The last place I wanted to be was home alone with Mom. I calculated in my head how long of a drive it would be to get to Indiana State and decided that the only way I would be able to sleep that night was if I was with Ashley. Despite my ever-present fear of driving, especially at night, I went against my better judgment and hopped inside Norma the Nissan.
I convinced myself that as long as I was listening to Brendon Urie’s voice—he was the soundtrack to the movie that was my life—there was no way that he’d let me crash. I would make it in one piece to Ashley’s dorm room by the power of Panic! at the Disco and she would make everything better.
Forty-five minutes on the interstate went by surprisingly quickly. I was about a half hour out from Indiana State and signs for Terre Haute were starting to pop up alongside the car. I’d distracted myself by loudly singing along to the CD in the car, especially when giant trucks would get themselves into my safety bubble in between cars. I kept telling myself that one more song finished was another five minutes closer to Ashley, to having someone tell me that everything was going to be okay.
The Indiana State University exit came into view and my heart swelled. I had finally made it with Norma, still all intact. I wound through the campus, only kind of remembering how to get to her dorm building from the day when we dropped her off. Thankfully there were signs pointing to Reeve Hall. I parked behind the dorm building, hoping that it would only warrant a cheap ticket and that they wouldn’t tow Norma away. Either way, it was too late to find their free parking, and Norma was staying right where I left her.
I followed a group of girls through the door of Ashley’s dorm and got onto the elevator behind them, hitting the tenth-floor button. God, I hoped she was home by now. It didn’t even register with me that it was a Friday night and that she was probably out at a party with friends. What if she went home with someone for the night and never came back to her room? Would I have to sleep out in the hallway like a weirdo?
I approached room 1014 slowly, hovering my fist just above the door. I should have called. Coming without warning was not what Ashley deserved, especially if she was making new friends and having new experiences. Still, here I was.
I knocked anyway. I held my breath until I heard the lock click open. The door swung open to an Ashley in her pj’s with her hair sticking to one side of her face. The lights were off, and she rubbed her eyes, double-taking at seeing me in her doorframe.
“Savannah?” she asked, her voice with a slight lisp from her nighttime retainers.
“Hi,” I said, my voice cracking.
“Oh my God, what happened?” she asked. “Come in. Come here.”
She pulled me into a bear hug, and my head rested in the crook of her neck. I couldn’t believe that I was here actually seeing her again. I felt like it had been lifetimes since we had seen each other, and not just a week. I wasn’t sure how anyone did this whole “being a sibling but living far away from each other” thing. At least for me, it was turning out to be pretty rough.
She separated us to be at arm’s length so she could look at me. I held back tears in an extreme way, wanting to seem like I was more together than I actually was. But who was I kidding? She knew that something bad had to have happened for me to make the drive in the dark.
“What happened?” she asked, more firmly this time. She led me to the futon underneath Isabel’s lofted bed and turned on the fairy lights that wound along the legs and underneath the bed.
“On Monday, Mom had a huge freak-out at me about food,” I said. “Like, she was the most out of it that I’d ever seen her. I had been making cookies for George and me to eat while we were studying, and she comes down and takes them out of the oven while they’re still baking and starts throwing the half-baked cookies in the trash while she keeps yelling at me about processed sugar. All in front of George. It was absolutely mortifying.”
“Oh my God,” she said. “Savvy, something has to be wrong with her.”
“We’ve known this for months, Ashley! That show messed with her brain. But ‘we’re the kids’ and we can’t tell her that we’re scared by how she’s acting or that we think she should get help,” I said. “I don’t know what to do, Sissy. I don’t want to be home alone with her anymore. I’m scared,” I said.
She looked across the room, her brain calculating everything that she could do to make the situation better. This was classic Ashley, trying to fix everyone else’s problems so that everyone around her could be happy. I didn’t know if there was anything that she could do herself to fix this one. It was almost too far gone for us to handle on our own.
“You can absolutely stay for tonight and tomorrow night. We’ll figure out a way tomorrow for you to stay with Grace for the next couple of nights until things get figured out. I could come home for a while until things blow over, or if they blow up, I’ll be there to handle it with you,” she said.
“You can’t just leave school,” I said.
“It would only be for a few days,” she said.
As much as I would love for her to come back home and act as a buffer to Mom’s newfound episodes, she couldn’t start coming home so soon in school. If she came back and realized how far gone things were, she wouldn’t want to go back to school. And that wasn’t fair to her. She deserved to be in college and have her new group of friends and be happy.
“No, I’ll figure it out with Grace. I think you should stay here. Learn how to be a full-fledged adult and stuff,” I said.
“Savvy—”
“Not up for debate,” I said. I took her hands in mine and faced her. “But I will one thousand percent stay here tonight. There’s no way in hell I’m getting back in that car and driving in the dark.”
“I can’t believe you drove all the way here. Is this the longest you’ve ever taken Norma for a spin?” she asked.
“Yes, and I never want to do it again,” I said, leaning back into the futon. I could finally relax my muscles that had been tense from the moment I got into the car. The exhaustion from the night finally set in, and I wasn’t sure that I could get up from the futon.
“What did George say?” she asked.
“What?” I asked, my eyes popping open.
“When he saw Mom like that. How did he react?” she asked.
“He was super cool about it. Lovely, even. He made me feel like it was just a normal thing that he was used to seeing,” I said.
“He sounds like he’s a good person to have in your corner,” she said.
“He is,” I replied.
“Will I ever get to meet the illustrious George?” she asked.
“I hope so,” I said, leaning my head against the arm of the futon. “He’s kind of wonderful. He makes up for a lot of the shitty things that have been going down with Mom lately.”
“Well, good. You deserve to have a George in your life. Shall we toast with a pint of unopened ice cream?” she asked.
“You have spoken my language,” I said.
* * *
Thankfully, Ashley had the wherewithal to text Mom that I was there with Norma that night before I passed out on the futon. The combination of being entirely exhausted from the day’s events, plus the ice cream right before bed, put me into a deep sleep that I didn’t wake up from until around noon on Saturday. I could hear Ashley and her roommate, Isabel, whispering about why I was here unannounced. Isabel made Ashley promise that she wouldn’t have unannounced visitors again. There’s guilt bomb number one thousand for this weekend.
Once Isabel was gone, I peeked my eyes open. I rolled over to look at Ashley, who was sprawled out on the floor reading a textbook.
“I’m sorry if I pissed your roommate off,” I said.
“Don’t be,” she said. “If she’s weirded out by my sister spending the night, we’ve got bigger issues.”
“What’s the plan for the day?” I asked. For the first time I realized what a bad idea it was to travel to my sister’s college dorm room without a change of clothes or a toothbrush. I felt grimy and gross from the day before without any way to remedy that situation.
“Well, first we need to go have the amazing dining hall brunch that they cook on the weekends. It’s like they know that greasy breakfast food will cure all our hangovers the next day,” she said.
“I’m always down for some greasy breakfast,” I said.
“Then I thought we could shop around town a little bit. There are cute stores, especially the local bookstore, that I think you would like. And then tonight, if you’re up for it, we could go to a party I’m planning on going to and you could meet my friends. They practically know you at this point, because I talk about you all the time,” she said.
“You talk about me with your friends?” I asked. I thought that while she’d been off making new friends at school that I was the furthest thing from her mind. It warmed my little sad heart to hear that I was still someone she told her friends about.
“Well, duh,” she said. She stood up from her textbook and went in front of her closet. “I actually think I accidentally packed something of yours that was mixed with my laundry when I left. Can you wear these jeans with one of my shirts?”
“I was wondering where those went!” I said.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I’ve totally been hoarding them.”
She tossed me the jeans and a flouncy baby doll top with pink polka dots. Not really my style, but I would take anything to get out of this dress and not have this smell clinging to me anymore. I pulled the top over my head, and even though it was arguably one of Ashley’s flowiest tops, it was tight across my chest and my upper arms. I would have to be careful how I moved in it so that I didn’t accidentally tear a hole in it.
We moved with a wave of students who also woke up late from a night out. They were all migrating toward the dining hall to get this magical brunch food that Ashley had hyped so much. Honestly, if this doesn’t beat out IHOP with all that buildup, I was going to be super disappointed.
When we got inside the dining hall, the line wound around the entire front lobby. I’d never seen so many kids around my age who looked, well, terrible. Everyone looked like they’d rolled out of bed without brushing their hair or bothering to clean off the smudged makeup from their night out. And the best part about it? Literally no one cared. I could get used to that aspect of college.
I heaped a tower of pancakes and hash browns onto my plate without being bothered if they all got drenched in syrup. Even though it was buffet style, I felt like I needed to grab everything I saw that looked delicious before all the hungover college kids got to it first.
After we finished up brunch (totally worth the hype) Ashley took me on a tour of the college town and the little bookstore just off campus like she’d promised. The way she described everything, like she’d lived here forever and with an excited sparkle in her eye, stirred a feeling inside me that was bittersweet. I was happy that she was acclimating to her new life, and that she’d found the people and places that made her happy within it, but I felt like I was no longer part of this equation.
We wandered our way into a coffee shop packed with students huddled around their laptops and heaps of textbooks. I overheard a girl ordering in front of us ask for three shots of espresso, and someone whisper behind her “been there.” Midterms were just around the corner, and more guilt started to fill my body. If I wasn’t here, Ashley could have been using this time to study.
“Why don’t you go find us a table?” Ashley asked, looking around to locate an empty seat. “Is caramel macchiato still your drink?”
“It sure is,” I said.
I wound through the mass of overcaffeinated and underrested college students until I spotted the last free table in the back corner. It was a tall table, which was less than ideal for a short person like myself. I knew just from the look of it that my feet would most definitely fall asleep, because my toes would not be able to reach the bar on the bottom of the chair.
I pulled on the shirt that Ashley let me borrow so that it would come down to cover my backside. I felt like an intruder coming to spy in Ashley’s territory, wearing her clothes, sitting in her favorite coffee shop, observing her classmates in their natural habitat. No matter how many times she repeated that it was not a problem that I dropped by unannounced, I still felt like I was ruining her weekend.
“Look, they even made you a coffee heart,” Ashley said, sliding the most delicious-looking caramel macchiato that I’d ever seen in front of me. I grasped the giant blue cup, which was truly as big as a cereal bowl, and took my first sip. Glorious. Ashley waited with wide eyes for my official review.
“I heart this so much,” I said.
“I knew you would! This is my late-night fuel of choice,” she said, finally taking her seat across from me.
“We’ll have to go back to that cute little boutique and grab the rhubarb pear perfume for you. My treat,” I said.
“Your treat? What secret lottery did you win?” she asked.
“I’ll have you know that I’m very judicious with my birthday and holiday money,” I said. “Plus, I still have a bunch of cash saved up from that summer we thought detasseling corn was a good idea.”
Ashley visibly shuddered. “Never again.”
“My hands will never be the same,” I said. “But we did make so much bank.”
She took a sip from her cup/cereal bowl (undoubtedly a mocha latte, the least coffee-filled drink of all the coffee drinks) and her eyes rolled back in her head. When she set her cup back down, she had a mustache of whipped cream that she wiped off with the sleeve of her shirt.
“How do you feel this morning?” she asked.
We were finally breaking out of our casual normalcy for the day to address the elephant in the room: my personal and emotional breakdown from last night. We’d been coasting along through the day like nothing had happened, and part of me wished that we could just forget the reason that I’d come knocking on her door and spend the day blissfully unaware.
“I’m really okay,” I said, shifting in my seat. I adjusted one of my legs underneath me on the chair to prevent it from falling asleep.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” she said. “It’s okay not to be okay.”
“It’s just…,” I started. How did I even put how I felt into words that made any sense? Even to Ashley, the number one Savannahspeak translator?
“I just feel like, there’s this whole community of people in my real life and online who have shown me that I’m allowed to be comfortable and happy in my own body. And I feel that way most times. Most days I can brush off little comments that Mom makes, but some days, they tear me down and negate every positive thing that I’ve learned to love about myself. It’s like no matter how many positive affirmations I get from an article, book, online forum, or human in real life, one comment from her can erase them all. Why does she have so much power over me?” I asked.
“Because you let her,” she said. She made it seem so simple. Like taking the power back from the one person I had to live with every day was some easy thing that I could choose to do.
“How do I stop it?” I asked.
Ashley took a long sip from her drink, setting down her cup with careful purpose. She reached out across the table and took my hand in hers.
“You’re talking to the person who alienated one side of her family by coming out. For the first year that Grandma and Grandpa Alverson stopped inviting us to things until my ‘phase’ was over, I was wrecked. You remember that time. It made me hate Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were my absolute favorite holidays. But one day, I woke up and realized that I could keep being miserable about their decision to exclude me for something I had no control over, or I could hope that one day, their desire to get to know their granddaughter and be a part of her life would outweigh their biases,” she said.
“But it’s been three years now,” I said.
Her head sunk a bit, but she squeezed my hand.
“There’s no expiration date on acceptance. I do believe that. Humans have been notoriously stubborn in their beliefs for centuries, but change happens. People evolve. And I’m able to continue on as my true self, living a happy and open life, with the hope that the people I love will come to accept me for who I am eventually,” she said. “Give Mom time. She’s very wrapped up in her own experience right now, but it won’t always be this way.”
“How did you get so mature?” I asked.
“Didn’t you hear? I’m in college now.” She winked.
* * *
Ashley’s friend Mallory came over to get ready for the party, and they were both taking sips from a bottle of wine they’d snuck into the dorm room. Every part of that sentence made me all sorts of uncomfortable. I may not be an actual student at ISU yet, but I did know that it was against the rules to have alcohol in your room. And that you could be fined quite a bit of money for breaking that rule.
I’d slipped back into the dress I wore last night but doused it in two different kinds of perfume to take away some of the smell of last night’s travels that still clung to it. I fishtail-braided my hair again, this time more out of necessity to hide how greasy my hair had become. There was not enough baby powder in the world to make my hair look clean.
“So will Ms. Yael be joining us tonight?” Mallory asked.
Ashley poked her in the side with her elbow. “She said she’d think about it. Nothing was confirmed.”
“What?” I said, standing up from the futon. This was some news that I needed to get in on.
“Yael and your lovely sister finally had their rom-com moment two nights ago. I mean, we’d all called it since the first day of classes, but it officially happened,” Mallory said.
“I knew that you two would be a thing!” I said.
“We aren’t a ‘thing’ and nothing is official. Y’all are jinxing it! Just let me bask in the fact that it happened and I’ll go from there,” she said.
I came up behind her and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so happy for you. You deserve a rom-com moment.”
“Thanks, Sissy,” she said, wrapping her arms around mine. She went back to getting ready with Mallory, and I watched it all unfold like a fly on the wall. If I weren’t here, she’d probably get to a good buzz off the wine and build up the confidence to go over and ask Yael to go with her to the party. She would say yes (because who could say no to Ashley?) and they would go to the party and have many more rom-com moments together. It would be the perfect, fun weekend for her and a chance to explore the new possibility of a relationship with Yael.
But instead she was here, having to include her high school sister who was in a less-than-happy spot. I’d intruded on her plans for the weekend without asking and without taking into consideration that she might not want me to be there. I wrapped my arms around my legs on the futon as Mallory and Ashley finished getting ready. When Ashley turned to me, I motioned toward the door.
“You guys go out and have fun. Please, go make sure that that girl goes to that party with you. You’ll have way more fun with her than you will with your sober high school sister. I’m super tired anyway—I might just crash in your bed until you come home,” I said.
“What? No! You should come to the party! It will be fun, I promise. Even if you’re sober,” she said.
“I love you for wanting to include me, but seriously. You should go have a fun time and don’t worry about me. I’ll be out once my head hits the pillow. I promise,” I said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Positive,” I said. “But the only promise you have to make me is that you will make sure that Yael goes out with you tonight in my absence.”
“Ugh,” she sighed. “I guess that can be arranged.”
“You all have fun. I swear, I’ll just slow you down if I go with,” I said.
She enveloped me into a hug and I couldn’t help but notice her normal Ashley smell was masked by the cheap wine she’d been drinking. “I love you, Sister.”
“Love you, too,” I said.
After she and Mallory were long gone, I loosened the tie on the dress and took my hair out of its fishtail braid. I climbed up the rickety ladder, into her lofted bed, and fell asleep right as my head hit the pillow, just like I’d promised.
* * *
I got the full download on the Ashley-Yael situation the next morning, and they both decided that they were interested in being exclusive with each other. We scarfed down our bottomless brunch in the dining hall until I was sure someone would have to roll me out. I decided that it was time I go check on Norma to make sure she hadn’t been towed yet, and for me to start the journey home.
Ashley walked me to the car, and sure enough, there were two parking tickets flapping underneath the windshield wipers. I plucked them out before turning back to Ashley and giving her one last bear hug. I thanked her again for letting me invade on her personal time and space, and reminded her to apologize to Isabel on my behalf for coming up unannounced.
“Stop,” she said. “You’re always welcome here.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re the greatest?” I asked.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come back with you for a few days? I can make it work with my classes. You and Mom are my number one priority.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “And your number one priority right now should be you and your classes. I swear, if you come down unannounced because you’re worried about me I’ll be super pissed.”
“Fine, I won’t do it,” she said. She rubbed her hand up and down my shoulder. “See, I’ve always been right about one thing. You’re stronger than you think, Savvy. The fact that you’re helping to put my school and my happiness first is a huge sign of maturity.”
“If this is what adulting feels like, I’m not sure that I like it,” I said.
“No one ever said adulting was easy,” she replied.
“I mean, technically you just said ‘adulting was easy’ in your sentence,” I said.
She smacked my arm. “Who invited the smart-ass?”
“You know you love it,” I said.
“I do,” she said. “Come here, you little weirdo. Promise me that you’ll drive safe. I don’t want to get any scary calls about Norma doing any NASCAR-style effects on the highway, you hear me?”
“I’ll try my best to keep her in check,” I said, pulling away from her hug. “I’ll text you as soon as I get home. Promise.”
“Good,” she said. I stepped into the car, slamming the door behind me in a way to signify to myself that it was time to go. I could have stayed there talking to her for an eternity, but I knew I’d already overstayed my welcome. It was time to get back to my normal life and to my very cute and rambunctious white poodle.
I watched her wave in my rearview mirror until she looked like a tiny ant in the distance. It had been so comforting to see her, but it also gave me a new sense of unease about what my own college future might look like. I might not want to be at the same college as Ashley, which I always thought I would want. Maybe the two pieces of our college puzzle weren’t meant to fit together like I always imagined.