Chandler was on our deck after midnight, and for the first time since Thursday, I wanted to open my door.
Me: coming. give me a minute.
Bernard lifted his head from his rug when I pushed the blanket back. Pops’ old navy hoodie hung over the chair beside my bed. I pulled it on over my pajamas, tugged Chandler’s gray beanie over my bare head, and tucked my phone into the front pocket.
The house was quiet. My wheelchair was beside the bed, where Dad had left it after helping me get settled. I eased myself into it, keeping my weight off my left leg, then pulled the blanket across my lap, unlocked the brakes, and rolled toward the door.
Bernard was already at the door, his tail thumping against the frame. “Quiet,” I whispered. He wagged harder, and I waited until he moved before opening it.
I rolled down the hall toward the living room, pausing at the corner so Bernard could get past. Behind me, a light shone beneath the office door. Pops was still up.
I stopped beside the couch and looked through the glass of the back door. Chandler sat on the top step of the deck, hood up, elbows on his knees. The deck light was off. A motion sensor in the neighbor’s yard flickered on, catching the frost along the railing before everything went dark again.
He stood as soon as he saw me. I hadn’t figured out what to say beyond coming, but he lifted a hand and waited while I reached for the lock.
I flipped it and opened the door a few inches. Bernard squeezed his nose through the gap before I could stop him. “Chandler,” I whispered.
He crossed the deck while Bernard pressed against my knees, determined to investigate. “You walked here?” I asked, looking past him toward the side gate.
“Jeep’s loud.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, as though that explained walking over in November instead of driving.
“At midnight?”
“Still quieter than the Jeep.”
I rolled back to give him room, and he stepped inside before Bernard could get out. He closed the door, then reached down to scratch the dog’s ears.
“You’re freezing,” I told him.
“Little bit.”
“Next time, bring a coat.” I nodded toward the living room. “Come on.”
He took off his shoes near the door and followed me to the couch. I left the kitchen light off, but the lamp beside Dad’s favorite chair cast enough light for us to see. Chandler sat on the couch while I positioned my wheelchair beside it, my left leg supported. Bernard settled on the rug between us, satisfied that the emergency had turned out to involve one of his favorite people.
Chandler rubbed his hands together, then tucked them beneath his arms. I adjusted the blanket over my left leg, smoothing it even after it lay flat.
I’d thought I should explain why I hadn’t answered him. Instead I said, “She had frog socks on.” Chandler turned toward me, and I looked down at the bracelets on my wrist.
“Lylah. Those fuzzy green ones with the eyes sticking out. She wore them when I was admitted with the fever, and she still had them on Thursday.” I rubbed the edge of one bracelet with my thumb. “She would’ve made a joke about it. Something about frogs being inappropriate for a dramatic exit.” The words came faster than I could sort them.
“Her mom came to get me. Amber. When they first got there, her cardigan was buttoned wrong. I remember that better than half of what anyone said. Her sister was there, and her dad, and I kept thinking somebody should fix the buttons, which is stupid, because who cares about buttons?”
“You noticed,” Chandler said. I rubbed my thumb over a bead on my bracelet before I could answer.
“She made me help choose a song for her friend’s birthday video. Nessa. There was a cake with this awful daisy on it. I keep thinking Nessa probably has a hundred pictures of Lylah I never saw. I only knew her in that building. But she had a job and a best friend and a sister who stole her phone charger. I never got to see her at work or meet her friends. Just pictures on her phone.”
Chandler looked at the bracelets on my wrist. “You knew her, too.”
“Some of her.” I swallowed and watched the sun charm catch against my sleeve. “I wish I’d had more time to learn the rest.”
“She told me not to wait. That’s what she said to me.” My throat tightened. “I didn’t ask what she meant. I just sat there, like I was supposed to know. And afterward I went back to my room, and her mom gave me these, and I put them on.” I lifted my wrist. The bracelets made a small, bright sound. “Like that was something I could do for her.”
Chandler shifted forward on the couch. “You don’t have to tell me all of it tonight.”
“I know.” I pulled the blanket straighter. “I keep thinking about her family. How they knew her favorite coffee and which socks she’d pick.” I gripped the wheelchair armrest. “I can’t stop seeing them standing in that hallway.”
I hadn’t said any of this to Dad. Or Pops. Or Noelle, who’d kept texting even when I gave her nothing back. Stetson had stood outside my bedroom door while I pretended not to hear him.
“I’m sorry I shut everyone out,” I said, before I could turn it into a joke. “Especially you.”
Chandler picked at a loose thread on his cuff. “I was worried. I wasn’t going to make you talk, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know.” My eyes stung, and I tried to make my voice sound less miserable. “You’re annoyingly good at waiting.”
His mouth moved, almost a smile. He rested his hands on his knees and stayed where he was while I took off the beanie.
The cool air touched my scalp. I resisted the urge to cover it again. “Look at me, Chandler.” He did, his blue eyes meeting mine without dropping to my head.
“No hair. Crutches. A port in my chest. I have a bucket with my name written on it because apparently even nausea needs assigned seating.” I tried to laugh. It didn’t work. “Everybody keeps rearranging their lives around mine. Dad works from home unless he’s due in court. Pops knows the hospital number by heart. Stetson barely jokes anymore. Noelle keeps bringing stuff over. Uncle Jake drives me places when he’s supposed to be eating lunch.”
“You gave up your Saturdays.”
“For Dashiell,” he said, but I shook my head.
“And because I needed help.”
“You needed a second handler. I said yes.” Chandler leaned back against the couch. “I can tell you if I can’t do something. You don’t have to keep adding it up.”
“I know you’re all scared,” I said. “I see it. And I don’t know how to make it better.”
“You don’t have to.” Chandler leaned forward.
“That’s easy to say when you’re not the reason everyone’s scared.”
“I’m scared because I care about you, Sloane.” He said it without raising his voice. “That’s not the same as you doing something to me.”
I pressed the beanie against my knees. He was still waiting for an answer.
“I don’t want you to have to watch me go through all of this,” I whispered. I twisted the beanie in my hands until the edge folded over itself. “Or feel stuck because you don’t know how to leave.”
“I know.” He waited until I looked up. “Can I tell you something? About my mom.”
I nodded and loosened my grip on the beanie. Chandler took it when I held it out, then set it on the arm of the couch.
Everyone knew Chandler’s mother had died when he was born. I’d heard Uncle Jake talk about her laugh and the way she used to put hot sauce on everything, but Chandler usually let him tell the stories. March fourth always made Uncle Jake’s voice quieter.
“Dad makes pancakes on my birthday,” Chandler said. “Every year. He puts a candle in the stack, sings like he’s trying to get the neighbors to file a complaint, and asks what I want to do that day.”
“Your dad sings like he’s being chased,” I said, remembering the time Uncle Jake had attempted a birthday song in our kitchen.
“Exactly.” Chandler rubbed his hands together for warmth. “He means it, though. He wants it to be a good day. And I spend half of it wondering if he’d rather be doing something else.”
“Chandler…”
“I know he loves me. That’s not what I’m saying.” He looked toward the dark kitchen. “When I was little, I started thinking I should be easy. Not ask for too much. He already had enough hard stuff.”
I thought of Chandler at twelve, telling Uncle Jake he didn’t need new cleats even though the toes of his old ones were splitting. I’d thought he was being stubborn. Stetson had called him cheap.
“So I got good at saying whatever works,” he continued. “Wherever Coach needs me. Whatever shift they have. Doesn’t matter. Everybody thinks I’m laid-back.”
I almost told him he was laid-back, but he kept talking. “Sometimes I mean it,” he said, catching my expression. “Sometimes I just don’t say what I want.”
“You go somewhere on your birthday,” I said. “After the pancakes.”
He looked surprised that I’d noticed. I told him Stetson had spent years insisting he was meeting a secret girlfriend, which made Chandler snort.
“Stetson thinks I have a secret girlfriend every time I buy a new shirt.”
“He once accused you of flirting with the cashier because you said thank you,” I reminded him.
“She handed me change. It was a very intimate moment.”
I laughed, small and surprised. He smiled back, then looked at his hands.
“I go to Blue Heron Lake,” he said. “I sit by the water for a while. I never told Dad. I don’t want him thinking he ruined my birthday. He hasn’t. I just need a minute sometimes.”
“You could tell him.”
“Maybe.” He rubbed his thumb over the seam of his jeans. “I’m working on it.”
I wasn’t quite ready to let the Saturdays go. Chandler caught my look before I even asked. “I wanted to help Dashiell. I wanted to see you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Getting dragged across the yard by that furry criminal you call Maverick wasn’t part of the plan.”
I reminded him he could’ve asked me for help before he ended up on his knees.
“Yeah. That part was a mistake.” He shrugged. “I made the choice, Sloane. You didn’t take anything from me.”
He flexed his fingers against his knees, then looked at me. “There’s another thing I want.” I knew. Or I hoped I knew, which was worse.
“I want to be with you,” he said. “I liked you before any of this. I liked you when you kept making me play the dog when we played house.”
“You barked at the mailman,” I reminded him.
“Method acting,” he said, and for a second his smile looked like the one I’d known since we were six. Then it faded, but he didn’t look away.
“I want to take you places when you feel up to it. I want you to tell me when I’m being an idiot. And I still want soccer and my job. I’m going to have days when I can’t come over.” He took a breath. “But I want this. You don’t have to decide for me that I can’t handle it.”
He’d said I want more times tonight than I could remember hearing in years. I loosened my hands around the arms of my wheelchair. He was close enough to touch, but he’d stayed on the couch, waiting.
Lylah’s bracelets shifted against my wrist. Don’t wait. I reached for Chandler before I could start thinking about everything that could go wrong.
“Chandler,” I said. “Come here.”
He moved from the couch to kneel beside my wheelchair, careful of my left leg. I caught the front of his hoodie and pulled him a little closer.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I said, then held still long enough for him to answer.
His eyebrows rose. “Okay.”
I stared at him. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“I’m trying very hard not to say something stupid.” He looked so serious about it that I laughed.
“Don’t ruin it,” I told him, and kissed him before I could say anything worse.
It wasn’t smooth. My beanie slid off the couch arm, and I nearly bumped his nose. Lylah’s sun charm caught briefly against his hoodie zipper. Chandler laughed once, quietly, before kissing me back.
When we pulled apart, he stayed close, a little crease between his eyebrows. “You okay?” he asked.
“I think so.” I caught him looking at me like he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. “You?”
“I’m going to need a second.”
I gave him a solemn nod. “One second. Very generous of me, I know.” He laughed and leaned his forehead against mine for a moment. I let go of his hoodie, smoothing the spot I’d wrinkled.
Bernard shoved his nose between us, offended that an event had occurred without his supervision. I laughed, and then, without warning, my eyes filled again. Chandler rested his hand over mine. I turned it over beneath his and held on until I could breathe normally.
A thought arrived approximately five minutes too late. “Wait. You’re not sick, right?”
Chandler blinked at me. “Now you ask?”
He caught my expression and answered before I could start worrying aloud. No symptoms, he’d stayed away from Emory after he started sneezing, and he’d washed his hands before coming over.
I nodded. Down the hall, Pops was still moving around in the office, although the rest of the house was quiet.
“We should get you home,” I said. “You’ve got school in the morning.”
“So do you.” Chandler looked toward the kitchen. “The packet, anyway.”
“Don’t remind me.” I rubbed beneath my eyes with my sleeve, then caught him looking at me. “What?”
“What does this mean?” he asked.
He’d said what he wanted. It seemed only fair that I try.
“I want to see where this goes,” I said. “I can’t promise I’m going to be good at it. There are hospital days. Days I won’t want to talk. Days when I’ll be angry about stuff that has nothing to do with you.”
“Then tell me when you need space. And I’ll tell you if something bothers me.” Chandler shifted back onto the couch so he wasn’t crouching beside me anymore. “Normal Pact still applies. No treating you like you’re made of glass.”
“Good. Because I will throw something at you.”
He requested something soft, preferably. I made no promises.
He grinned, then sobered. “We should tell Stet.”
I looked toward the hallway. Stetson was asleep upstairs, with no idea I’d just kissed his best friend in our living room. “Not tonight,” I said, rubbing my thumb over the edge of Lylah’s sun charm. “He doesn’t even know there’s anything to tell. What if he thinks we’ve been keeping this from him for weeks?”
“Then we’ll tell him the truth. It happened tonight.”
“He’s going to have questions,” I warned.
“Probably. We can answer the ones that are actually his business.”
“I don’t want him thinking we’ve been lying to him.” I looked down at our hands, still together beside the wheelchair.
“Me neither.” Chandler waited until I looked at him. “We can have a little time to figure this out. I just don’t want him hearing it from somebody else.”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “After school. We tell him together, before anybody else can.”
Chandler considered that, then nodded. We had a plan, even if I had no idea how to start the conversation.
Overhead, a floorboard creaked. A second later, a patch of yellow light fell across the deck outside the living-room window. I knew that strip of railing. Stetson’s bedroom light had lit it up every time he forgot to close his curtains.
Chandler followed my gaze. We both went still, and Bernard’s tail thumped against the rug. I put my hand on his back, which only made him wag harder.
“Maybe he just needs water,” I whispered.
Chandler looked at me. “At midnight?”
“People get thirsty.” I listened for footsteps on the stairs, but none came. Chandler’s fingers tightened around mine, and a moment later the light outside went out.
Lylah’s funeral was Thursday, November thirteenth. Amber had sent Dad the details and asked him to tell me I was welcome. I’d made him read that part twice before asking him to call my oncology team.
They cleared a short visit after checking how I was doing. I wore a mask and stayed out of the receiving line, and Pops promised we could leave whenever I needed to. By the time Dad wheeled me through the side entrance, I’d already checked three times that Lylah’s bracelets weren’t caught beneath my coat sleeve.
Someone had left a space for my wheelchair beside the last row. Dad sat on one side of me and Pops on the other, with my left leg supported and the door a few feet away. At the front was a picture of Lylah laughing, her dark hair falling across one eye. Behind her was the coffee shop window from the pictures she’d shown me on her phone.
I kept waiting for her to finish laughing. It was a stupid thing for my brain to do with a photograph, but every time I looked up, I expected a different expression.
Alexa spoke about the clothes Lylah had borrowed and never returned. Halfway through a story about a sweater, she stopped and pressed her folded paper against her mouth. Amber reached for her from the front row, but Alexa shook her head and finished. I watched Dad’s shoe beside my wheel until I could look at her again.
When everyone stood for the last song, Pops stayed seated with me. Dad stood, his hand resting on the back of Pops’ chair. I followed the words on the program until they blurred, then folded it along the crease and held it in my lap.
We waited while the room emptied. Near the door, a girl in a black cardigan stopped with a crumpled tissue in her hand. She had brown skin and dark curls pinned back on one side, and a coffee-shop pen was still clipped to her pocket. She looked at the bracelets, then at me.
“Sloane?” she asked. “I’m Nessa.”
“The birthday video.” It came out before hello, or sorry, or anything people were supposed to say at funerals.
Her mouth lifted a little. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Dad asked if I wanted a minute. I nodded, and he and Pops moved a few seats away while Nessa pulled out a chair. She sat down with the tissue still clenched in her hand.
“She made me listen to three songs,” I said. “Then picked the first one.”
“She sent me the video at six in the morning. Called when I didn’t answer.” Nessa looked down at her tissue. “I was asleep. Apparently that was rude of me.”
“She was pretty pleased with that cake.”
“The flower looked like an egg.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, then glanced toward the front. Nessa laughed, too, but hers caught halfway through. She wiped beneath one eye and took a moment before speaking again.
“She told me about your dogs. Showed me a video of the husky dragging that guy.”
“Chandler. And Maverick.” Lylah used to make me start it over the second it ended. “I probably shouldn’t have let her keep that.”
“She watched it every time I visited after a bad shift.” Nessa tucked the tissue into her sleeve. “Once, she laughed so hard she knocked an oat-milk latte off her tray. I’d brought it from work. It went under the bed, and we had to get a nurse to move it.”
“Did you tell her why?”
“Absolutely not. She said the cup slipped.” Nessa rubbed at a spot on her skirt. “I was cleaning it up, and she kept trying to show me the video again. Like I hadn’t just seen it happen.”
I looked toward Lylah’s picture. “That sounds like her.”
“Yeah.” Nessa sat back, and for a while neither of us said anything. Someone was gathering programs from the empty chairs. I flattened the folded corner of mine with my thumb.
“Do you have pictures from work?” I asked. “Ones she’s in?”
Nessa nodded and reached for her phone. The picture she found had Lylah behind the counter, holding a paper cup with both hands. Someone had drawn an angry face on it. Her apron was dusted with something white, and she was looking past the camera, right in the middle of saying something.
“She spelled my name wrong on purpose,” Nessa said. “Every shift. This one said Nessie. I told her I wasn’t a lake monster.”
“Will you send it to me?”
“Yeah. Give me your number.”
My hands were clumsy when I took out my phone. Nessa waited while I got it unlocked, then read her number aloud. Before we left, she sent the picture and the video of Lylah presenting the egg-shaped daisy cake. I saved both while Dad helped me with my coat.
In the Suburban, Pops asked if I wanted to go straight home. I nodded and opened the picture again. There was a smear of milk on the counter, a stack of crooked cup lids, and Lylah with her mouth open, probably complaining about something. I zoomed in until I could read the cup, then held the phone out for Pops to see.