Page 68 of Campus Crush
Not unless something was wrong.
I swiped to answer, nerves already tingling beneath my skin. “Hey, Mase. Everything okay?”
There was a pause, and then his voice came through, quieter than usual. “I don’t know. Gram has gotten worse.” His voice dipped lower like voicing the words would make his fears come true.
I sank onto the edge of my bed. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a bunch of little things—not being as active, losing weight, dark circles under her eyes… She looks like she’s in pain, but she tries to hide it. She’s not eating much and sleeping a lot. She hasn’t even gone to the community center at all this week.”
Thatwasa big deal. Gram had been volunteering at thecommunity center for as long as I could remember. She was always going there to help with one thing or another.
“Have you asked her about it?”
With all the craziness of school starting and dating Foster, I hadn’t made it home in a few weeks. Now, I felt guilty for not making it a priority. I’d texted Mason nightly to check in, but clearly he’d been holding back on me and this wasn’t something he should have to deal with on his own.
“I told you she hasn’t been herself in months,” he said quietly. “Do you think she’s…dying?” He choked out the last word like even speaking it would make it true.
The threat of tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to give in. My brother and I had suffered enough loss for a lifetime, but I had to be strong for him. I was the big sister. The responsible one. The one who was supposed to have answers.
But the truth was I was afraid to answer his question because I didn’t know how he’d handle it if she was.
I didn’t know howI’dsurvive it if she was dying.
Gram had been our rock through the loss of both of our parents, and losing her would shake our foundation in a way that terrified me. She was all we had left. The only adult who’d been a constant in our lives. The only person who remembered all the little details about our childhood that our parents had taken with them.
“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. I wished I had a better answer. I wished I could tell him everything would be fine, that Gram was just having a bad week, that she’d bounce back like she always did. But I couldn’t ignore what he was telling me.
We were both silent before he made an excuse to cut the call short. That didn’t ease my worry any.
I sat on my bed, a familiar numbness starting from my toes and moving up my body. It seemed my response to grief was to shut down and lock all emotion away.
What were we going to do if Gram was dying?
My phone started vibrating in my hand, and Foster’s name flashed on the screen. Just seeing his name brought a small measure of comfort.
“Hey,” I said, answering the phone.
“Hey yourself, Gorgeous. I just got done with practice. Still on for dinner?”
For a second, I debated canceling. I knew I wasn’t in the best mindset, but Foster had been my comfort for far longer than he’d been my boyfriend, and I needed someone to lean on right now.
“Yeah, we’re still on. But how about I meet you there.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. See you in a few.”
I got to the restaurant a few minutes earlier than I’d expected and sat in my car, staring out the window as emotion hit me unexpectedly.
Maybe I wasn’t as good about keeping everything in a box as I used to be.
Before I could spiral into a full-blown meltdown, there was a knock on my window. Foster was standing there with a warm smile on his face. I quickly got out of the car, and immediately his strong arms wrapped around me, giving me the exact comfort I needed.
It was hard to hold back the tears this time. The solid warmth of him, the familiar scent of his cologne, the gentle way his hand cradled the back of my head—it all threatened to break the dam I’d carefully constructed.
He pulled back just enough to cup my cheeks, his blueeyes searching mine with genuine concern. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“I think my grandma’s sick. My brother called me before you did and he thinks she might be?—”
