The gym had happened early. She'd gotten home before noon, showered, changed into a hoodie she'd had since her sophomore year and a pair of sweats. She was sitting on her bed with her phone in both hands. The messages had been there since she got back. She opened the messages.
Callie's thread took her a full minute to scroll through. The first few days were classic Callie, cheerful, relentless. A meme with a dog. A photo of something she'd eaten that Callie apparently thought Zoey would appreciate. "ZOEY!!! where you at girl I haven't seen you in forever come hang out this weekend!!"
Then the tone shifted. Week one bleeding into week two and Callie starting to use more question marks, the messages getting a little shorter, the energy behind them changing. "okay are you alive tho??" and then "hello??" and then "Zoey I went by your house and your dad said you were working but like you haven't answered in eight days. that's a lot of days." Then a stretch of memes. Then, in the third week: "please just text me back. i don't care what you say just tell me you're okay." And then one that just said "zoey." Just the name. Nothing after it.
There was a voice message from three days ago that she hadn't listened to yet. She could tell from the timestamp it was long.
She put her thumb over it.
Then she looked at Katlyn's thread, which was shorter. A message the first week that said "haven't heard from you. you okay?" and then nothing for four days, and then a message that read: "I checked the ER admissions at Krey General and St. Mercy's. You're not in them. Good." Then, a week after that: "Callie's been calling me at weird hours. I'm not complaining, just making sure you know."
Zoey stared at the hospital records line for a long moment.
She was still looking at the message when the doorbell rang.
She didn't move. Bruce would get it.
She heard the front door open. Then she heard a voice.
"Is Zoey home? Please tell me she's home. Oh my god, please tell me she's home."
Zoey set the phone face-down on the bed.
She was halfway down the stairs when Callie looked up and saw her.
For one second, Callie's face shifted, going through several emotions at once. Relief and fury went head to head. It was close.
Fury won by a nose.
"ZOEY BENJAMIN WINTERS."
The middle name. Zoey hadn't heard the middle name in a while. She made it to the third step from the bottom before Callie closed the distance. There was no avoiding it. Callie had the arms out and the speed of someone who had been waiting a long time for this specific moment and had decided in advance that nothing short of sudden death was going to prevent it. Zoey got one hand up that was entirely useless, and then Callie hit her, arms wrapping around her, and the shaking started.
"Where have you BEEN-"
"Callie-"
"What have you been DOING, why have you not answered a single text, do you have any idea how WORRIED-"
"I know, I'm-"
"We came by TWICE. I stood on your porch like an idiot. Your dad said you were working and I believed him for like one day before I realized that made absolutely no sense and then I just stood there like a dummy-"
"Callie." Zoey got one arm free. Not to push her away. To hold on back. "I'm sorry. I know. I'm sorry."
The shaking slowed. Not stopped. But slowed.
Callie pulled back far enough to look at her face, both hands still gripping Zoey's shoulders, checking her face. Her eyes were already on the verge of crying, and she was clearly fighting it.
"You scared the hell out of me," she said with her voice shaking.
"I know. I'm sorry."
Katlyn had come through the door normally while Callie was having her crisis, because Katlyn had better control over her emotions. She stopped one step below the third from the bottom. This put her roughly at eye level with Zoey.
"Hey, stranger," she said.
"Hey..."
"She's been like this since week two." She gestured her head at Callie without looking at her. "You owe me for the suffering I had to go through."
"I have NOT been putting you through any suffering!" Callie protested, still holding Zoey's shoulders. "I was very calm and normal for the first-"
"She called me at two in the morning."
"I had a lot of things to talk about-"
"Three times in one week."
"My thoughts don't have a schedule!"
"Katlyn," Zoey said.
"Yeah?"
"I'll try and pay you back."
"You got a lot to make up for," Katlyn said. "Many sleepless nights."
"I know."
"Good luck."
Bruce had appeared at the bottom of the stairs in a gaming shirt. He looked up at Zoey smothered by Callie and then he went back to the kitchen, happy to see it. She needed friends at a hard time like this. She's been through a lot recently. Some normalcy would be best for her.
"Come up," Zoey said.
Muscle memory is a real thing even in the parts of life that don't involve your fists.
Callie immediately claimed the center of the bed, which was what Callie did every time she came in her room. She pulled her legs up and settled in like it was home away from home.
Katlyn took the desk chair.
Zoey sat against the headboard with her knees pulled up and noticed, somewhere between sitting down and looking at these two people who had been her friends for a while, that something in her chest had loosened slightly.
"Okay but for real. What actually happened? Where were you?" Callie had to ask.
Zoey had been thinking about this on the walk home from the gym. What she could say, what she couldn't, what was true without being the whole truth. The actual whole truth was not something anyone in this room would ever hear because the actual whole truth involved a daemon with emerald green hair and claws, a pocket dimension of absolute nothing, her mother getting her slit throat, and a fairie who gave their life to pull Zoey out of the dark. None of that could live in this room.
But some of it could.
She told them about her mom.
Not all of it. Not the parts she couldn't say. But she told them that it happened suddenly, that it was bad, that Alicia was home in the dining room with a nurse and a monitor and she was in a coma. She told them that it happened while Zoey was away for things she couldn't really explain, which she knew sounded terrible, and she told them that she'd come home as fast as she could when she found out.
All of that was true. All of it.
She got through most of it without any problems. She'd been over it enough times in her own head that the words came out in the right order. She got to the part where she said "coma" out loud in front of people who weren't Bruce or Everett and she felt something tighten at the back of her throat.
She was tired of crying. That was the honest thing. She'd cried more in the past few weeks than she had in the years before them combined. She was tired of the feeling, tired of the way it sat in her chest for hours afterward, tired of the heaviness that came after. She wasn't going to do it in front of Callie and Katlyn not because she was embarrassed, they'd all three been in each other's business long enough to have seen some stuff but because she was just tired.
One tear got through anyway. Just one. She wiped it away quickly.
Then Callie started crying.
Her eyes filled up and then over. She pressed both hands over her mouth. "Zoey," she said, muffled by her own hands. "I didn't KNOW. I had no idea you were going through something like this, why didn't you-" She stopped because the sentence wasn't going to finish the way she wanted it to and she seemed to understand that. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
And then she was across the bed.
The hug arrived with full commitment. Both arms. Callie was taller than Zoey by nearly a foot and had been doing sprint training for years and she hugged with her whole body. Zoey felt herself get pulled into her chest and held there, and she let it happen, and she put her arms around Callie back, and for a moment she just sat in it - the warmth of being held by someone who was crying on her behalf because they couldn't stand the thought of her carrying something this heavy alone.
Callie's chest was shaking. She was saying something into Zoey's hair, a running thread of "I'm so sorry" and "you should have said something" and "we would have been there" that blurred together into a sound more than sentences. Her grip tightened. She pulled Zoey closer. It was getting hard to breathe.
"Kat-," Zoey said, or tried to say. It came out somewhat compressed.
Katlyn, who had been watching from the desk chair with the expression of someone observing an entirely predictable sequence of events, stood up. She came over, put one hand on Callie's arm, and extracted Zoey from the situation.
Callie made a noise of protest.
Katlyn gave her a look.
Callie relented, still crying, rearranging herself and pressing the back of her hand against her eyes.
"Better?" Katlyn said to Zoey.
"Yeah." She breathed.
Katlyn sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at Zoey for a moment. "I'm sorry about your mom," she said with complete sincerity.
"Thanks," Zoey said.
"Yeah, anytime girl. We know you would try to do the same for us." Katlyn said.
Callie told Zoey, still slightly damp around the eyes, that if she ever needed anything, literally anything, at any hour, she did not care - she needed to call. She would drop everything. She would show up. She would sit with her or leave her alone or go get food or just be there or do anything that Zoey needed her to do, she just needed to know. She wanted Zoey to know she could ask.
Katlyn let her finish. Then: "She won't ask."
Callie looked at her. "Katlyn-"
"She won't. You know she won't." She looked at Zoey. "So we're going to be checking in regularly. Not because we think you can't handle yourself. Because you're our friend and you've been going through something terrible and you shouldn't have to feel alone in it just because you are, in fact, alone in it." A small pause. "Also Callie's been calling me at two in the morning and that needs to stop."
"Katlyn!"
"You are ruining my beauty sleep and that is no longer acceptable."
Zoey looked at both of them. Callie was still slightly red around the eyes, indignant, pointing at Katlyn to make a case that Katlyn had already stopped listening to. Katlyn was already done, leaning back slightly, looking at nothing in particular.
"Thank you," Zoey said. "Both of you."
"Don't thank me," Callie said, still shooting Katlyn a look. "I'm your best friend. This is what I'm here for." She turned back to Zoey. "Katlyn's here because-"
"I drove," Katlyn said.
"She's here because she loves us."
"I drove."
"KATLYN."
"Zoey," Katlyn said, completely unbothered, "am I not a good driver?"
"You're a great driver," Zoey said. She's never been in a crash with her before, so that would make someone a good driver in Zoey's opinion.
"Thank you." She gave Callie a flat look. Callie made a loud groan.
Zoey let out a laugh that surprised even herself.
…
They put something on.
Nothing that required you to pay attention or feel things on purpose. One of those movies they'd all seen enough times that they could half-watch it and still know what was happening. The TV filled the room with something better than silence, and the three of them settled into the old positions - Callie spread across most of the bed, Katlyn was dragged onto the bed with one of Zoey's pillows. And Zoey was up near the headboard with her knees pulled up and squished in between the two.
This was the thing she hadn't known she needed until she was sitting in it.
It was good. It was quiet, easy and good.
About forty minutes in, Callie muted the TV.
Zoey and Katlyn both looked at her. The TV getting muted meant she had something to say and wanted the room's full attention for the duration.
"Okay," Callie said, sitting up fully and pulling her legs under her with the energy of someone who had been incubating an idea and had decided it was now ready. "I have been thinking."
"Uh oh," Katlyn said.
"I have been thinking!" Callie repeated, ignoring this, "about the fact that it is currently summer. That we are done with school. That we are young-" she gestured at all three of them-"and we are hot, and we are FREE." She exclaimed.
"And I have been so worried about Zoey for the past three weeks that I have completely, totally, one hundred percent failed to do anything with the beginning of this summer, which is the first real summer I've had since we started prepping for college and which was supposed to be incredible." She took a breath. "That ends today."
Zoey looked at her. "What ends today?"
"It means we are doing things this summer, Zoey. Real things. We are going places and making memories and having STORIES afterward. We are having a hot girl summer." She said this with the conviction of someone stating an immutable law of physics.
Katlyn said, to Zoey, in the tone of a news anchor providing contextual information: "She made lists."
"I made SEVERAL lists-"
"That kept me up at 2 in the morning."
"ORGANIZATION IS HOW THINGS HAPPEN, KATLYN."
Callie pulled out her phone. There was a notes app open. Zoey looked at those notes from across the bed and could see, even at this distance, that it had headers. Multiple headers. At least two of the entries appeared to have links attached.
She had never had a hot girl summer. She understood the word. She'd had summers, and she'd been a girl, but the hot girl part and the summer part had never combined into the same event. The idea of a summer that was specifically for fun, for going places and being young and doing things that made good stories, was something that happened to other people as far as she'd been concerned.
Callie was now pointing at it like it was happening whether Zoey was ready or not.
Which was pretty much how Callie operated, so.
"Road trip," Callie said, tapping the first item. "Somewhere. I have five destination options. We vote."
"Where?" Katlyn asked.
"That's what the vote is for! Option one: the lake house region, four hours away, we rent a cabin for a weekend-"
"The cabin sounds cool," Katlyn said.
"I thought you would. Option two: the coast. Real coast. Not the bay. The actual coastline, the kind with the big waves and the rocky cliffs and the seafood place that's been on every travel list for the last three years."
Zoey said, "How far is that?"
"Six hours."
"Six hours of driving."
"Six hours of adventure." Callie moved to the next item without pausing. "Option three: we go to the city for a weekend. Not like, errands and shopping. I mean we get a hotel and we go out and we explore and we do every touristy thing we've never done because we've always lived too close to feel like it counted."
This one didn't sound bad.
"Option four," Callie continued, building steam, "music festival. I have two options. One is in six weeks, one is in eight weeks. Either one works with the summer timeline, it just depends on lineup preference."
"What's the lineup?" Katlyn asked.
Callie turned her phone around to show them. She and Katlyn entered a brief but dedicated discussion about the two lineups during which Zoey looked at the names and recognized almost none of them. When they looked at her she said the second one had a name she liked on it, which was true, and Callie put a star next to the second festival.
"And option five." Callie's voice took on the specific quality it got when she was presenting something she was most excited about and had been saving. "A night out. Proper. All three of us, dressed up, dancing. When you're feeling up to it." She was looking directly at Zoey when she said the last part. "No rush. Just - it's on the list."
Zoey looked at the list. The whole list. The road trip options and the festival and the city weekend and the night out and what looked like at least four more items below those that she hadn't gotten to yet. She had a training schedule and an Olympics timeline and Angelica's calendar to consider before committing to anything.
She had never had this before. Past Zoey would have looked at this list and found reasons to excuse herself from every item. Too many people. Too much noise. Too much everything. The version of her that had survived everything she'd survived in the past year and change was apparently someone who looked at this list and thought about the coast and the big waves and the seafood restaurant and felt something that was not dread.
It was new.
"I have to check my schedule," she said. "With Coach and Angelica. I don't know what's coming up yet."
"Obviously," Callie said, because Callie had been dealing with Zoey's career-related scheduling requirements for long enough to factor them in without complaint. "That's why we're in the VISION stage. No scheduling yet. Just ideas. Just possibilities." She waved a hand like she was dismissing the concept of scheduling to a later date where it belonged. "Tell me if anything sounds fun and I'll put a star next to it."
"The coast," Zoey said.
Callie's face lit up. She put a star next to the coast. Multiple stars. More stars than seemed necessary. Katlyn gave the star situation a look but didn't comment.
"The city weekend maybe," Zoey said.
Another star. The document was accumulating enthusiasm.
"The festival if the schedule works."
"Obviously."
"And the night out." She said it like it was not a big deal, which was somewhat undercut by the fact that it was, a little. Just the idea of being out somewhere with music and dancing with people she liked, which was the kind of thing that other people did without thinking about it and which had always felt like a separate country from where she lived.
Callie was vibrating.
"Zoey."
"Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird, I'm just so EXCITED-"
"Callie."
"A night OUT, Zoey! A real night out! We are going to look so good. I already know what I'm wearing. I'm going to need to figure out your hair situation because your hair has so much potential and you refuse to let me-"
"We're not talking about my hair."
"We're always talking about your hair eventually."
"Katlyn," Zoey said.
"I agree with the night out," Katlyn said. "For the record."
"See?" Callie gestured at Katlyn. "Even Katlyn agrees. Katlyn never agrees with me. This is a historic event."
"I agree with you sometimes."
"Name one time."
"I agreed with you about the seafood place."
"That was FOOD, Katlyn. Agreeing about food doesn't count because agreeing about food is just having working taste buds."
"I also agreed with the cabin."
"Oh, that's true." Callie considered this. "Okay maybe you agree with me more than I think." A pause. "Anyway." She looked at her list. Then at Zoey. "This summer is going to be good. Okay? I know things are hard right now. I know you've got a lot to deal with. But you also deserve to have a good summer, and I'm going to make sure that happens."
Zoey looked at her. At Katlyn over on the floor, who was looking at the TV again but had her head tilted slightly toward them.
"Thanks," Zoey said.
"No duh," Callie said. And unmuted the TV.
…
They stayed through two movies and most of a third. At some point Callie and Katlyn both got hungry and Zoey went down to the kitchen and came back with whatever she could put together quickly - crackers, and some cheese that needed to be used soon and a bowl of the cherries Everett had been eating by the handful for the past week.
Outside the window, the afternoon went on without them.
When they eventually left it was early evening, the light going gold outside the window, Callie giving Zoey a hug at the top of the stairs that was significantly better considering that she wasn't being suffocated this time around. Katlyn came last, and at the door she stopped and looked at Zoey.
"Thursday," she said.
"What's Thursday?"
"We're coming back Thursday." She said. "Callie wants to do the thing where she brings food and we eat it here. I told her you probably wouldn't go for it."
"Okay." Zoey said.
Katlyn looked at her for a half second. Then she nodded. "Okay. Thursday."
Zoey watched them get into Katlyn's car from the doorway. Callie waved from the passenger window, two hands, enthusiastic. Katlyn pulled out of the driveway. The car turned the corner and was gone.
She closed the door feeling a little happier.
…
Dinner was Bruce's pasta. He'd lit the candle on the table without saying anything about it, the small one that Alicia had bought at a holiday market two years ago and that nobody had touched since she'd put it there. It was lit now. Zoey didn't say anything about it either.
Everett came down in his streaming clothes - the ones he wore when he was on camera, slightly nicer than his regular clothes. He'd already been live earlier in the afternoon, apparently.
"How'd it go?" Bruce asked.
"Good. New peak views. The new game's got good traffic right now." He reached for the bread. "Elizabeth said I should think about doing a charity stream next month."
"That's a good idea," Bruce said.
"I know." He said it without any trace of arrogance.
Zoey listened to them talk. Ate her pasta.
She was thinking about the beach. About the fact that she didn't own a swimsuit cause she never went out to places that needed a swimsuit.
"We were thinking we should come watch your tournament," she said to Everett.
Everett stopped mid-reach for his glass.
He looked at her.
Not the quick glance and the casual "say let's" from before. Not the correction-in-passing of someone who had noticed a verbal habit and nudged it back into place. He actually stopped and looked at her with the focused attention of a thirteen-year-old who had heard something enough times now that it had stopped reading as a quirk.
"Who's we?" he asked. "Callie and Katlyn? Are they even interested in video games?"
"Me," she said. "Me and maybe Callie and Katlyn if they're up for it."
Everett held her gaze for one more beat. Then he picked up his glass. "Cool," he said. "You should all come. I'm gonna win for sure."
Bruce asked something about the tournament location and Everett answered and the conversation moved on to nerdy stuff, and the moment passed. Zoey finished her pasta. She helped clear the plates because she didn't mind helping Bruce out while Mom was still asleep.