And that’s how it’s done, friends. You avoid emotional spiraling with a great friend, Thai food, and procrastination of your tasks!

  I threw my phone on my bed and flopped down beside it, huffing dramatically.

  You know what always made me feel better and less lonely?

  Bumble!

  Just kidding. But I was bored and needed to kill some time before Fatima got here. So, I scrolled again.

  Lots of nos and then the cutie, Landon, popped up again. Not in a weird way, but it was a bi girl’s wet dream for a guy. Like someone who actually liked, embraced, and understood femininity.

  I sat up abruptly.

  Shit, I was gonna get another chance.

  I swiped right and had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. Why was I getting so excited about this? It was literally a random human on a dating app. There was no guarantee he would match with me. That we would talk. Or that literally anything would happen.

  Something about dating someone who was also in the queer community and embracing feminity was sexy and exciting.

  Not to mention, Bumble and Hinge were still pushing their straight agendas, and I was getting, like, no woman or fem-presenting people.

  I was waiting for the bisexual and pansexual men to come out and play, too, on the apps, but I hadn’t seen much of that, either. Hardly any nonbinary folks, either.

  Bisexual was on my profile, so I didn’t have to come out to people. It was just easier not to feel like I had to have a coming-out moment every time I met someone new. It was already out there in bright rainbow-colored emojis on my profile, so people could take it or leave it. So, where were the other bis, pans, theys, and gays?!

  Where were my alphabet mafia suitors?!

  Ugh.

  I looked at Bumble again to see if we had matched. Nothing yet. No big deal. I had liked him, like, ten minutes again, so I needed to chill the fuck out.

  The front door opened, and Cory yelled, “Hey, bitch!”

  “Hey!” I screamed and scrambled up to pop my head out of the room.

  “Fatima is bringing Thai. You and Con want anything?”

  He hustled around the room in his white button-down and maroon slim dress pants. “No, we’re good. Con and I are going to his sister’s house for a family dinner.” He rifled through the pantry for a snack, I’m sure.

  “Okay, have fun! Leave the door unlocked for Fatima when you leave, pleeease!” I said, closing my door.

  “’Kay!”

  Surveying my room, I noticed the pile of clean laundry sitting on the end of my bed. I suppose I could put it away while I was waiting for Fatima. Sam said they would come pick me up at 8 a.m. since it was a five-hour drive.

  Woof.

  Okay. I could do this. I had my shit covered at the five studios I bounced around at. I could handle my weird, extended family for twenty-four hours.

  Plus, Fatima was coming with Thai.

  I. Could. Do. This.

  CHAPTER Nine

  I woke up groggy as fuck at 7 a.m. with my bag packed and checked my phone.

  Bumble: 1 New Match.

  I nearly fell out of bed. Why was I getting excited about, again, this human I did not know?!

  I looked at it for several seconds before opening the notification and what do you freaking know—it was Landon.

  Fuck yeah.

  I went to type a response and went blank. Okay, well, I had twenty-four hours and a five-hour car ride to figure this shit out, so I would get back to that. I would enlist the help of my sister and my brother for this, even though neither had done dating apps before.

  I needed something cute, clever, and concise is all.

  Twenty minutes had passed with me contemplating this. Okay, time to get moving and get myself ready for this weird ass day.

  Twenty minutes later, I got a text saying they were here, and I was flying around trying to stuff toast in my mouth, grab my bag, and not spill coffee all over my shirt. I flew out of my apartment and saw that my mom was driving with Blair in the front and Sam in the back. My wave was half-assed. My mom pointed to the right side of the black SUV, and I hopped in.

  “Morning,” I said as I hopped in and threw my bag in the back.

  Sam raised his dark brow at me, and my mom smiled cheerily, while Blair looked like she had been dragged out of bed.

  “Hi, sweetie! Ready to go?”

  “Yup! Is Blair? Because she looks like the Walking Dead up there,” I said, smiling innocently.

  Blair groaned and lulled her head over to the side so she could shoot me a death glare. Her light-pink hair created a long curtain over her face, hiding most of her legendary scowl. She was only four years older than me, but Lord knows I knew how she was in the morning growing up. The girl did not fuck with anything before 8 a.m. very well.

  “Leave me alone.” She pouted.

  “I could start singing? Would that make you feel better?” Sam said, turning his bleach-blonde shaved head to the side.

  “Good morning!” Sam started as my mom pulled out of my apartment complex.

  “Goood morning!” I sang.

  “Good morning to you and you!” my mom sang away.

  “Mom, please, not you, too. I can’t take this. I need more coffee, please,” Blair practically whimpered, and we all cackled.

  “Fine, we stop for coffee but then we gotta hit the road. Your dad is waiting for us and could use our support, okay?” she said, getting serious.

  “How is Dad?” I said.

  We had only texted since he was busy helping his mom the past few weeks, and we couldn’t catch each other on a phone call. He said things were weird and hard because how could you grieve a dad who wasn’t really a dad to you or a grandpa to your children?

  Not just that but grieve someone who had been an active asshole to the people you loved for years? It was such a weird, sticky mess.

  I thought back to my friends boasting of their family reunions and holidays where they would have every member of their whole family there, and I didn’t understand it. Don’t get me wrong, I was eternally thankful for the closeness of our little five pack that had since expanded with Quartney and Ren, but I didn’t even know how to speak to anyone over the age of sixty.

  My friends would tell me they got their hair done with their grandma or had sleepovers with their cousins. Or that their grandpa would come over and play games with them. I couldn’t fathom how that even worked.

  From a young age, I knew they only wanted a relationship when it was convenient, or they expected it to work because we were related, so they didn’t have to do anything to build a relationship. They could just skate in on every birthday with a card and phone call and then wash their hands of us. With major life events, they expected an invite and then they were entitled to random details of my life, like who I was dating and had I talked to my cousins. It just felt like they thought they were owed our time and energy on their terms.

  My mom shut that shit down real fast by putting in hard boundaries, and my dad tolerated none of their insensitive or rude comments. He would tell them that, if they couldn’t love and accept us, then they might as well not bother visiting. So, they didn’t visit, and we didn’t visit them.

  But how do you come to grips with that when that person wants to make amends or wants forgiveness?

  Do they genuinely mean it, or do they just want to feel better on their deathbed and feel like their ticket to whatever afterlife they believe in is locked in because they came to terms with their own transgressions? Even though they would behave that way again in a heartbeat? They never really changed. They just got caught.

  The only word I had was icky or gross.

  But if my dad wanted us there, then by golly we would rally behind that wonderful man and show his parents what a real all-star mom-and-dad team looked like. What it means to actually be there and support your family because you worked regularly to have an ongoing relationship with the ones you love and care about.

  “Earth to E,” Sam said, waving in front of me.

  “Sorry, what?” I said.

  I had gone into the rabbit hole of my own thoughts. Again.

  “You asked Mom a question, then totally checked out,” he said, raising his damn eyebrow again.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. Can you repeat what you said? I got caught up in thinking how weird this situation is as in we don’t have a relationship with our extended family, and, now, at Grandpa’s deathbed, he feels like now is the time to make sure he has crossed all his Ts and dotted his Is? It feels . . . like too little too late, and I can only imagine how Dad feels. I don’t know, just in a weird headspace,” I said, my head against the cool window.

  “I know, sweetie. It is weird. You don’t need to apologize for being overwhelmed and not knowing what the right thing to feel is. There is no right way. But, to answer your question, your dad is hanging in there. It’s also complicated for him. He wishes his dad would have been a better dad, a better grandparent, and a better man,” she said, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  Her eyes, a near identical match to mine, had tears in them.

  “It hurt him a lot when his father rejected you kids. He would go to the ends of the earth to protect you and our little pack. So, even having you all come up means a lot because he understands the weight of what he is asking to have your support there. That it means, potentially, he will start a fight with his dad trying to protect you. But, truthfully, I think that fight is out of your grandpa and grandma right now. Death does funny things to people when it’s looming near,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, except it still feels disingenuous, you know?” Blair said with her eyes closed.

  “I am not afraid to fight a dying old man. You know, if he says some shit,” I grumbled.

  “Maybe keep the violence to a minimum, okay?” Sam said, squeezing my knee.

  I dismissively waved at him. “Yeah, yeah.”

  The next several hours of the car ride were filled up with us all catching each other up on what had happened since our family dinner from the week before.

  We tried to have family dinner every Sunday with everyone. Sometimes, it worked well, but we all tried to do our best to see one another for it, especially since we were all so busy.

  Which is how it came to my life update.

  I cleared my throat. “Hi, hello. I need some help here.” I pulled out my phone. “I matched with someone on Bumble—”

  “Matched? Like, someone liked you?” Mom said.

  “Yes, like, I swiped right, and he swiped right.”

  She nodded like she was getting it. “So, mutually swiping is matching?”

  “Yes,” Sam and Blair said in unison.

  My mom fought a smile.

  “Anywayyyy, I have to message first,” I continued.

  My mom frowned, looking confused.

  “Question, Mom?”

  “Why do you have to message first? That seems weird.” She furrowed her brow. “Feels not very equal is all I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, well, on Bumble, the woman has to message first. It’s to empower women and protect their safety, I think. But I only have twenty-four hours to message a match or they go away.”

  “What if two women match? Then who get’s to message first? Both? Or two men?! And twenty-four hours seems like a short amount of time,” she said, clearly not liking or understanding Bumble.

  I had surely explained it to her before, but this woman had taught me how to use a spoon, so I could explain online dating to her once more.

  “Mom, I really don’t know because a: I never match with woman because heteronormative agenda, and b: I am not a gay man. But anyway!”

  “That seems illegal,” Blair mumbled.

  “Fucking straight agenda,” Sam coughed.

  “Okay, focus. We can acknowledge it’s problematic and shitty, but I matched with someone, and I don’t know what to say—is what I am trying to get out here, people!” I said.

  “Honey, no need to yell. We are right here,” my mom chided.

  I threw my hands up. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Jesus is here?” Sam said, looking shocked and whipping his head around.

  I stared at him blankly.

  “Are you all done?”

  “Okay, okay, moving on. Why are you struggling with this match?” Blair said, trying to stifle a chuckle.

  “You all are insufferable,” I said, trying to look mad but doing a shitty job of it.

  “But, I am struggling because, like, this is the first man that I was, like, low-key hoping to match with. He’s a drag queen,” I said, showing Sam Landon’s profile.

  He scrolled the profile. “Well, damn.”

  “And I may or may not be already following his drag account.” I bit my lip.

  “So, you are! Pull it up. I want to see it.” Sam laughed. “Okay, bit of a big deal.”

  “So, you know him, then?” Blair said.

  I smiled sheepishly. “No, I just follow Ella on Instagram.”

  “Why do you use the app, then? Why not just use Instagram?” my mom said, looking confused again.

  “Because sliding into DMs is weird.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blair mouth direct messages, and my mom’s mouth shaped into an O.

  “Well, just say something about his profile and say that, the funny thing is, you already follow Ella’s IG and then ask a question,” Sam said, shrugging.

  “Okay, but, like, I want a reply because I want a date. And there’s no guarantee that will happen when you match with someone,” I said.

  “I think you are overthinking it,” Blair said.

  “Just be yourself, honey!” my mom said.

  “Ugh, you know what? I’ll just reply later. You all are no help!”

  “Let’s talk about something that isn’t my singleness now, okay? Okay?” I said, pouting slightly.

  “Great, let’s talk about world climate change instead?” Blair said, perking up.

  And the conversation started toward the project Blair was working on as an environmental engineer. I would come up with something witty to say. I just needed a little extra time, and I had fourteen hours to do it. No biggie.

  CHAPTER Ten

  The next twenty-four hours went by in a blur.

  When we arrived to see my grandpa in the hospital, he wasn’t verbal because, apparently, he had had a stroke in the last few days. He stared at us kids like he was memorizing our faces. Was it weird that it made me uncomfortable? This man, who had said some cruel things to my family, was looking at us as if he saw hope in our faces. As if we were bringing him the most joy possible, even though we were practically strangers. It made my stomach clench and my heart ache. I wanted to squirm away from his gaze and turn to look at literally anything else. It was too vulnerable, and I felt like a fraud.

  My grandma filled the silence with idle gossip about what was happening at church and random people in their small Nebraska town we had no idea about. She filled the space and silence like an Olympic gold medalist, and we miraculously went through the day and morning with no social justice brawls.

  It was as if my grandma was trying to prevent awkward silences by steamrolling through everything she could think to talk about, from the weather to the history of their small town and everything else. She hardly asked about our lives, except if we were doing good. We gave her short answers, then zoomed off into the next topic.

  My grandpa was not doing well.

  He was frail and had several ailments he was dealing with, like the strokes, the heart attack, and some other things I didn’t understand. He wasn’t eating, and it seemed like my grandma was resistant to tell him that, if he didn’t have a feeding tube, he would probably die, since he was barely nibbling on anything.

  I felt weird about that, too.

  I hoped when I was on my deathbed, the person who was supposed to be my life partner would tell me how it really was. They wouldn’t sugarcoat it because we all deserved the truth. Especially when the truth very well might save our damn life.

  I held my tongue, though. This whole situation felt like I should’ve watched from the outside. That I was the wrong person here and this was all too personal and raw for someone like me who barely spoke to my grandparents to be a part of. I felt like a stranger pulled off the street and thrust into a weird movie where I had a role to play, but someone had forgotten to give me my lines.

  So, I was just existing in the scene, creating more awkward scenarios and noiseless pauses than anything else by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  It seemed like the rest of my family was handling it better than I was, but we hadn’t had a moment to ourselves without Grandma or Grandpa, so I didn’t know.

  Eventually, we said our goodbyes and left my dad behind with my grandma.

  It was weird recognizing you might see someone alive for the last time. Even if you didn’t have a relationship, the shadow of death was heavy. It felt wrong to acknowledge death was simply a day away, and we were leaving like that wasn’t the genuine reason we were here. It felt like another lie to leave and not address the elephant in the room that was my grandpa’s thread of fate.

  We drove with the radio on for the first ten minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore. This time, Sam was in the front, and Blair was next to me.

  “Was anyone else uncomfortable? Not with, like, death. I mean, yes, obviously, that was uncomfortable, but, just, like, everything about this situation. Grandma not being honest with Grandpa about the severity of his condition. The fact that they didn’t ask us about us except ‘How are you doing? Good? Good’ with no regard to listening to our answers but just needing to feel better about themselves because at least they asked so that, when other people ask them how we are, they can respond with ‘Oh, yes, they are so good!’ Or that they barely recognized we are practically strangers in this room together, grieving a man who is alive but not actually saying those words out loud?!”