sipped it. I fell right back to sleep, but I don’t know when she did. Now I watched her playing with Stevie and swallowed the lump of worry in my throat.
“How does your summer look?” I asked once we were at the dining table. I wanted to know what it was about her summer that was making her lose sleep at night. “We pretty much heard from all of us what we want from the summer, except for you.”
“I have my class schedule, but I’m also taking that dance intensive along with preparing for the end-of-summer performance.” Gracie was majoring in fine arts with a focus on dance. She had been a dancer since she was three years old and twirling around our kitchen.
“I don’t know if it’s too late to ask, but do you think you might need to erase one of these off your calendar? You could burn out.” I felt my protective instincts kicking in. I’d grown accustomed to helping guide my little sister, from sitting in with her academic counselor when she scheduled her first freshman semester of classes, to staying up all night helping withhomework. “You’re already stressed about it and it hasn’t even begun.”
“It’s impossible to erase any of it if I want to graduate according to my plan,” she said, reaching for her glass of orange juice.
“You were just telling me last night I had no life outside of helping people. Doyouhave a life outside of dance?” I set my fork down.
“Dance is something I do for me, though.” She shrugged. Morning air breezed through the open kitchen window.
“When does it cross the line from being for you to being about—” I started.
“About what?” she interjected, leaning back in her seat.
“Teachers. Achievements. Competition. Commitments. The list goes on, but none of those are aboutyou, or art, or passion, or fun anymore.”
“I’ll have all of those things next summer, I promise.” She gave a half smile. “I don’t disagree with you. I’ve kind of gotten myself stuck with my schedule the way it is.”
“Gracie, I’ll be worried about you all summer. It is possible to change things up. It might feel like it’d be the end of the world right now, but a few years down the road you might look back and realize it was doable.” I reached across the table and squeezed my little sister’s hand. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”
Gracie was packed up and headed back to school the next day. I had snuck a little care package in with her bags with a few anxiety and stress relief items, knowing how small these things were, but it was the most I could do. I put a reminder in my phone to check in on her more often.
Eleven
The next few days were full of in-person meetings about the festival. My eyes were on Adam as he led the team. I told myself it was against my will, that I wasn’t clocking where he was in the room or tuning my ears to his voice.
During these meetings Adam made sure to listen to everyone, giving everyone a chance to be heard. He looked at each person attentively with a concerned crease between his eyes, like he’d given me when I was feeling insecure the other day.
