Three Strikes (Four of a Kind Book 3)

by Kellie Bean

  I've rewritten two of my personal essays in the last week alone. Despite that, I still haven't managed to send anything at all in for consideration. Even if I do it after the holiday, I'm still a month ahead of the game. It'll work out.

  Rosie: Three more nights until the most amazing weekend ever!

  We've already made plans for every single day of the four day weekend, I couldn't be more excited! We'll mostly be staying around the house, since the whole point of this weekend is for me to be around for Aunt Grace.

  No one is complaining.

  Nothing we have planned is anything we wouldn't mind my Aunt Grace including herself in. It's all just bonus time.

  Reilly: Yes! Can't wait. All done with your essay for tomorrow?

  Rosie: No. If I have to write another word about the civil war I'm probably going to throw my textbook out a window and drop out of school.

  Reilly: Put on the Hamilton soundtrack in the background. It'll make history slightly less painful.

  Rosie: Wrong war.

  Reilly: I really don't see the problem.

  Rosie: You're a genius.

  We both sign off to get back to work a few short minutes later. My 'see you soon' and her 'miss you already' both seem weak in comparison to what I want to say.

  It is what it is.

  I know I'm in love with her, maybe that's enough.

  I also know I have no excuse for not saying something already, we've been together for months.

  Reece has already started dating and broken up with a whole new boyfriend, yet I still can't tell the girl that I'm crazy about how much she means to me.

  If everything goes according to plan this weekend though, we'll finally have some time to relax and just be together. There will be a time when there won't be anything between us except the words I've been desperate to say.

  No more excuses.

  I'm in love with Rosie, and it's well past time she knows.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I'm woken up early on Wednesday morning by the sound of my mom and sisters, trying to sneak out of the house without waking anyone up. It's still pitch-black outside. I have it on good authority that it's still way too early. Hopefully, Mom makes Reece and Rhiannon take turns driving too rather than just letting them sleep the whole way.

  My eyes stay pressed shut as I pretend to stay asleep when the sound of a car door slamming rings through the neighborhood. At least I've managed to take over Reagan's bed, now that she's away. I'm still thinking about how amazing it is to have a mattress underneath me again as my eyes drift shut. This time, I sleep until it's actually time to start my day.

  Aunt Grace is still in bed when I wake up, leaving me to go through my morning routine completely on my own for maybe the first time in my life.

  Is this what being an adult feels like?

  Or rather, living alone. I guess so. This amount of quiet is definitely not what being an adult feels like for my parents. I make tea, eat my breakfast and flip through my phone, and all the while no one talks to me. It's perfectly quiet.

  I don’t imagine I'd love this long term but for now, it's kind of cool.

  Life feels pretty much the same as always once I'm at school, except that for once I'm the only person in the whole building that looks like me.

  I get home at the end of the day to find our kitchen table piled high with chips and candy. Aunt Grace has been busy.

  Rosie's spending tonight and tomorrow until dinnertime with her dad, so for tonight it's just me and my aunt and the dog. Molly yips from the spot where she's dragged her bed to today, right under the kitchen table like she knows I'd forgotten about her.

  "Hey cutes," I say, kneeling down as she runs towards me.

  Molly pounces up, planting her front paws on my arm as she tries to kiss my face. She's so much bigger now than she was when we brought her home, almost a full grown dog.

  When Molly gets bored and runs off to find a toy, I stand and call out.

  "Aun Grace?" I make sure not to raise my voice too loud, just in case she decided to take a mid-afternoon nap.

  It doesn't take long before she appears, coming in from the dining room.

  "Welcome home, roomie."

  "Looks like you've been busy." I wiggle my eyebrows and lick my lips, as I stare greedily at the table.

  There's enough there to feed me, Aunt Grace, all of my sisters, and probably Reece's soccer team as well.

  "Oh, those are just for me. You're going to need to go out and get your own."

  Despite Aunt Grace's threats, the two of us end up on the couch with a pile of food between us before four in the afternoon. There's no talk of dinner or plans, we just sit and flip through the channels. I don't have to think about tests or exams or college applications. We just watch sitcoms until the food pile runs low, then we decide to order a pizza rather than deal with cooking anything.

  "Now that I think of it..." Aunt Grace says, after paying the delivery guy. "I had planned to go grocery shopping tonight, so we'd have something to eat tomorrow. Unless you want to go right now? We might have missed our window on that though."

  "You mean we'll have to order pizza again tomorrow?" I ask, shaking my head like this is somehow the worst idea I've ever heard.

  "Don't tell your mom."

  I'd hold a finger up to my lip to show her it'll be our little secret, but I have a slice of cheese pizza already in each hand.

  "So no Rosie tonight?" Grace asks once we're back on the couch. "I kind of assumed she'd be here all day every day this weekend."

  "She's at her dad's tonight. You'd be okay with her being here a lot?" I check.

  Grace huffs, looking offended. It’s like I've questioned her mantel as world's coolest aunt or something.

  "I mean, I've already invited her over for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and we've been invited to have dinner with her and her mom at the diner in town if you want. Pizza is a valid option too, just throwing it out there."

  "Whatever you want to do, I'm good with. It'll be nice to see more of Rosie too, she hasn't been around much recently."

  "School." I shrug. That one word is enough to explain everything.

  "Good. Well, not good. I was worried for a minute there. I'm rooting for you two, you know. Rosie reminds me a lot of my first girlfriend, I think you two are adorable together."

  "Aww, thank—"I blink repeatedly, replaying the last thing Aunt Grace said again in my head, just to be sure I heard her right. "Girlfriend?"

  "Yeah. Her name was Siobhan. We met in high school just like you two. You look confused."

  "I am confused! You're gay? Or bi?"

  I tried to remember anyone my aunt had ever mentioned dating, or any romantic looking pictures she might have posted to Facebook. I come up completely blank.

  "My term of choice is ‘queer’. I'm not picky though. As you've probably noticed, I'm not exactly throwing labels around all the time. I could have sworn you knew. I've told you a hundred times."

  "No way! You've always made it super clear that you support the LGBTQ community, one hundred percent. You’ve ever officially told me you're gay. Or queer. Or anything else."

  I can be kind of dense. Sometimes I miss important things about the people I love. This, I know that I didn't miss this. Not a chance.

  "Yes!" Aunt Grace declares like I've proven her point for her. "Sure, I didn't come out with a rainbow pin or make any declarations online. We didn't do that when I was growing up, still don't back home, not really. At least not people my age. There were things I said, hints you could lay out for the willing to pick up and everyone else to ignore. I was so sure you knew. This whole time I thought you knew."

  I might be having a stroke right now, because none of this makes sense. I mean, the reason I never had any doubts about how Aunt Grace would react when I came out was that she'd always made a point of making sure we knew she didn't share the same conservative beliefs as a lot of the older people in Ireland still did.

  The first ti
me I saw her in person, she took me aside and told me that she knew I'd have a wonderful life full of love and happiness. She'd emphasized the fact she knew. Back then, I'd been both overjoyed and thankful, it wasn’t like I’d been on the lookout for hidden clues or anything.

  Well then. I really am entirely clueless.

  "I had no idea," I say, sounding as dumbfounded as I feel.

  A big part of me expects Aunt Grace to look disappointed all while telling me it's fine. Instead, she starts howling, laughing so hard her insides must be about ready to explode out of her body.

  I can't help but laugh too, but mine comes out a little more nervous.

  "Serves me right, I guess. I thought I was being completely obvious. This whole time you've just thought... what?"

  "That you were an amazingly supportive aunt."

  "Well, I'm that too. I just have a bit more empathy for you girls than you might have imagined. It's nice seeing you two, remembering when I was that young. Things were different, sure. The feelings were the same."

  "Glad to be of service," I say, the words coming out sounding more like a question. "Do my parents know?"

  "Yes, absolutely." Grace hesitates. "I should probably check, just in case."

  "It just seems strange that they'd never mentioned it to me. For all the times mom has tried to give me some really awkward pep talks, you'd think this would be an easy connection to make."

  "I wouldn't be surprised if she was protecting my privacy. She would never have told unless she was absolutely certain I wanted all of you to know. Since I've apparently been dancing around the subject for a decade, I can see where the confusion might have come in. I even brought a date to their wedding, so I'm guessing they picked up that particular hint if not all the other ones."

  "Probably," I say, not totally convinced.

  But hey, what do I know?

  An episode of Friends comes on TV, silencing the conversation for now as Aunt Grace and I fall into the lives of nineties sitcom characters. I try to envision what life without cellphones, or even really computers must have been like.

  The night goes quickly and quietly, the silence between Aunt Grace and I never being anything but comfortable. At first I thought I'd have questions, but nothing comes to mind. It's nice to know that there's one more thing that Aunt Grace and I share though. I'll carry tonight with me for a long time to come.

  "Oh wow, it's almost midnight!" I say as the movie we're watching ends; the channel displays the current time. "We should get some sleep."

  That was the one thing that Mom really tasked me with before she left: make sure Aunt Grace gets enough sleep and that she remembers to drink lots of water.

  "That's no fun. It's not like we have anywhere to be first thing tomorrow. Look! Miss Congeniality is on next. It's one of my favorites. We have to watch!"

  It's hard for me to argue with logic like that.

  "You win. I'm going to get more snacks."

  I stand up before remembering what it actually means that the clock has now ticked past midnight.

  "Happy Thanksgiving."

  "You too, sweetheart. I so appreciate you wanting to hang out with me for the holiday. I'm pretty sure this is my first proper Thanksgiving in the States, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

  Not wanting to get too cheesy, I don't respond. I'm in love with the way things worked out.

  Usually, the night before Thanksgiving is one giant stress fest with prepping food and coordinating with family, with someone inevitably picking a fight with someone else. The morning doesn't tend to be much better.

  This time around, the biggest issue I have to contend with is whether we should do another bag of popcorn or open the gummy worms. Which is a trick question, since the answer is both.

  Molly starts whining in the other room around the same time as I put the popcorn in the microwave, probably watching as a squirrel taunts her from the lawn. It doesn't matter how many times we refuse to let her out, she still insists on challenging her nemesis through the window almost every day. Aunt Grace is apparently too nice to tell her off for it.

  The bag hasn't even started popping yet, so I head back to the living room. Molly isn't in her usual spot by the window. She's up on the couch, right beside Grace. Her nose is pressed up right against my aunt's shoulder, and her whining only intensifies.

  Aunt Grace's head is tilted straight back. I can't see her expression in the dark of the room, only lit by the television and the streetlight outside the window. I imagine the worst. Is she dead?

  Oh God, she's dead!

  I scream at my body to move, to go to her, but it takes a moment to get myself moving again.

  Go, Reilly! Go!

  "Grace!" I shriek, running around the side of the couch.

  From here I can see that her eyes are closed. She doesn't stir at all.

  "Grace?"

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Waiting for the ambulance to come is an endless nightmare. The woman I talked to on the phone walked me through everything I needed to check: her pulse, her breathing. Both were still there. She's alive, but unconscious. Someone is coming to help her.

  I don’t want to leave Grace alone, but I take ten seconds to lock Molly upstairs in my parents' bedroom where she has a spare water dish, double checking that the front door is unlocked on my way back to the living room.

  I don’t know what else I can do. I've done everything I can.

  Back by Grace's side, I check her pulse again. Still there.

  Please, please, please, just stay.

  The living room flashes to life in red and blue before I actually realize I can hear sirens outside. Seconds later, a man and a woman rush through the door.

  I stand back.

  Someone speaks to me, I think I answer.

  They're checking her.

  Moving her.

  I faintly hear someone say something. Come with them?

  At the last second, I think to grab my phone. I find Grace's too, tucked beside where she'd been sitting when...

  Is Aunt Grace is still breathing? Yes.

  Is there another adult home? No.

  She has cancer! I remember to tell them she has cancer.

  Molly is barking furiously from upstairs when we leave. I don't remember to lock the door.

  It's okay. This is a safe neighborhood.

  Nothing bad happens here.

  The hospital itself is a flurry of motion and voices. Different people all telling me what to do.

  They won't let me see Grace.

  I call both my parents, neither one picks up. They must still be asleep.

  I find a nurse who looks sympathetic, bugging her for updates every few minutes all to no avail. She doesn't know anything. She promises she'll find me when she does.

  Unable to just sit any longer, I dial Rosie's number.

  Her voice comes to the line after only one ring.

  "Hey beautiful. I didn't think you'd still be awake."

  "Rosie?" My voice shakes so badly her name comes out jumbled.

  "Yeah? Reilly, what's wrong?"

  "I'm at the hospital. Aunt Grace passed out. They're working on her now. I don't know what's happening..."

  There's a long pause, and for a second I think the call may have disconnected. "Reilly..."

  "I'm okay. I think she's okay."

  She has to be.

  "My dad's still up. I'm going to get him to give me a lift to you, okay?"

  "You don't have to do that."

  "I'm going to do it anyway. Text me the info on where I can find you."

  Just like that, she's gone.

  As soon as I lose the connection to Rosie's voice, panic starts to rise in my chest all over again. Someone brings me water in a flimsy plastic cup. I don't see who it is.

  My thoughts are still all over the place. Less fragmented than before, but the longer I have to think about things, the more my heart starts to hurt. This was almost easier when all I had to do was hang on for dear
life.

  The waiting room is so quiet at this time of night. Although, it might start to pick up soon. I think I've heard somewhere that hospitals always get more emergencies during holidays.

  Suddenly it hits me. I'm an idiot. My first thought was to call my parents, but they aren't the only people in Richmond. I call Rhiannon first and breathe a sigh of relief when she picks up.

  "Happy Thanksgiving, Reilly. Go to sleep."

  "Rhi, something's happened. We're both okay." I don't know if that's true. "I'm at the hospital now. Aunt Grace passed out. She was still breathing, the paramedics told me she'll be fine. They might have just been trying to calm me down. Can you get Mom?" I considered asking for Dad, but he shouldn't get this kind of news about his sister from his freaked out daughter.

  Rhiannon doesn't say much before handing me off to our mom. She says my name into the phone and before I have a chance to say anything, I can hear Rhiannon murmuring in the background.

  Is Dad there too? So much for breaking the news gently.

  Gently isn't exactly Rhiannon's way of living.

  Five minutes later, someone tells me they're going to pack up and get on the road right away. Everyone's coming home, even Dad. It will take them hours to get here.

  Looking up from my phone, I search for Rosie. There's no sign of her yet. There wouldn't be.

  Is there anyone else I should call? I don’t know. Not my grandparents. Dad will handle that. What time is it even in Ireland right now? Closer to morning, still early.

  Needing something to do to feel helpful, I switch my phone for Aunt Grace's, still trying to remember anyone she would have mentioned. Anyone important. I doubt I'd be able to get up the nerve to call anyone else myself, especially since I don't have any actual news. Maybe it will be helpful later. Mom can sort through what I find and figure out if there's anyone she should be contacting once she gets here.

  Aunt Grace's call log is fairly quiet. It doesn't look like she's been using her phone much since she got here. A few calls with her mom, a few with her dad. One from my dad. One from Reagan and twenty-three missed calls from an unlabeled number.