No Matter What

Lemons to Lemonade

I sat at my desk, brushed my hair out, and waited at my computer for my video call to come through. After a few minutes of waiting, I got bored, so I started putting the laundry away. As I was placing my pastel pink t-shirt in with the other pink shirts in the closet, Connor finally called. I rushed over to my desk so I could answer.

"Hey, beautiful! How are you?" he asked.

"I feel like I should be the one asking you that," I said. "I don't know if I should be congratulating or mourning the fact that you're still in the hospital."

"And with a lot more time to go," he said, sighing. "I hate to complain about it, but I really do wish I could go home. It's so boring here, even with all my therapy and visitors every few hours. But enough about me. What are you doing today?"

"Dani's coming over today, remember? For lemon bars?" I said.

"That's right! How many are you making?"

"I'll find out how many pans we get through with the ingredients I brought. Everyone told me to bring like a hundred or something. We're expecting a lot of people to show up. Can't wait. It'll be nice and noisy and chaotic."

"But this will be outside, right? That should be better for you," he said.

"That's true. I hope so." I sighed. "I miss you so much. I wish you could come home. I know that isn't gonna make you feel any better, but I just feel like I had to say it."

"Ayla, can I say something to you?"

"Yeah. Sure. What?"

"Do you have any idea how grateful I am that you're still my girlfriend? Not only that, but that you're doing all this work to have that bake sale for me. I'm sure you and Dani are gonna be in the kitchen for hours later."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Why...would I not be your girlfriend anymore?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Not to me, at least."

"Because I'm...gonna be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I'll never be like a normal person ever again."

"It'll just be your normal. My normal isn't everyone else's normal because I'm on the spectrum. You never cared about that, even when I was hiding in the bathroom at prom, you were still so nice about everything. I feel like other guys would've gotten really frustrated."

"I love you."

"Love you too, babe," I said, blowing him a kiss. "You being in a wheelchair doesn't mean you won't still be you anymore. It'll just be a different version of you. You'll only look different. Everything else, we'll just figure out."

"This means so much to me. You know that, right?" he asked.

"You were there for me last year when everything went down. There's no way I wouldn't be there for you."

We talked for about an hour, then a nurse came in. He had to get a sponge bath. It freaked me out. I couldn't imagine not being able to take a shower, having someone touching me all over the place like that...ugh.

I took some time to chill out downstairs while watching Netflix. I had to catch up on last week's latest Castle of Shadows episode. Dad wasn't home, even though it was a Saturday. He was busy looking at wedding venues with Annie. I didn't feel like going. Had to rest before lemon bars.

Ten minutes before two, I got a notification on my phone. There was someone at the door. I opened the app and saw Dani waving at the camera. There were a few things in her hands. I smiled, hopped off the couch, and opened the front door. I waved at her mom's minivan as it drove away.

"Alrighty! I'm here!" Dani said, walking in the front door and kicking off her sneakers. "I brought all kinds of stuff for our baking spectacular! I know we're making lemon bars, so I brought this jar of my favorite lemonade. It needs to go in the fridge though. It's all warm. I also brought my speaker and a board game."

I looked at the box she was holding up. It was her favorite game, the vintage one from twenty years ago with the puppies on it. I liked hitting the button that made the puppies go forward. Something about it just felt really, really good.

"My lord and savior, Taylor Swift, released a new CD and I know you haven't listened to it yet because you're too busy listening to that band on repeat."

"Lunar Pipes," I said.

"Right.

"Well, you've got to listen to this new CD. It won't disappoint. She's got this song on here called Lavender Haze, and that one is the best! I love it when people write songs about my favorite color."

"Oh really? Then it must be good," I said, chuckling. "You ready to make these lemon bars?"

"Ready as I'll ever be. I'll start the music and wash my hands."

I wasn't a Swiftie, but I loved seeing Dani happy, just rocking out and being herself. A lot of times when we were at school, it felt like we couldn't just be this way: ourselves. Just living life, stimming to some music, and feeling good without anyone judging us. That was why I was so glad I met Dani. We just got each other.

We started getting mixing bowls, adding all the ingredients, and getting things done. I got every baking pan out of the cupboards that we had. When they were all full, we opened up the oven and tried to shove everything in...but it wasn't working.

"We're gonna need a bigger oven!" Dani said.

"We'll just have to do them in different rounds," I said, closing the oven and setting the timer for thirty minutes. I turned around and saw the disaster that was our countertop. "We better start cleaning this up."

"I guess we better hop to it, then," Dani said.

As Dani started wiping down the counters, I began washing one of the mixing bowls in the sink.

"I thought of something," Dani said suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

"Have you ever taken a second to think about the lemons? You know, that saying with the lemons?"

"I'm not following you," I said.

"You know what I mean! You take the lemons..."

"Oh, and you make lemonade? What about it?"

"It's just that...we're kinda doing that in real life, you know? Connor got really hurt, and that's the lemons, but we're trying to make it better by doing the bake sale. That's the lemonade. But it's even more than that, because we've been drinking lemonade and we're making lemon bars."

"That's a really good point," I said, placing the first bowl into the drying rack. "Hey...do you smell something burning?"

"Hmm. Yeah. I do now."

I ran over to the oven and stopped the timer so I could see the temperature. My dumb ass set it to 530 instead of 350 degrees. Send help.

I immediately pulled all the trays out. Those few minutes in the oven really did a number on them. They really didn't look as appetizing as they could.

"I think you burnt 'em," Dani said.

"You think?"

"Hey, do you ever wonder what burnt lemonade would taste like?"

"I don't. Why?"

"Because I bet that's what your lemon bars probably will taste like now." I grabbed the nearest kitchen towel and swatted her with it, sending her into a fit of laughter. "Hey, I was just stating the obvious."

I looked behind me at the rest of the uncooked lemon bars on the counter, then adjusted the oven accordingly. At least I only ruined half of them.