The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily. Rachel Cohn

of the moment I didn’t take it all in, because I was too preoccupied with the interminable wait for the ambulance, then the ride to the hospital, then calling all the family to let them know what had happened. It wasn’t until the next day, when he was stabilized, that I understood how bad it really had been. I’d gone to the hospital cafeteria to pick up some lunch, and when I returned, I saw through the window to his room that Mrs Basil E., Grandpa’s sister and my favorite aunt, had arrived. She’s a tall lady and normally a larger-than-life presence, wearing impeccably tailored suits with expensive jewelry, and perfect makeup on her face. But in that moment before she saw me, she was sitting at sleeping Grandpa’s bedside, holding his hand, heavy tears causing mascara to streak down into her lipstick.

      I’ve never, ever seen Mrs Basil E. cry. She looked so small. I felt a sharp gnawing in my stomach and a choking of my heart. I am a glass-half-full kind of gal – I try to always look on the bright side of things – but I couldn’t deny the sharp crest of sadness invading my body and soul at the sight of her grief and worry. Suddenly Grandpa’s mortality was too real, and how it would feel when he did eventually die felt too alive with possibility.

      Mrs Basil E. placed Grandpa’s hand against her face and wept harder, and for a second, I feared Grandpa was dead. Then his hand came to life and gave her a gentle slap, and she laughed. I knew then everything would be okay, for now – but never the same.

      That was my entry into sadness, stage one.

      Stage two came the next day, and it was so much worse.

      How can such a simple kindness change everything?

      Dash came to visit me at the hospital. I had bought food at the cafeteria, but wasn’t really eating it – I was too distracted by the situation and didn’t have an appetite for stale cheese sandwiches or kale chips, what the hospital offered in lieu of potato chips in a mean attempt at being health conscious. Dash must have heard the fatigue – and hunger – in my voice over the phone, because he arrived carrying a pizza from my favorite place, John’s. (The John’s location in the Village, not the one in midtown. Come on !) A John’s pizza is my ultimate comfort food, and even if the pie had gone cold during its trek from the restaurant to the hospital, my heart could not have been warmer at the sight of it – and of Dash carrying it to me.

      Impulsively, I blurted out, “I love you so much.” I wrapped my arms around his back and buried my head in his neck, covering it in kisses. He laughed, and said, “If I’d known a pizza would get this response, I’d have brought it a lot earlier.”

      He didn’t say I love you back.

      I hadn’t realized I felt it until I said it. I hadn’t been talking just about him bringing me the pizza.

      When I told Dash I love you so much, I meant: I love you for your kindness and your snarliness. I love you for grossly over-tipping waitstaff when using your dad’s credit card to “pay it forward.” I love the way you look when reading a book – content and dreamy, off in another world. I love how you suggested I never read a Nicholas Sparks book, and when I did read one because I was curious, and then read some more, I love you for how confused and offended and downright angry you were. Not that I’d read them, but that I adored them. I love debating literary snobbery with you, and that you can at least recognize that even if you don’t like “pandering, insincere, faux romantic garbage,” that lots of other people – including your girlfriend – do. I love you for loving my great-aunt almost as much as I do. I love how much brighter and sweeter and more interesting my life has been since you’ve been a part of it. I love you for answering the call of a red notebook once upon a time.

      Grandpa lived, but a piece of me felt like it died that day, for having the joy of realizing I truly loved somebody so quickly deflated by experiencing the feeling alone.

      Dash still hasn’t said it back.

      I never said it to Dash again.

      I don’t hold it against him – really, I don’t. He’s lovely and attentive to me, and I know he likes me. A lot. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t seem so surprised about that.

      I said I love you so much, and in that instant I meant it with every fiber of my being, but since the moment passed unreciprocated, I’ve tried to have a little more distance from Dash. I can’t make him feel something he doesn’t feel, and I don’t want to get hurt trying, so I decided to let my love for him simmer on the back burner of my heart, to allow me to be more casual and undemanding of him up front.

      It’s helped that I’ve been so busy. I’ve spent so little time with Dash lately that it’s almost stopped hurting. I haven’t been actively trying to fall out of love; it’s just happened by default. When I’m not in school, I have schoolwork or SAT-prep classes, soccer practice and soccer games, taking Grandpa to physical therapy and doctor’s appointments and to visit with his friends. There’s the grocery shopping and cooking that Mom and Dad are too busy to do lately because they have new academic jobs. They’re not working in another country anymore, but they might as well be; the closest job Mom could get on such short notice was a part-time English teacher gig at a community college in Way Outsville, Long Island, and Dad commutes to a headmaster job at a boarding school in God Only Knows Where, Connecticut. Langston shares the Grandpa responsibilities, but when it comes to housework, he helps only in the half-assed way dudes do. (Obviously that peeves me if I feel compelled to curse.) There’s my dog-walking business. My services have become so in demand that Mrs Basil E. calls me Lily Mogul instead of Lily Bear now. With everything else going on, trying to find time with Dash can feel more like an obligation than a joy.

      I’m overwhelmed.

      Childish Lily Bear is a distant memory. I feel like in the last year I went from a very young sixteen to a very old seventeen.

      I’ve been so busy, I royally screwed up the hasty present I made to give Dash at my small tree-lighting party. I’d been working on it since the beginning of the year but set it aside when Grandpa’s troubles began. I sighed, looking at its resurrection so many months later. My brother laughed.

      “It’s not that bad, is it, Langston?” I said.

      “It’s . . .” He hesitated too long. “Sweet.” Langston pulled the emerald green sweater over his head and then tugged on its looseness. “But Dash is probably close to the same size as me, and this sweater is way too big. Should we presume you’ll be resuming your annual holiday cookie drive to fatten Dash up?”

      The sweater had been a Christmas gift to our dad several years ago, from the Big & Tall store. Never worn, still in the box. I was repurposing the sweater, but the snowflake-patterned red fabric insert I’d sewn onto the front was original artwork. On it, I’d needlepointed two turtledoves perched together on a tree branch. The left turtledove’s belly had DASH sewn on it, and the right’s said LILY.

      I couldn’t deny the visual once my brother was wearing the sweater. I needed to remove the turtledoves insert and sew it on something else, like a hat or scarf. They don’t really deserve a sweater, even if you call them something fake adorable like turtledoves. It had been a big disappointment to me to learn that turtledoves are basically pigeons who emit gentle purring sounds. I want to think that’s cute because I love all animals, but I am a New Yorker and I know: Pigeons are not cute. They’re nuisances.

      I’m really not feeling Christmas if I’m taking my grump out on noisy birds who symbolize the season. I told Langston, “You’re right, it looks awful. I can’t give it to Dash.”

      “Please give it to Dash,” Langston said.

      The doorbell rang. I said, “Take off the sweater, Langston. Our guests are arriving.”

      I checked myself in the foyer mirror and smoothed down my hair, hoping I looked presentable. I was wearing my favorite Christmas outfit, a green felt skirt with reindeer figures sewn on the front, and a red T-shirt with the words DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’ circling a picture of Santa Claus. The food was here, the lights had been strung around Oscar’s ample branches, the animals were confined to my bedroom as a courtesy