Ten.Six Hundred & Twenty

1. Don’t forget the bagels.

2. Everyone is slow to get up. There’s a stool in the middle of the family room. He stumbles out and tells me that he has something to tell me but that his older brother will be mad if he says anything. I tell him that he needs to go ahead and tell me what it was that woke him up so early in the morning.

3. I unplug the Xbox and stick it in a basket in my room.

4. Flashcards and more flashcards. Something about this round of studying feels different. Mainly, my attention. Maybe it’s that I’m passed the point of freaking out. But I can’t tell if I’m actually remembering anything and that feels like a problem.

5. Trust.

6. I just love this drive—especially if I’m a passenger. I sit with my face up to the glass and try to take it all in. Green and gray and blue and white. Black and brown and cream-colored cows. Clusters of orange poppies and purple wildflowers growing along the slopes of the hills.

7. No complaints.

8. The water in the sink keeps rising.

9. Barolo.

10. He asks me what I need and the feeling of overwhelm washes over and I hide under the covers and say that we’ll just talk about it tomorrow. Problem is I don’t have very many more Tomorrows left.