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A New Leaf

Seventeen Years Old, Tennessee

On New Year’s Day, I jot resolutions into my journal.

I will cherish my friends.

I will try something new.

I will treat Mom and Dad better.

I will honor Beck.

Then I invite Paloma, Meagan, and Sophia over. My parents (and Major) are elated when the doorbell rings. I give them all a look— chill —before answering, then making introductions while my dog turns giddy circles in the foyer.

“I’ll bake cookies!” Mom says as I lead the girls to the stairwell.

Up in my room, Meagan says, “Your parents are super nice.”

“I guess.” I lower my voice. “I still haven’t told them about CVU.”

Soph’s eyes widen. “When will you?”

“In February. When Early Action acceptances are sent out. I’ll let them go on believing that’s how I applied. What I haven’t figured out is how to convince them that CVU is the school for me. They’re stuck on this idea that I’m only interested because that’s where Beck went.”

Meagan asks, “Where’d you want to go before he landed in Charlottesville?”

I tell my friends about the Pacific Northwest, and my daydreams of a semester in Melbourne or Sydney. “But I was a kid back then. I had no idea what to look for in a college, or what I’d actually want to do after high school. CVU is a great school,” I tack on, though I sound like I’m trying to convince myself as much as I am them.

“It really is,” Paloma agrees. “But Australia! That would be so cool. You could spend a semester there through CVU, right?”

“Probably,” I say, though I’m not even sure if CVU has a study abroad program. When Beck and I got together, five months spent living in a different hemisphere became entirely unappealing, and I started to think of Australia as a pipe dream.

Paloma’s taken a seat on my bed with Soph, while Meagan’s perched on my desk chair. I sink down to the floor with Major, who’s settled now that he’s had a chance to give my friends snuffles. I try to relocate my center, my good mood, but doubt’s waging a storm in my head as I recall the posters I used to admire in Ms. Bonny’s classroom: Kings Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef and cuddly koalas.

God—Australia is a world away from Charlottesville.

I ask Beck, Am I doing the right thing?

Oblivious to the uncertainty she’s introduced, Megs scans the many photos tacked to the bulletin board over my desk. Disneyland, Park City, Rehoboth Beach. Major, being his lovable puppy self. A couple of me and Macy, who I haven’t heard from since November, when I left her text unanswered, but who I know, thanks to social media, is enrolled at GMU and living her best life in an apartment with Wyatt. And Beck… Pictures of the two of us at The Mall, cherry trees blooming pink in the background. At Busch Gardens, hair tousled, fresh off a roller coaster. Sharing the tire swing that hung in my family’s Rosebell backyard.

“This is him?” Meagan asks, pointing at a close-up taken just after Beck signed his CVU letter of intent. He’s grinning, easy and disarming.

I nod.

“Okay,” she says with an impish smile. “Now I get why you wanted to follow him to college.”

I laugh and stick out my tongue at her.

“Hang on,” Sophia says, getting up for a closer look. She puts her finger on the corner of one of my favorites. Beck, a toddler, hair carrot-orange, struggling to hold a swaddled baby who’s been perched precariously in his lap. “Is this him, too?”

“Yep. And me.”

Meagan’s eyes get big. “When you said you’d known him all your life, you actually meant all your life.”

Paloma catches my attention and arches an eyebrow, silently asking: Want me to shut this down?

I do—I really do.

But then, I think of my fourth New Year’s resolution, lettered in purple gel pen.

My history is tied up in Beck, segmented like a series of books. Growing up, I was Lia, Fated for Beck . I reveled in becoming Lia, Love of Beck’s Life . For too long, I’ve been Lia, Grieving Girl . Now it’s time to morph into another version of myself, the protagonist of an unwritten story. One without a title—or plot, yet—but a story with a message: Lia, who remembers. Lia, who shares the good.

“Our parents have been friends since college,” I say, because I’m not sure where else to start. “He and I met the day I was born. He was a part of all my firsts. All my best days. He was my whole world.”

Paloma must realize I’m about to give in to tears, because she joins me on the floor, folding my hand into hers. Gravely she says, “He was really hot.”

The humor hits its mark. Laughter fizzes in my chest, and I set it free, knowing Beck, too, would find Paloma’s ill-timed observation riotously funny.

“He was,” I say through a rush of giggles.

“You should talk about him more,” Meagan says.

“I know. It’s…it’s still hard.”

She tucks a lock of freshly pinkened hair behind her ear. “It was hard for me after my mom died, for a really long time. But now, talking about her feels like carrying a torch. Like keeping her spirit alive.”

“She said the same thing to me last spring,” Paloma says. “After my abuelo died. She got me talking. That’s when I started to heal.”

Meagan smiles and blows her a kiss. “Queen of Mourning, over here.”

We spend a while covering less depressing topics. The holidays. Our schedules for the upcoming semester. Sophia goes on about her club volleyball team. Paloma shows us the Tiffany & Co. bracelet Liam sent for Christmas and tells us that he’s got plans to visit River Hollow during spring break. Megs tells us about how her dad attempted to fry this year’s Christmas turkey—with her gran’s blessing—which resulted in a bird-sized hunk of char and a trip to the local pho restaurant.

We’re cracking up when there’s a knock on my door. Mom comes in with a platter of chocolate chip cookies. She sets it on my desk, and my friends descend. She doesn’t stick around and I appreciate that, but before she ducks out of the room, she gives me a grin like I haven’t seen in ages. Her eyes twinkle and her smile lines crinkle—which she hates—and I know her heart is happy, seeing me with friends after such solitude.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say.

Then I shoo her out the door.