Page 297 of On His Team

And that’s so much worse than if the whole thing just stopped. If they boarded the place up and everybody left, I could grieve it properly, like a normal person. Instead, the house carries on and just swaps out the people. And I get to keep every single part of it except my brother.

The last ordinary night is a Thursday in the second week of May, and nobody knows it’s the last one. That’s the only way it could have happened, honestly. There’s nothing planned. Stanley orders food. Somebody puts something on the TV, and I switch it to Love Island because I’m rewatching a season with Rowan and it’s the finale. Blue and Melly are on the couch with Percy and Penelope. Benson and Lucy are in the kitchen. Mara’s here because I invited her. Mila’s here, too. Aspen’s at the table with a laptop, working. Stanley is right next to her.

And I’m on the ground with Rowan. My feet are resting across his lap with his hand on my ankle. I’m barely watching the TV because Rowan is rubbing his thumb against the patch of hair that I missed while shaving. He’s not teasing exactly, but it’s embarrassing, so I try to pull away. He keeps my foot in place, and we secretly play tug-of-war for a few minutes. I cave in and rest my legs, and he’s satisfied he’s won. I lean back on the couch and look around to see who’s watching. Nobody is. We’re all in our own worlds.

Camden winning nationals felt good, but to be honest, I think this is the whole point. I pull out my phone and set it up in the corner. I put the ten-second timer on and run back to Rowan. Nobody makes a thing out of it. I stand up and grab my phone. Then I take a picture of the kitchen with the two who are leaving Hawthorne. The first one is candid, and the second one, I get them all smiling. Benson wraps his arms around Lucy and kisses her. For the first time, I see her as a sister. I picture her and Benson getting married and having kids together. I start to tear up, and then I run back to Rowan before I can show it.

Graduation is mid-May, and it is nine hundred degrees outside. I’m recording the entire day like I’m a lifestyle influencer. My mom keeps crying, so I keep filming her. She’s starting to get really annoyed with me, but I don’t care. My dad has a real camera, but he’s terrible at capturing the moment.

Benson comes downstairs at Hawthorne in a gown, and I have to sit down.

“Oh my God. You look like an idiot,” I sob, wiping my tears.

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because it’s so hot outside, and I have to sit here and watch you graduate in that heat.”

“G.”

“Put the hat on,” I tell him. “Put the hat on and let me take a picture and I promise I will not say another word for the rest of the day.”

He puts the hat on. I take fifty pictures of my brother in a cap and gown in the living room of the Hawthorne House. It nearly kills me that this is it.

Rowan comes down, and my brother huffs, “Thank God you’re here. She needs tending to.”

I laugh when Rowan walks over to hug me. “I’ll be back next year, baby.”

I hug him and that makes me stop crying. “I know.”

The ceremony is two hours, and I hear about five names. Benson Reeve. Stanley Ermington. Rowan Laurens. Aspen Linwood. Andrew Prescott, who I don’t know but who Mara cheers for. Penelope, from the architecture school, which is a completely separate line of chairs.

When they read Rowan’s name, I scream so loudly that a woman four rows in front turns around and looks at me for a long time. My mom says, “Gianna,” in the voice she uses in churches.

Rowan shakes the hand, takes the thing, and walks off, and everyone applauds while I scream again. Rowan looks out to the crowd, and I stand on my chair. He laughs while I cheer him on.

Everybody comes back to Hawthorne afterward. Families are going to dinner at six, so there’s a three-hour window, and the entire group ends up in that house with gowns thrown over the backs of chairs and caps on every horizontal surface.

Stanley opens the champagne he’s been hiding since April and pours it into eleven different vessels, one of which is a measuring cup.

“To us.”

“That’s it?” I say. “That’s the toast?”

“What else is there?”

“You had four years.”

“To us,” Stanley says again, with feeling, and everybody drinks out of a measuring cup.

I get all five of them together four minutes later. “Nobody move.”

Immediate, universal groans.

“I mean it. Nobody move. All five of you, right there, in front of the—”

“G––”

“Benson. Stand next to Percy.”