That question launches us into a debate about kind of bread and cheese and cooking techniques make the best grilled cheese. I take the side of keeping it simple with white bread, American cheese, and some butter, while Kat argues that you can’t make an amazing grilled cheese sandwich without a crusty, hearty bread that can really stand up to the cheese, andrealcheese in the middle.
At one point, she sends me a link to an article about the “best grilled cheese recipes” that she clearly just Googled to prove her point. I send her a gif of someone making a sandwich with American cheese.
It’s stupid and fun and makes me grin like an idiot in the darkness.
After we finally declare a truce on the great grilled cheese debate, we move on to other topics. She tells me a few storiesabout growing up in Maplewood, the kind of details that paint a picture of her childhood.
It definitely sounds like she and her friend Sam were joined at the hip growing up. She describes how they used to go to the local movie theatre to see back to back movies on the weekends, and how they’d coordinate their Halloween costumes every year. Salt and pepper shakers when they were eight, peanut butter and jelly when they were ten, and Mario and Luigi when they were eleven, which required Sam to draw a fake mustache on with eyeliner.
KAT: We were so proud of those costumes every year, convinced we were creative geniuses. Looking back at the photos, we looked so ridiculous.
ME: I bet you were a cute Mario.
KAT: I was eleven and going through an unfortunate phase where I refused to brush my hair. So no, definitely not cute. More like feral.
ME: Feral can be cute.
KAT: You’re basing that on exactly zero evidence.
ME: Eh, call it intuition.
She tells me that she and Sam got their driver’s licenses in the same week, since their birthdays are only three days apart, and I tell her about my first fight on the ice when I was seventeen. How the other guy was talking shit about my mom during warm-ups, and I completely lost it.
KAT: Did you win?
ME: Define win. I didn’t get my ass kicked, which felt like a victory at the time.
KAT: That’s the spirit. Set the bar low and exceed expectations.
ME: Words to live by.
The conversation keeps going, always just one more thing to say, one more question to ask. I fight back a yawn as I chuckleat something she wrote in her latest text, my eyes burning slightly from staring at my screen for so long in the dark. After several hours, her responses start coming slower. Thirty seconds between messages instead of five. Then a full minute. Then two minutes.
ME: You still awake over there?
No response.
I wait another few minutes, watching my phone screen. Nothing.
Finally, I glance over at the cabin. Her room is completely dark now, and I can’t see any movement. She must’ve fallen asleep mid-conversation with her phone still clutched in her hand.
The thought makes me smile in the darkness of my room. I’m surprisingly disappointed that she’s asleep, and I find myself already looking forward to seeing her in the morning. To watching her stumble into the kitchen half-awake, probably with that messy hair she was complaining about, reaching for coffee like it’s a lifeline.
ME: Goodnight, bright eyes. Sleep tight.
I plug my phone in to charge and then set it on the nightstand and roll onto my side, punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape. Through the window, I can still see the dark outline of the main cabin against the night sky.
What I texted her earlier wasn’t a lie.
Idofeel less lonely knowing she’s just across the yard.
Chapter Thirteen
Kat
I wake up slowly, letting out a long yawn. I’m still tired, and I can tell I stayed up way too late last night. As I blink my eyes open, squinting against the morning light filtering through the open curtains, I realize I’m still holding my phone, the screen dark against the white sheets.
I tap it to life and immediately scroll up through my conversation with Asher from last night, a smile tugging at my lips as I read back through the messages. I remember how hard I had to work to keep my eyes open toward the end, how sleep kept tugging at me, trying to drag me under, but I didn’t want to stop talking to him. Every time I thought about saying goodnight, he’d ask another question or make another comment that made me want to keep going.
