I lean against the framing and look out through the open space where the window will eventually go. The backyard is still carrying the last of winter, the grass pale and flat, but there are things coming up along the fence line that suggest spring has got ideas about showing up soon, even though it’s a little early.
I think about the last few years and what they've looked like compared to what I'd expected, and how different the two are. Levi and I both thought we had a reasonable idea of what our lives were going to be, and then circumstances rearranged most of it without asking, and we ended up here instead, and I'm not going to say that was easy because parts of it absolutely were not, but I'm also not going to pretend it didn't lead somewhere good. Because it did. It led him to Magnolia Grace, and it led me back to Molly in a different way than I'd ever had her before, and standing in this half-finished room in the house my best friend is building into a permanent life with the woman he loves, I feel the full weight of how much we've both grown up.
We're not the same kids we were in middle school, when Levi was the one person who stood between me and the version of my life that would have gone badly in all the ways it could have. We're not even the same people we were three years ago. We're men now, in the fullest sense of it, with real stakes and real things to lose and real things we're building toward, and I don't think either of us saw this particular version of our lives coming, but I'm glad we're in it.
His footsteps come back through the house and he reappears in the doorway, and he's got something in his hand that he holds out toward me without saying anything first.
It's a ring box, small and dark blue, and he opens it before he extends it the rest of the way so that I can see what's inside. The ring is simple and super sparkly, a solitaire on a clean band, and it's exactly what I would have guessed if anyone had asked me what Levi would pick. It’s small, but effective and makes a lasting impression.
I look at it for a long moment, and then I look at him.
"You're going to propose?" I ask, eyebrows raised as I look at my best friend.
He takes the box back and closes it and tucks it into the front pocket of his jeans, and he's got that look on his face again, the peaceful one, except now there's something under it that's a little more exposed, a little more vulnerable, the way he used to look when he was a kid and something really mattered to him and he wasn't sure how to explain it for fear that others would make fun of him for it. "Yeah," he says. "When this room is done, and we've settled in, I'm going to make it official with her. Just pray she accepts."
She will. I know she will, and I don't say that to make him feel better or because it's the thing you're supposed to say when your best friend shows you a ring. I say it because I have watched Magnolia Grace look at him, and I know what that looks like from the outside, and there is not a single version of this where she says no. The woman would walk through fire for him. She already has.
"She'll say yes," I tell him, and I hold his gaze when I say it so he understands I'm not just talking. "Without question."
He exhales slowly, and some of the tension he'd been carrying in his shoulders releases. "Good to hear."
I lean back against the framing again and take in this moment. We’re quiet as we stand in the unfinished addition that is going to become the place where Magnolia Grace builds her business alongside this man who has been my closest friend for most of mine. I feel a whole lot of emotions shift inside of me. Not in a dramatic way, not in a way I can put into words. It’s a feeling that I’ve run from most of my life, because I wasn’t sure what it would look like when I grew up.
So many parts of my childhood and teenage years were painful because I didn’t know how to navigate life with my learning disability.
“You know, it’s funny,” I tell him. “So many times in my life I’ve worried that I wouldn’t have what others have because of my disability. I was always afraid I’d read the wrong thing at the wrong time, not understand something that someone was trying to say to me. I lived my fucking life in fear of reading in front of others, or having to explain myself in front of an audience.”
“C’mon Kota. None of that shit matters when you’re an adult,” Levi scoffs.
“You’re right. When you’re an adult and find your footing in the world, those kids who made your life a living hell are the same adults just looking to see if they can make sense of what’s happening. I was always worried,” I start, but pause for a second to collect my thoughts. “Always worried that I’d have to make my life smaller to fit in with everyone else, but now I realize it needed to be bigger. Bigger so that I could find those people who weren’t closed-minded.”
“Those people were fucking assholes, Kota. You’re a great guy, and anyone who ever thought you were less than that because of your dyslexia is a motherfucker.”
We laugh together, and I realize he’s right.
But back then I couldn’t see it. I wanted to be smaller, because bigger brought attention, and attention meant more eyes on me. Which is why I was small about what was happening with Molly, but now? Now I want the bigger. I want the out loud kind of attention that I’ve shied away from my entire life.
I have hope that when Levi finds out about the two of us, he'll get there. He loves his sister, and he loves me, and those two things are going to have to coexist in a new way once we tell him, and I believe that they will because Levi is not a small person. He's never been small about anything that really matters. He might need a minute, and I'll give him that minute, but I'm not letting Molly go to make anyone more comfortable, including her brother.
I'm never letting her go. I decided that somewhere between the bowling alley and her front porch and that afternoon in my truck in her driveway, and there's nothing left to decide.
"Let's get back to work," I tell him, because if I stay in my own head much longer I'm going to end up saying things I'm not ready to say yet, and Levi deserves to hear it the right way, at the right time, with Molly standing next to me when I say it. "We're burning daylight."
He picks up the drill and hands me the next sheet of drywall, and we get back to it, and the afternoon stretches out around us easy and familiar, two men building something that's meant to last, each of us with our own reasons to make sure it holds.
Chapter 16
Molly
"They need a L&D nurse in the ER," I hear Macie say as I walk out of my patient's room.
"What's going on?" I question, sanitizing my hands and walking up to the nurses station. I'm one of the senior nurses on the floor tonight, and if they need someone in the ER, I'll more than likely be the one to go help.
"They have someone down there who has had no prenatal care. She's thirty-six weeks, and they believe she might have preeclampsia. The OB's on call are both in births."
My heart-rate kicks up. "Are they delivering in the ER?"
"It's possible. They need someone down there now," Macie says, her ear to the phone that connects her to the ER.