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"You don't have to," Mom and I said simultaneously.
"I kinda do," he said. He leaned over and hugged me with one arm. "Thank you," he whispered, although I wasn't sure I'd done him any favors.
Davis stopped at the doorway for a second, looked back at Mom and me in what must have seemed to him like domestic bliss. I thought he might say something, but he just waved, shyly and awkwardly, and disappeared out the front door.
--
It was a quiet night in the Holmes household. Could've been any night, really. I worked on a paper about the Civil War for history class. Outside, the day--which had never been particularly bright--dissolved into darkness. I told Mom I was going to sleep, changed into pajamas, brushed my teeth, changed the Band-Aid over the scab on my fingertip, crawled into bed, and texted Davis. Hi.
When he didn't reply, I wrote Daisy. Talked to Davis.
Her: How'd it go?
Me: Not great.
Her: Want me to come over?
Me: Yeah.
Her: On my way.
--
An hour later, Daisy and I were lying next to each other on my bed, computers on our stomachs. I was reading the new Ayala story. Every time I giggled at something, she'd say, "What's funny?" and I'd tell her. After I finished it, we just lay there, in bed together, staring up at the ceiling.
"Well," Daisy said after a while, "it all worked out in the end."
"How's that?"
"Our heroes got rich and nobody got hurt."
"Everyone got hurt," I pointed out.
"What I mean is that no one got injured."
"I lacerated my liver!"
"Oh, right. I forgot about that. At least no one died."
"Harold died! And possibly Pickett!"
"Holmesy, I am trying to have a happy ending here. Stop screwing it up for me."
"I'm so Ayala," I answered.
"So Ayala."
"The problem with happy endings," I said, "is that they're either not really happy, or not really endings, you know? In real life, some things get better and some things get worse. And then eventually you die."
Daisy laughed. "As always, Aza 'And Then Eventually You Die' Holmes is here to remind you of how the story really ends, with the extinction of our species."
I laughed. "Well, that is the only real ending, though."
"No, it's not, Holmesy. You pick your endings, and your beginnings. You get to pick the frame, you know? Maybe you don't choose what's in the picture, but you decide on the frame."
--
Davis never wrote me back, not even after I texted him a few days later. But he did update his blog.
