Begin Again

Valeria and I are up half the night, me reading through her manuscript and sending it to Shay, Valeria in the kitchen creating an unholy rainbow concoction as I walk her through tomorrow’s plan and start gathering supplies. The next morning Gammy Nell kisses both our cheeks, Grandma Maeve sneaks us a bottle of cheap white wine in the trunk, and my dad hugs me and tells me he’ll see me on Saturday. We may be piling into Valeria’s car with the terror of two people with a whole lot on the line, but at least we’re on that line together.

Valeria drops me off at Cardinal first, where I feel more than a little silly carting my full, mostly untouched suitcase back up the stairs. I’m only halfway down the hall when Milo emerges from his room with the same bleary-eyed countenance he has after doing the show on very little sleep.

I open my mouth to say hello, but he spots me first. I grip the handle of my suitcase, expecting Milo to tell me off for disappearing yesterday.

“You’re here,” he says instead.

There’s no sarcastic remark. No pretense of annoyance. He just crosses the hall like this moment is something inevitable, like there is no other thing to do except pull me into his arms. His embrace is so firm that I can’t help melting into it, can’t help wrapping my arms around him too, and we pull each other in.

“I thought . . . shit,” he says, his voice so close to my ear that I can feel the low rumble of it all over my body. “I don’t know. I’m glad you’re back.”

He rests his chin on the top of my head, and I bury my face in his chest, inhaling the warmth of him, the Milo-ness of him. All the thoughts that have been scrambling in my head for the past few days are gone now, replaced by this steady, low hum.

I reach for something to say before we pull apart. An apology. A joke to ease the tension. Anything other than the words “I love you,” which are the only words left in my bones.

I close my eyes then, the magnitude of them rushing through with full force. These feelings I’ve had for Milo—the burn, the ache, the need—it’s like Valeria said. They’re so much louder, so much scarier than anything I’ve ever felt. At first it made them easy to dismiss. I’ve never let myself be led by my feelings before; I’ve only ever been the architect of them. I told myself how to feel, and I felt it. There was order. There were rules.

And now there is this boy with his hands pressing into the backs of my shoulders and the whole of him beating in every pulse of my heart, smashing every one of those rules to pieces.

It’s not a crush. But whatever it is, it’s about to crush me.

When we pull apart I nearly stumble, suddenly unmoored. He looks every bit as unsteady as I do, those green eyes searching mine like he’s finally spotted a lighthouse in a storm.

“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling my suitcase closer to myself. “I thought—”

“C’mere,” he says, dismissing the apology before I even get a chance for it to land. “I wanted to show you something yesterday.”

I follow him to his room like I’m in some kind of trance, the words I love you, I love you, I love you like a mantra in rhythm with my every step. He leaves the door wide open again, not even checking to see if I’ve followed before grabbing a small stack of papers on his desk.

“I was supposed to meet with my sister Cleo the other day. The one who works in admissions. After the radio thing sidetracked us I ended up meeting with her yesterday, and . . . well.”

He hands me the pile of papers. I’m expecting them to be Milo’s transcripts, or some kind of official documentation for his transfer. Instead I see the familiar “Bed of Roses” logo that heads all the articles I did for our high school paper.

“Where did you . . .”

“You said you were worried about a ‘pity admission.’ That it had something to do with your mom.” He taps his finger on the papers in my hands, insistent. “They had no idea who your mom was, Andie. This is why they let you in. It’s all in your file. Cleo showed me the whole thing.”

I leaf through the pages, realization dawning on me. There were two envelopes the day I sent these. One had a paper copy of my transcripts to supplement the electronic files for my Blue Ridge State application. Another was the “Bed of Roses” clips my dad had asked to see.

“That’s why you went to see Cleo?” I gather up the papers and hold them to my chest. “All this time . . .”

All this time I spent worrying about what kind of person I’d have to be to fit here, and it turns out it was just myself from the start. What really brought me here was something that went deeper than anything else they could measure about me. Something that evolved here in small ways each day, with every answered listener email, every segment, every push to be braver about it than I had in years.

I break out into a grin so wide that it feels like it might split my face. I’ve been slowly blossoming here all semester, but now thanks to this, I know I’m the one who planted the first seed.

“I had no idea I sent these in,” I explain to Milo. “These clips were supposed to go to my dad.”

“Well, maybe now you can send them again,” Milo says, both with hope and with caution. “Get a chance to talk.”

“Actually, we did. That’s where I was yesterday.”

Milo leans in closer. “How did it go?”

“Better than I expected.” I stare down at the clips in my hand. I want to tell Milo about the conversation with my dad, and I will. But right now I’m still too floored by what he did to revisit it. “I’m . . . I just can’t thank you enough for doing this.”

“You belong here, Andie.” The conviction in Milo’s voice sounds different now. More quiet and more sure. “You always have.”

I set the papers back down so haphazardly on his desk that they’re already sliding off when I lurch forward, hugging him again, this time hard enough to bruise. Milo lets out an oof more for effect than actual surprise, not hesitating to hug me back.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

He just tightens his grip and shrugs mid-hug. I don’t have to see his face to know his cheeks are tinged red in that affable way they do whenever he’s pleased someone.

“Well. I mostly just did it to prove I was right,” he says. “That, and Cleo owed me lunch.”

“Uh-huh,” I laugh as we pull away from each other. “Hope it was worth your while.”

Milo’s smirk is slow, his eyes entirely on me in this way that makes the rest of his room tilt. “More than.”

Then I perk up fast enough to make him blink in mild alarm. “I have something for you, too.”

I unzip my backpack, producing a plastic container. Milo opens it carefully.

“It’s Unicorn Bark,” I say, on my tiptoes so I can peer into the container with him. “Inspired by unicorn cream cheese. Rainbow-swirled white chocolate, rainbow sprinkles, a ton of Froot Loops, and a dash of Trix. Like you said—‘indiscriminate fruit.’”

“You,” he says, with more fondness in his voice than my heart can take, “are one ridiculous human being.”

If the Unicorn Bark was meant as an apology, the look on his face is all I need to know that he’s accepted it. For a moment we both just stand there mere inches from each other, my neck craned up at a ridiculous angle to look at him, his own bent down so I can feel the shadow of him all over my body. I open my mouth to say something. I’m not even sure what. I suddenly can’t trust myself to know what I’m going to say, what I’m going to do. All the usual functions are taken over by too many overwhelming things at once—this gratitude I have for this boy who understands me in ways nobody else has. Who knows me well enough not to try to fix me, but to give me the space to fix myself. Who is standing there with this flushed, perfect face it is taking everything in me not to lean upward and kiss right now.

The door is still wide open, so when Tyler yells, “No, it’s your turn to decide this Friday’s date spot!” and Ellie giggles back, “You’re gonna regret reminding me of that when you’re stuck in the drive-in theater’s back-to-back Marvel feature!” we both snap back to attention.

Milo scratches the back of his neck. His dark curls have gotten longer this semester, a little more unruly. I will myself not to look at them. Not to imagine running my hands through them.

Because that’s just it—it doesn’t matter how I feel about him. There won’t be date nights and drive-ins. There won’t be afternoons watching the chickens cluck around the coop and inside jokes with his brothers and sisters and trivia wins and terrifying bagel-related experiments. There will be Milo in California and me here. Excelling at things that we love, but entirely apart.

“There was something else I wanted to tell you,” says Milo.

Just then, my phone chirps in my pocket. I ignore it.

“What?” I ask, holding his gaze.NôvelDrama.Org: owner of this content.

But Milo is glancing at my pocket. “Uh—you should take that.”

“No, no, tell me,” I say.

I need him to rip the Band-Aid off. I need him to tell me he’s leaving so I can nip all this in the bud, or at least as much of it as I can. It’s already overgrown in me, tangled into too many places, rooted in my heart.

But Milo shakes his head. “That’s the notification you get when a professor reaches out to you directly. So you’d better take it.”

My jaw drops. “Oh. Oh.”

I pull my phone out of my back pocket, half my attention on the screen, the other half watching Milo pluck a piece of Unicorn Bark out of the container and make an endearing little happy noise when he takes a bite.

The message is from Professor Hutchison. I’m holding office hours at 11 am. Can you make it?

Eleven A.M. That’s five minutes from now.

“I’ve—I’ve gotta go,” I blurt. If there’s a chance I can do anything to turn my grade around, I’ve got to take it.

Milo nods, already wheeling my suitcase out of his room and across the hall for me. “Everything good?”

“Gosh, I hope so,” I say sincerely, just short of catapulting the backpack into my room once we open the door. Before I go I reach up and hug him again, brief and tight, the gesture more heartbreaking than it has any right to be. Already I am counting down to the moment he leaves. Already I am bracing myself for the hurt of it all. “But what were you going to say?”

Milo just jerks his head toward the elevator. “I’ll tell you later today. I’ve got my last shift at Bagelopolis.”

Last shift. The words are a gut punch, but I’m too wired for them to register. “I’ll come find you,” I promise.

He doesn’t bother to hold me to it, ushering me out with a “Go, go, go.”

And then I’m off like a bullet, running through campus fast enough to outpace the entire Blue Ridge State track team mid–morning workout. I reach the psychology building at 10:59, taking a minute to wheeze and attempt to collect my sleep-deprived, deeply unathletic self before knocking on Professor Hutchison’s office door.

“Come in.”

It’s the first time I’ve actually seen her in this office since our one-on-one meeting. Since then it’s always been TAs leading the sessions, and plenty of other kids here to do the walk of statistical analysis shame with me. I hover in the doorway, glancing back as if someone else might turn up at any moment.

“It’s just us this morning,” says Professor Hutchison without tearing her eyes away from her laptop screen.

My voice decides to go up about three octaves when I squeak out, “Oh.” Professor Hutchison doesn’t look away from her screen when she gestures for me to sit. I do just that, my skin suddenly itching like the failure is poison ivy, the kind that spreads fast.

For a few moments, Professor Hutchison doesn’t say anything. When I can’t stand it anymore, I break the silence myself.

“I did study. I really did. I’m so sorry for bombing it, but—but I don’t want you to think I don’t take the class seriously. I really have.”

“Oh, I know,” she says mildly. She minimizes the window on her screen and moves her swivel chair over to her desk, tapping on a folder. “The TAs keep track of everyone who comes in here. You’ve been in here more often than anyone this past month.”

I sink farther into my chair. It’s true. This office is practically as familiar as my dorm.

“So you should have done better,” she says.

I close my eyes. “I know,” I say miserably. “I just . . .”

“Was recovering from that very embarrassing incident with the radio show.”

By now I know Professor Hutchison is not one to pull her punches, but I find myself letting out a sharp laugh of surprise just the same.

“Yeah,” I say. “There was . . . that.”

“I believe you, you know. That you would have done well on the exam if it weren’t for that.” She taps on the folder again. “It’s a big class, but I keep track of everyone’s progress. Since that midterm, you’ve been steadily improving.”

It’s a relief at least that she doesn’t think I slacked off. And while I’m concerned about the state of my grade, I still can’t help myself from asking, “How did you know it was me on the show?”

For the first time since I’ve known her, Professor Hutchison seems to hesitate. Like she’s used to having the power in a conversation, used to using it to keep students at arm’s length, and she knows whatever she says next is going to make that shift.

“I didn’t for a while. Not when you were first starting out, and everything sounded scripted. I even called in for advice once myself,” she says, bemused. “But the longer the segments went on, your voice—at some point it sounded too much like Amy’s to mistake.”

It’s jarring, hearing someone call her “Amy”—for as long as I can remember, people have referred to her in relation to me. “Your mom” and not much else. Before I even ask I have this strange sensation of peeling back another layer of her, one I didn’t think I’d get to see.

“You knew her?”

Professor Hutchison goes very still. “Well,” she says after a moment, “someone has to recruit the Knights.”

I think back to Shay mentioning how Milo was tapped from the announcements he gave in the cafeteria, but couldn’t explain how. “And you chose my mom?”

Professor Hutchison doesn’t hesitate this time, and I get the sense from the sliver of a smirk on her face that she wants to tell the story every bit as much as I want to hear it.

“Oh, no. Your mom chose herself. The year she started she went to as many professors as she could asking questions about the organization ban. I was newer at the time. Tenured professors were careless about gossiping around me. So I knew it was a mismanagement of funds, and I told her so.” She leans in closer to her end of the desk, smirk deepening. “Not ten hours later she broadcast what I told her word for word and got herself kicked off the school’s main radio show.”

She may be smirking, but by now I’m full-on grinning. As hard as it is sometimes to imagine my mom at my age, it’s not at all hard to imagine that.

“She came back to me. Asked if I had any more information. I didn’t, really,” says Professor Hutchison. Her eyes cut to the door, toward the hall beyond it. “But she wanted a way to get back on the air, and I had my original office.”

“The studio,” I realize. A cramped little space that twenty years ago could easily have been an office for one of Blue Ridge State’s newest hires.

Professor Hutchison nods. “I wasn’t involved in the ribbon hunt or anything. It all just took on a life of its own, the same way it always has with each Knight. But she asked me when she graduated if I could help keep it up by tapping other people for it, and I’ve been doing that ever since.”

She waves a hand like she never meant to get emotionally invested in the whole thing, but the way she blinks hard before she turns to her laptop screen gives her away. So does the way her voice lowers when she says, “Amy was a force to be reckoned with.”

I smile. “Yeah. She was.”

There are a few beats where Professor Hutchison takes a breath like she is going to add something else. It’s usually the part where people tell me they’re so sorry about what happened to her; how they can only imagine where she’d be today if she were still alive. I see her decide not to. It’s not that she doesn’t think it. It’s that we both knew her talent well enough that it goes without saying.

She clears her throat. “Anyway, I called you in here to talk about your grades. You and I both know you’ll have to repeat the class with a grade like that.”

I stare down at my lap. There’s still candle wax in my nails from last night’s shenanigans with Valeria. “Yeah.”

Professor Hutchison leans forward at her desk, making rare and deliberate eye contact. “Which is why I’m telling you something I don’t tell most. I drop the lowest exam grade at the end of the semester.”

My insides feel like they might liquefy with relief. “Really?”

“So with your other failed score dropped and this D, you’d be on track to pull through. So long as you keep going to tutoring sessions and coming to office hours.” She pushes a piece of paper toward me. “There are a set number of hours I’m usually here without the TAs. You’re welcome to come by then, too.”

“Thank you,” I say sincerely. I worry on my bottom lip. I don’t want to ask it, but I know that the relief won’t last for long if I don’t get a clear answer right now. “But you’re not—this isn’t just because you liked my mom, right?”

“It may have taken me a few months to realize you were the Squire, but I knew you were your mom’s kid the minute I saw you with that silly ribbon in your bag,” she says, leveling me with her usual no-nonsense expression. “If I were going to give any special treatment it would have started then.”

I sit up a little straighter, embarrassed and pleased at the same time.

She taps on the paper again. “The grade drop is still a secret, though, so don’t let anyone know I told you.” She pointedly doesn’t look at me when she adds, “I figured I owed you a solid.”

At some point in this conversation I connected the dots. We don’t get a lot of non-student callers, and hers stuck with me. “It worked, then? You going to the conference.”

She still doesn’t quite meet my eye, even if I can see a trace of amusement in hers. “We’ve started getting more involved in each other’s interests, yes. And it’s been helpful.” She presses her lips together and raises her brows just enough for me to know that’s all she’s willing to say on the subject.

“I’m glad.”

She smirks. “Also, I wash my hands of whatever you and Milo decide about the radio show. But you have my blessing either way.”

All things considered, it may be the closest I’ll ever come to my mom’s approval about my involvement with The Knights’ Watch. But oddly—comfortingly—it doesn’t change much. I don’t need it anymore, the way I thought I did at the beginning of the semester, when I felt all this pressure to live up to the legacy she built.

Now it finally feels the way I’m sure my mom would have wanted it to—like I’ve been working toward my own legacy all along.

Professor Hutchison shoots me another pointed look. “So long as you kick yourself into high gear on these grades.”

“Absolutely,” I say without missing a beat. “I won’t let you down.”

The moment I step out of her office, I know I’ve avoided yesterday’s radio show long enough. If I ever want to come back—whether as the Squire or Milo’s replacement or even just as the person who answers emails—I need to listen and own up to the aftermath of it.

But first I duck out of the campus, off the little windy path that leads into the gazebo in the arboretum. It takes me through sun-dappled trees and new spring blossoms, a world so colorful and so far removed from the thundersnow incident that it feels like I’m stepping into another reality. Stepping carefully, of course, because the last thing I want to do is interrupt Valeria’s plan.

Once I finally catch sight of them, though, it’s clear that a meteor could fall out of the sky without either of them noticing.

The scene is all set, just the way Valeria and I planned it, but somehow even sweeter. A re-creation of the ending scene when the heroine runs away from her own coronation, revealing that she only attended to obtain a hidden key, the final enchanted object to break the curse on both her and the sorceress’s kingdoms—the same curse causing the generations-long feud between them, and the same one that the sorceress has spent her entire life trying to break on her own.

Except once the heroine meets the sorceress in the woods, they discover that the key wasn’t the final piece they need. The two of them, with the sacrifice of all their magic combined, are the final piece. So they lay out the candles and the herbs and the crystals they need with the ancient prophecy, and just before they have to cast the potentially deadly spell, confess their love to each other in a sweeping, glittering, romantic moment in the spring sun.

We made do with fairy lights on the shed and tea lights around the picnic blankets, crystals on loan from Harriet’s dorm room, and actual food instead of herbs. But it’s clear from the way Shay and Valeria have migrated next to each other on the blanket, the food untouched and their fingers intertwined, that the romance did not need to be borrowed or bought for the occasion. It’s right there in Valeria’s quiet smile, in the glint in Shay’s eyes.

My heart feels so full it might tip over. I’ve never believed in fairy tales; I’ve only ever believed in our power over our own fates. But whatever happens next, we’ll always have this—the kind of moment that proves magic isn’t just for pages in a story, but something you can find all on your own.