LILY
April comes in warm and wrong.
Wrong because the trees are blooming, the harbor smells like salt and wet wood, the whole town is melting into spring, and I'm supposed to be happy about it.
Erin's shop is exploding with color. Ruth has dragged her patio tables out onto the sidewalk for the first time since October. Windows are open everywhere, clean air moving through, and Harbor Hill is doing what Harbor Hill does best: being so beautiful it steals your breath away.
I can't enjoy any of it. Spring means eight weeks. Eight weeks until I pack my life into boxes and move to Chicago and become a medical student and stop being the girl who lived across the flower shop in the town that saved her.
I got into Johns Hopkins after all. The letter came two weeks ago, and I told my parents because that's what you do, and they said all the right things. And I stood in my apartment with the phone pressed to my ear and felt nothing. Novalidation. No relief that I'd finally done the thing they wanted, become the daughter they could brag about at dinner parties.
I'm done trying to earn love that should have been freely given. I know now what love is supposed to feel like because I'm surrounded by people who give it to me easily, without conditions, without scorecards.
All I care about is that Rome is on my side, that he is proud of me. And when I told him I was choosing Chicago over Johns Hopkins, he didn't question it, didn't push, didn't try to optimize my decision. He just said he trusted my judgment.
Now I'm counting the days. The variable is time, and it's disappearing faster than I can hold it, and I can't make it stop.
The kitchen table at the Holt house has become a kind of war room. I keep showing up with information. Apartment listings. Neighborhood breakdowns. Commute times from various addresses to the medical campus.
A spreadsheet I made at two in the morning comparing rent prices against proximity to the hospital, color-coded with notes, because apparently the way I process grief is through Excel. If I can turn my future into data points and pivot tables, maybe it won't hurt so much to look at.
Rome and I these days are all about moving preparations and apartment hunts. He keeps sending me places that are too expensive and too big, penthouses and two-bedrooms with views, because Rome's love language is excess and he doesn't understand why I'd want anything less than the best.
But he's letting me choose. He'll come with me toChicago for the final checks, walk through the spaces with me, make sure I'm safe.
I want something small. Small means less empty space to fill. Small means less room to feel lonely in.
Callahan sits across from me at the table. Will is to my left, a stack of listings in front of him that he asked to see because he wanted to know where I'm going, what my plans are. When I told him I was moving, he went quiet in that particular Will way, the silence that holds approval and sadness in equal measure. I went home that night and cried myself to sleep.
"This one's in Hyde Park." I turn my laptop toward Callahan. "Walking distance to campus. One bedroom. The reviews say the building's old but the landlord is responsive. There's a laundry room in the basement."
Callahan studies the screen, his face blank.
"Looks solid," he says. "What's the lease term?"
"Twelve months. Standard. I could do a shorter one, but the monthly rate goes up."
"Go with the twelve." He leans back. "You don't want to be apartment hunting during first year."
Practical. Helpful. The exact right advice delivered in the exact right tone.
He's been doing this for weeks. Every time I bring logistics, he meets them with steady, useful input. Where to live. What to budget. How to set up utilities in a new city. He looked up the public transit map and highlighted the routes near each apartment option, folded it into a neat square, and left it on the table for me like a gift.
It's killing me.
"There's a grocery store two blocks east," I say, scrollingthrough the listing photos. "And a gym, if I ever have time, which I probably won't because first year is apparently a hundred hours a week of memorizing the names of bones and crying in library bathrooms."
"You'll have time." His voice is even, sure. "You'll make it work. You're good at that."
I want to throw the laptop across the room. I want to grab his face and shake him and say all the things that are clawing their way up my throat.
Stop being supportive. Stop being helpful. Stop sitting there like a man watching a train leave and being calm about it. Be messy. Be angry. Tell me you hate this. Tell me you don't want me to go. Tell me anything that isn't the right thing, because the right thing is making me lose my mind.
I say none of that. I scroll to the next listing instead.
"This one has a balcony."
"That's nice." His hands rest on his thighs, his posture relaxed in a way that is studied. "You like outdoor space."
