#gg44

The porch light is on, illuminating the front steps and the black railing. It makes the house stand out against the darkness of the quiet neighborhood. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks, but then the world falls silent again.

Your hands are still clutching the steering wheel, your fingers wrapped around the black leather so tightly that your knuckles are cracking at the seams. Every now and then your grip loosens, only to tighten again when another memory surfaces. Your head hurts from crying, and your eyes are so bloodshot that your tears could easily be mistaken for pink eye. There’s a crumpled napkin in the cupholder from the gas station you stopped at on the way over, and it’s completely useless now after being used to wipe away tears for most of the drive.

You know you should get out of the car—it’s why you came here in the first place. But every time you reach for the door handle, your stomach lurches and you find yourself staring back at the porch light instead.

Garrett Graham isn’t your best friend. The two of you don’t talk every day. You don’t know his favorite movie or his biggest pet peeve. If someone asked you to list the most important people in your life, his name probably wouldn’t be one of the first few that came to mind.

But somehow, when everything fell apart tonight, this was where you ended up.

Maybe it’s because Garrett has always felt easy to be around. Not in the way Brooks did, where every conversation made your stomach flutter and every text had the ability to make your day better, but he is different. He’s steady and familiar, the kind of person who remembers that you have an exam coming up and asks how it went a week later. The kind of person who notices when you’re having a bad day and doesn’t make a big deal out of it. You met him in a foreign policy class spring semester of sophomore year and became friends almost by accident. One study session turned into another, and then coffee after class became normal. Those coffee hangouts were where you bonded over your birthdays being in the second half of the school year, so you guys wouldn’t turn 21 until spring semester junior year. It was where he teased you over being four days older than you. Somewhere along the way, he became someone you trusted without ever consciously deciding to.

Your eyes drift back to the porch light, and the sight of it makes your throat tighten all over again.

Because just over twelve hours ago, you were happy. The memory hits so suddenly that your grip tightens on the steering wheel.

You had told Brooks to meet you there. The entire drive over, however, you had gone back and forth on whether bringing him was a mistake. Part of you wanted to turn around and go home before he arrived, but the other part of you knew that if you left now, you would regret it.

The cemetery wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something you shared either. Most people knew your mother had passed away. You were nine, and had found her in the bathtub, submerged in water that was so red that your naive, youth-centered mind had thought it was Koolaid at first. You remember laughing and telling her that her skin would be all sticky from the sugar, but when she didn’t answer you after repeated calls of her name, you yelled for your dad so loudly the only way it could be described was maniacal.

Some people knew where she was buried, but nobody other than your dad had ever sat beside you there. That place belonged to the three of you.

It was where you went when you missed her, and where you ended up on birthdays and holidays. Because Briar was only thirty minutes from your hometown, it was where you came after bad exams, job interviews, and every other major moment of your life because some part of you still wanted to tell her about it. Even after eleven years, the cemetery remained one of the few places where grief felt honest. You never had to pretend you were okay there.

When Brooks’ Grand Cherokee finally pulled into the parking lot, your stomach twisted itself into knots.

You remember watching him climb out through the windshield, and then immediately noticing everything in his hands—a cardboard drink carrier, which he could barely handle without dropping due to the bouquet of flowers wrapped in brown paper—and the sight caught you so off guard that you actually laughed when you stepped out of your car.

“What’s all that?”

Brooks glanced down at what he was carrying as though he’d forgotten about it entirely, “I stopped at Malone’s on the way. Thought you could use something to warm you up.”

You remember reaching for one of the drinks first. The paper cup was warm against your cold hands. Massachusett’s in October wasn’t forgiving. The wind coming off the Atlantic had teeth that nipped so hard it felt like shark season, and the cold had settled deep into your bones before you’d even made it to the cemetery. The heat from the cup felt incredible against your frozen fingers.

The second you read Della’s messy handwriting your heart softened. It was hot chocolate.

Three weeks earlier, you’d mentioned during a late-night study session that coffee made you anxious whenever you were stressed. It had been a completely insignificant conversation, one of hundreds you’d had together since meeting freshmen year. At least, you thought it had been insignificant, but evidently, Brooks hadn’t.

“You got me hot chocolate?”

“You sound surprised,” he chuckled softly.

“I am surprised.”

Brooks flashed you a soft smile, and the slight coffee stain on his teeth complimented his blond hair more than you would have liked to admit, “It seemed better than coffee.”

You remember smiling so hard your cheeks hurt. It wasn’t because of the hot chocolate itself, but because he’d remembered. It was such a tiny detail, such a stupid little thing, but somehow it mattered to him.

Then your eyes landed on the second cup sitting in the carrier.

“What about that one?”

The expression on his face softened, “This one’s for your mom.”

Even now, sitting outside Garrett’s house at 1:30 in the morning with tears drying on your cheeks, that memory steals the air from your lungs.

For a second, you hadn’t known what to say, and had simply stared at him. Who thinks of that? Who remembers that your mom’s favorite coffee came from a tiny local diner you’d mentioned once over breakfast at that diner two months ago?

Apparently Brooks did. He walked into Malone’s after his last Friday class, remembered your mom’s order, bought the coffee, and brought it to the cemetery for someone he’d never met and someone he never would.

Your throat tightens. At the time, the gesture had felt so thoughtful that it was almost overwhelming, but in such a good way. Now it just feels unbearable, like the effects of coffee on you when you’re stressed.

The flowers had somehow been even worse.

You remember Brooks sitting down on her gravesite next to you, his hand tracing the carvings of her name and the epitaph on her gravestone: Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere. Your dad chose the quote because Goodnight Moon had been the first book your mom had ever read to you. As Brooks did so, you finally noticed the bouquet tucked beneath his arm and immediately dissolved into laughter.

He looked completely offended, but you couldn’t stop laughing.

“What?”

“Brooks.”

“What?”

“Those are carnations.”

His eyebrows pulled together.

“My mom hated carnations.”

The look on his face had quickly become one of your favorite memories. He was struck with pure horror and confusion, and his expression was one of a man realizing he’d accidentally made a catastrophic mistake without having any idea how.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“You weren’t.”

“Then why are you laughing at me?” Because your mom hated carnations. She hated them because they’d reminded her of funerals. Every time she saw them in a grocery store, she complained about how depressing they looked. She refused to buy them, refused to put them in the house, and refused to let anyone send them to her. There was one time her aunt had passed away and her college roommate had sent her a vase of them, and while she wrote a letter back to thank her, she had immediately thrown them into the trash.

Somehow Brooks had unknowingly shown up to a cemetery carrying the one flower she would have made fun of immediately. The irony was too much, but your laughter eventually settled into something softer. You took the bouquet from him and looked down at the flowers, “They’re perfect.”

Brooks blinked, “I thought she hated them.”

“She did.”

“Then how are they perfect?”

A smile tugged at your lips, because you knew your mom would have laughed. She would have teased him and would have spent the next twenty minutes giving him a hard time about funeral flowers in a cemetery.

But she would’ve loved him for trying.

“I think she’d think this is hilarious.”

The relief that crossed Brooks’ face made you laugh all over again. 

Looking back now, you think that was the moment everything changed. Somewhere between the hot chocolate and the carnations, the coffee and the stories of her, you stopped wondering whether you could trust him. You started believing that you already did.

Eventually, however, the cold won.

Not all at once—neither of you looked at the time and decided it was time to leave. It happened gradually, the way most good afternoons do. The once steaming hot coffee Brooks had left beside your mother’s gravestone had gone completely cold, and the hot chocolate in your hands was barely warm anymore. Every time the wind picked up, you found yourself pulling his Red Sox sweatshirt tighter around your body. You don’t recall who stood up first, only looking up and realizing the sun had started to dip lower in the sky, “I think we’re freezing to death.”

“Good thing we’re in a cemetery, then,” Brooks shot back, a joking smile spread across his rosy cheeks.

You rolled your eyes so hard it made him laugh, which only made his smile widen. You looked back over at the headstone, where the carnations rested at the base beside the coffee cup. Looking at them made something warm settle in your chest again.

The thought makes your chest ache now.

You eventually brushed the grass off your dark wash jeans and climbed to your feet. Brooks stood a second later, immediately offering you a hand when you stumbled slightly because your legs had fallen asleep, half from sitting with them folded under the rest of your body and half because your feet were numb from the spine-tingling chill in the air.

When you finally reached your Civic, you leaned against the driver’s side door while Brooks stopped beside his Grand Cherokee. Although a few cars remained scattered throughout the parking lot, most people had gone home. For a moment, neither of you said anything, not because there was nothing left to say, but because neither of you seemed particularly eager to leave.

Then Brooks checked his phone, and a quiet curse slipped from beneath his breath before he shook his head and laughed.

“What?” you questioned, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips.

His eyes met yours, and let a quiet sigh out, “I told the guys I’d meet them tonight.”

It takes you a second to remember what he’s talking about, but then it registers, “Malone’s?”

He nodded. It had been the plan all week. The true reason you even knew about it was because your boyfriend had spent several days complaining about how impossible it was to get a group of college guys to agree on where they wanted to go. Brooks immediately asked if you’d go with him, and for a second, you were tempted, but then the wind cut through the parking lot again.

“I’m going home, taking a hot shower, and then burrowing under my blankets while watching Derry Girls,” you grinned before gesturing to his truck, “Go have fun with the guys.”

He nodded and began to make his way to the driver side door, but turned back towards you before hopping in, “Sorry about the carnations.”

You laughed, “They’re perfect. Breakfast tomorrow?”

“Sounds great. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Have fun tonight.”

With that, you guys waved goodbye to each other and both hopped into your cars. You immediately turned your Civic on and blasted the heat on high, trying your best to warm up your numb extremities as quickly as possible. As you held your fingers up to the vents, you never once questioned whether tomorrow would happen. You never once questioned him.

Maybe that’s why the memory hurts so much now.

By the time you got back to your dorm, the emotional exhaustion finally started catching up with you. 

You showered. You changed into an oversized t-shirt you’ve had since high school and a pair of Briar pajama pants with a hole near the right pocket. You spent ten minutes standing in front of the open refrigerator because you were hungry enough to want good but too tired to actually make any, so you eventually settled for doordashing some Taco Bell and eating whatever cake was left over from your roommate’s birthday earlier in the week. By the time you climbed into bed, your chest felt lighter than it had in weeks, even months, maybe. For the first time in a long time, you weren’t overthinking anything.

The realization would usually embarrass you, but your decision to curl up beneath your blankets and turn on Derry Girls stopped you before you could. Your roommate decided to go to Nashville to visit her sister for the weekend, so other than the occasional rumbling of a car engine outside of your window, the apartment was quiet around you. 

After a few episodes, you grabbed your phone. You scrolled through Instagram absentmindedly. A girl from one of your classes went to some indie concert in Boston, your cousin in Ohio posted pictures from a high school football game, and one of Garrett’s teammates posted something about an NHL trade that meant absolutely nothing to you, so you skipped past it without a second thought. 

Then Brooks’ story appeared, and when you spotted the picture of him kissing your cheek in the corner of your screen, you couldn't help but smile. 

You watched it without thinking. It was normal at first—flashing lights, the Briar pennant hanging from the wooden ceiling, a crowd of college kids with all kinds of beer and seltzers in their hands—but then you noticed the girl standing in front of your boyfriend.

At first, you weren’t concerned. Why should you have been? He was at Malone’s on a Friday night, and the place looked crowded enough that 75% of the diner was probably standing shoulder to shoulder. But then he reached for her, and your heart dropped to your stomach as your brain tried to comprehend what you were seeing. The video seemed to slow down as you witnessed what happened next.

Brooks leaned forward. The girl did too.

And then he kissed her.

You swiped out of the story and immediately opened Brook’s profile. It was gone.

The realization settled over you like a wave gripping you around your ankles. He deleted it, but not before you saw it. Your eyes burned, but the first thing you thought about wasn’t the girl. It was the cemetery.

Only a few hours before, you had brought him to the one place you’d never brought anyone else. You’d shared a piece of you that was so fragile and important, and he’d handled it so carefully that you sat at her grave thinking about how much you trusted him. In the same night, he brought coffee and flowers for your mom and kissed a random girl.

That’s how you’ve ended up in Garrett Graham’s driveway.

A mixture of the contradictions and amount of tears you’ve cried makes your head spin. You’ve spent the better part of the last hour replaying the day over and over again, trying to figure out where everything went wrong. Every time you think you’ve reached some kind of conclusion, another memory surfaces and erases all of your progress. So, eventually, you stop trying.

For a second, you just sit in the driver’s seat with your head pressed against the steering wheel. You can’t stop thinking about how ridiculous this is.

Garrett’s not your best friend. He’s just Garrett. The guy who sat next to you in foreign policy and stole your notes because his handwriting resembled that of a doctor’s. The guy who always remembered to wish you luck before your exams. The guy who would always tease you for being four days younger. The guy who you only talk to when you see him while walking to class now. 

He’s just Garrett, but he’s exactly who you want right now.

Your eyes drift back to the porch light again. You have been staring at it for almost the entire time you've been sitting in this driveway. Every time your thoughts spiral, your gaze finds that same warm yellow glow spilling across the front steps and black railing. The light itself isn't remarkable. It's just a porch light attached to a house you've seen plenty of times before. But tonight, after everything that's happened, it feels like the only steady thing in your field of vision. Brooks's story disappeared. Your plans for tomorrow disappeared. Your certainty about him disappeared. The porch light hasn't changed.

You let your head fall back against the seat and close your eyes for a second. The silence inside the car presses in around you, broken only by the soft rumble of the engine and the occasional hiss of the broken speaker. You've spent the last fifteen minutes trying to convince yourself to get out, then trying to convince yourself to leave, then trying to convince yourself to stop thinking about any of it. None of those things are working. Your chest still hurts. Your eyes still burn. The memory of Brooks leaning toward that girl still keeps flashing through your head no matter how hard you try to push it away.

When you open your eyes again, the porch light is still on.

That is what finally pushes you into motion.

Not because it suddenly feels easy, and not because you suddenly know what you're going to say. It doesn't feel easy. You have absolutely no idea what you're going to say. But the light means the house is awake. It means Garrett is inside. It means that if you walk up those steps and knock on the door, someone will answer.

The realization settles in your chest slowly. You don't need a perfect explanation right now. You don't need to know what happens tomorrow. You just need to stop sitting in this car pretending that staying here is somehow easier than going inside.

You reach for the keys and turn the engine off. The sudden quiet feels almost shocking after the constant growl beneath you. For a moment, you just sit there listening to your own breathing. Then you grab your phone from the passenger seat, shove it into the pocket of your sweatshirt, and push open the driver's side door.

The cold air hits your face immediately. You pull your sweatshirt tighter around yourself as you step out onto the driveway. The gravel crunches softly under your shoes while you make your way toward the house, and with every step your stomach twists a little tighter. Part of you still wants to turn around. Part of you still wants to get back in the car, drive home, and deal with all of this tomorrow. But another part of you knows that if you do that, you'll spend the entire night alone with the same thoughts that have been tearing through your head for hours.

By the time you reach the bottom of the porch steps, the light that had been keeping your attention all night is directly above you. The warmth of it spills across the porch and catches the edges of the railing, making the front door look almost inviting. You climb the steps one at a time, your heartbeat growing louder with each one. When you finally stop in front of the door, you hesitate for a second, suddenly aware of how absurd this is. It's one-thirty in the morning. You're standing on Garrett Graham's porch with swollen eyes and a broken heart, about to interrupt whatever he was doing because you couldn't bear to be alone.

The second your knuckles hit the door, regret settles heavily in your stomach.

Not because you don't want Garrett to answer. If that were true, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have driven across town in the middle of the night, crying so hard that you had to pull into a gas station just to get yourself under control before getting back on the road. But standing on the porch and actually hearing the sound of your knock echo through the house are two very different things. 

Suddenly, the reality of what you're doing catches up to you. You are standing on Garrett Graham's front porch at one-thirty in the morning because the guy you’ve been dating for two years cheated on you.

The thought sounds ridiculous when you put it that way.

For a second, you consider leaving, but then you hear movement inside the house, and your stomach immediately drops.

The footsteps are muffled, but they're getting closer. Every second that passes makes it harder to run. You stare at the door, then at the porch floor, then back at the door again, suddenly feeling stupid for coming. 

What exactly are you supposed to say? Hi, Garrett. Remember the guy I trusted enough to introduce to my dead mom today? Turns out he cheated on me six hours later. The thought is so absurd that under different circumstances it might actually be funny, but tonight it makes your throat tighten.

The lock clicks and the door opens. 

Garrett appears in the doorway wearing a white Briar t-shirt and gray sweatpants, looking exactly like someone who wasn't expecting company. His curls are a mess, flattened on one side and sticking up on the other, and his eyes still have that heavy, tired look of somebody who'd either been planning to go to bed or had already been in bed. 

For a moment, he just stares at you from the doorway, his eyes moving across your face as if he’s trying to figure out what happened. You can practically see him trying to figure out why you're standing on his porch at one-thirty in the morning. Whatever he'd expected when he opened the door, it definitely wasn't this.

One thing you've always liked about Garrett is that he's terrible at pretending not to care. If something is bothering him, you know it. If he's worried about someone, you know that too. 

Right now, the concern on his face is impossible to miss, "Y/N?"

The way he says your name almost undoes you.

It's such a normal thing. He isn't dramatic about it. He just says your name the way anyone would when they're surprised to see somebody standing on their porch in the middle of the night.

“Hi, Garrett.” you whisper, doing your best to shoot him a small smile, but the attempt lasts two seconds before 

Garrett watches whatever expression you'd been trying to make disappear the second it reaches your face, and the concern in his eyes deepens. He looks exhausted, confused, and increasingly worried all at the same time, "Are you okay?" he asks.

The question is simple, but it completely destroys you. Your eyes immediately fill with tears. You try to answer him but the second you try to speak your throat closes up, and a strangled sound escapes instead. You look away, pressing your lips together as though that might somehow stop the tears from falling.

It doesn't.

Garrett's expression changes the second he realizes you can't answer him. The confusion disappears, replaced by something much closer to panic. He takes a small step forward onto the porch, his eyes moving over your face as though he's trying to find an explanation hidden somewhere there. For a second he just watches you struggle to pull yourself together, and then something seems to occur to him. You can practically see the thought cross his face.

"Y/N, hey. Did somebody touch you?" he asks.

The question catches you so off guard that you actually look up at him.

Garrett swallows hard. "Did somebody hurt you?"

The concern in his voice makes everything worse. You realize exactly where his mind has gone and why. As far as Garrett knows, one of his friends has shown up at his house in the middle of the night crying so hard she can't speak. He has no context or explanation. He has nothing except the sight of you standing on his porch looking completely wrecked.

Fresh tears spill over immediately.

"Y/N," Garrett mutters, dragging a hand through his already messy curls. His eyes never leave your face, "Y/N, talk to me."

You try, but the effort lasts all of two seconds before another sob catches in your throat. Garrett's entire expression tightens. One thing you've always known about him is that he cares loudly. He isn't good at pretending something doesn't bother him. If he's worried, everybody knows. If he's angry, everybody knows. Right now, every bit of concern he feels is written all over his face.

"You're scaring me," he admits quietly, "Seriously, Y/N, you're scaring me."

Something about hearing that finally breaks whatever fragile control you'd been holding onto for the last hour.

You suck in a shaky breath, "I took Brooks to meet my mom today."

The words come out so quickly they almost run together. Once they start, they don't stop, "I took him to the cemetery because I trusted him and I've never brought anybody there before and he brought flowers and coffee and sat there for hours listening to me talk about her and then he went out with his friends tonight and posted himself kissing another girl."

Garrett's shoulders drop just enough for you to realize where his mind had gone before this.

For the last several minutes, he'd clearly been imagining every possible scenario that could explain why you were standing on his porch crying so hard you couldn't speak. The relief that flashes across his face isn't relief that you're hurting. If anything, seeing how devastated you are seems to make him even more upset. It's relief that nobody touched you. Nobody assaulted you. Nobody put you in a hospital. The awful possibilities he'd been building in his head disappear, only to be replaced by a different kind of anger, “He cheated on you?”

You nod, and the movement feels embarrassingly small after everything you've just confessed.

For a moment, Garrett doesn't say anything. He just looks at you. The concern never leaves his face, but now it's tangled up with disbelief. You've spent months talking about Brooks—not constantly, but enough that Garrett knew who he was. You can practically see him trying to reconcile the guy you described with the story you just told.

Then he opens the door wider, “Please come inside.”

There isn't any hesitation in his voice. Garrett doesn't ask if you want to come in. He just takes one look at you and decides you're not standing on his porch crying in forty-degree weather any longer.

The warmth of the house hits you immediately when you step inside. It should feel ordinary. You've been here before. You've sat on this couch before. You've eaten pizza at that coffee table while listening to Garrett complain about professors and hockey and group projects in his other classes. But everything suddenly feels strangely distant, like you're observing it through glass. The strange thing is that you're grateful for it. You are so tired of thinking.

You sink into the couch cushions while Garrett disappears into the kitchen. You can faintly hear the sound of water running from the faucet and a glass tapping lightly against the counter. The normalcy of it almost makes you cry again.

When he comes back, he hands it to you gently before settling onto the couch next to you, but he doesn’t crowd you. Garrett has always had an oddly good instinct for when people need space and when they need company, and right now he seems to understand that you need both. 

For a few minutes, neither of you says much. You stare down into the water while Garrett watches you with the same worried expression he had on the porch. The TV is still playing some NHL highlights somewhere behind him, but neither of you are paying attention to it. Eventually, the silence becomes too heavy to ignore.

“I've never brought anybody there before,” the words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

Garrett's expression softens immediately.

You stare at the glass in your hands because looking at him suddenly feels impossible, “I've never brought friends. I've never brought a boyfriend. I've never brought anybody. I spent the entire drive there wondering if I was making a mistake, and then he showed up with flowers and coffee and remembered all these stories I'd told him. He sat there for hours listening to me talk about her, and I just…I thought I'd been right about him. I shouldn't have brought him, Garrett.”

Garrett's reaction is immediate, “No.”

You blink at him, confusion written on his face.

“No,” he repeats, gentler this time. “You don’t get to do that.”

The concern in his voice is almost worse than if he'd gotten angry.

“But if I hadn't—”

“If you hadn't brought him there, he still would've been the guy who cheats on his girlfriend.”

The words settle heavily between you. Garrett says them without harshness or frustration. He just sounds sad that you're even trying to carry this responsibility in the first place.

“You bringing him to the cemetery didn't make him do anything,” he continues. “You trusting him didn't make him do anything. The stories about your mom didn't make him do anything. All that happened is that you trusted somebody you cared about, and he turned out to be an idiot.”

Your eyes immediately fill with tears again.

Garrett notices (of course he does), but he doesn't backtrack, “You keep talking about the cemetery like that's the moment you messed up,” he says quietly. “It isn't. If you hadn't brought him there, he'd still be exactly who he is. You just would've found out later.”

The room falls silent again, and Garrett lets the silence sit for a few minutes before speaking again, "What was your mom like?"

The question catches you so off guard that you actually look up at him for what feels like the first time that night, “What?”

"Your mom,” his voice softens, “You've spent the last half an hour talking about Brooks and what he did. I want to hear about her.”

For a moment, you just stare at him. All night, every conversation in your head has revolved around Brooks. Every memory from the day had somehow become tangled together with the image of that Instagram story until you couldn't separate them anymore.

Now Garrett is sitting across from you asking about your mom, not because he's trying to distract you, but because he genuinely wants to know.

The answer comes out before you can overthink it, and a small smile pulls at your mouth just thinking of her, “She was funny. Really funny, actually.”

Garrett leans back slightly in the chair, the concern still written on his face but softer now, “Yeah?”

You laugh quietly, “She was one of those people who could make friends with anybody. It didn't matter where we were, but we'd leave twenty minutes after we were supposed to because she wanted to know somebody's life story. Half the time I’d be standing there wondering how she got into another conversation with a complete stranger.”

Garrett smiles, “That sounds exhausting.”

“It was.”

You spend a few minutes telling him about her obsession with French vanilla coffee and the way she'd sing along to songs despite never actually knowing the lyrics. Half the words were wrong, but she'd commit to them so confidently that nobody ever bothered correcting her. Garrett laughs at that, and before long you're laughing too.

Garrett grins, “That sounds familiar.”

You narrow your eyes, “Are you comparing yourself to my dead mother?”

“I'm saying confidence is a valuable skill.”

“That's not what you're saying.”

“It is absolutely what I'm saying.”

You shake your head, smiling despite yourself. For a few seconds, the conversation settles into a comfortable silence. Then Garrett leans back in the chair, folding his arms across his chest, “My mom was kind of the opposite.”

“Yeah?”

He nods, and the fondness in his voice is immediate, “She wasn't shy or anything. She just didn't need to be the center of everything. My dad was always the loud one. My mom was usually the person sitting back watching everybody else.”

You'd heard Garrett mention his mom before, but not often. But you can’t help but note that a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth when talking about her, “When I was little, she'd sit through every practice and game. It didn't matter if it was six in the morning or three hours away. She was always there. Half the time I'd get off the ice and she'd already have hot chocolate waiting.”

Your chest tightens just enough to remind you why Garrett understands more than most people probably realize. 

And because of Garrett Graham, for the first time since you opened Instagram, you’re remembering your mom without immediately remembering Brooks too.

Next to you, Garrett knows that tomorrow morning you're going to wake up exhausted. Your eyes will be swollen from crying, you'll probably have a headache, and if he's being honest, you'll almost definitely pretend you're fine when you aren't. Garrett knows that because that's what you do.

His eyes drift toward the kitchen for a second.

He has no idea whether there's any French vanilla creamer in the house, but he knows that as soon as you fall asleep, he’s going to check.

Because every time you talk about your mom, the sadness is still there, but it isn't consuming you the way it was when you first showed up. The stories seem to pull you out of your own head for a little while, and with each one, you look a little more like the girl he met in his foreign policy class.

And if a cup of French vanilla coffee gets you talking about her again tomorrow morning, then he'll figure out a way to make sure there's one waiting for you.