“Oh.” The studio was only a mile or so from our development, through the woods. But not picking me up was weird, even for my mom. She’d seemed fine when she dropped me off, but I never could tell with her. “Where’s my mom? Is everything okay?”

Declan nodded.

Luisa got this desperate look in her eye, and I knew she was thinking how lucky I was. “Maybe I can sleep over your house tonight?” she asked me, but I shook my head. Kane was too busy checking out Luisa’s butt in the ballet leotard, but I could tell by the way Declan was looking at me that he was worried about something.

“Sorry, Lou. My parents have a thing,” I said vaguely.

She stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “All right,” she said, motioning to Nina. “See you guys.”

As they left, Kane’s eyes lingered on their backsides. I punched him. “So, what?” I asked them when the girls had left and we’d started on the path through the woods. “My mom has been driving me and picking me up for ten years. She’s never missed.”

“Your grandmother,” Kane said. “She died.”

I stopped walking. I hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t even been sick. “Oh my God.”

“I’m sorry,” Declan said. “You guys were close?”

I shook my head. She lived in Vermont, but my mother always talked to her, sometimes for hours, on the phone. My mother never talked to my dad, only to her mom. And my grandmother would send me cards with money in them. The last time I’d seen her was during a weekend skiing trip when I was fourteen. She was nice to me, made the best macaroni and cheese and shortbread cookies. When we left, she’d given me a little sack of them to take home with me. But I’d left them in the sun and the icing melted so badly that I couldn’t eat them. I threw them away.

I always assumed I’d get to see her again. But as we walked home, I realized I’d thrown away the last thing my grandmother would ever give me.

Tears came to my eyes, but I did my best to blink them back. Kane was going on and on about Luisa’s ass and how fine it’d looked in her leotard. I tried to listen, to be present, but he was so damn annoying. So oblivious! How could he tell me my grandmother died in one breath and be a complete horndog in the next?

“Well, thanks,” I murmured when we got to Fox Court.

“I got some math shit to do. See you,” Kane said, starting to jog off to his house. But Declan lingered. When Kane realized he wasn’t following, he shouted, “Come on, Dec. It’s your turn to take out the garbage. You’re not putting it on my ass again.”