Page 12 of The Do-Over

“I’m sure it’s—”

“Don’t be lazy. Go get the pepper shaker in the china cabinet and properly season your soup.”

I went over to the armoire and pulled out the tabby-cat pepper shaker. “I doubt pepper will make that big of a difference.”

“Hush and shake.”

I shook pepper into my bowl, sat down, and lifted my spoon to my mouth. But instead of tasting grandmotherly deliciousness, my mouth was instantly on fire. In a very bad way.

“Gah!” I felt a shock go through my entire body. My spoon fell to the floor and I grabbed the glass of milk she’d set beside my bowl. I gulped down every drop, but my mouth was still burning. I ran over to the kitchen sink and put my lips under the faucet, turning it on and sucking down every wet, extinguishing drop I could get.

“Dear Lord, Emilie, what has gotten into you? Did you over-pepper your soup?”

I wiped my lips with the back of my hand. My mouth was still simmering, but it no longer felt like my saliva was going to eat away at my teeth. “I don’t know what’s in that shaker, Grandma, but it isn’t pepper. My mouth still tastes like fire and I barely used any.”

“Oh, my.” Grandma Max’s eyes narrowed. “You used the tabby shaker?”

“It has a ‘P’ on it.”

Her eyes got a little twinkle, even though she didn’t smile. “That atrocious pepper shaker was a wedding gift from my mother-in-law. It has lived in my cabinet since I received it fifty years ago. I didn’t even know it had anything in it.”

“Are you telling me that I just ate whatever was inside of the shaker when Great-Gram Leona bought it? A half-century ago?”

She coughed around a laugh.

“What if it was those ‘Do Not Eat’ silica pellets?”

My grandma walked over to the table and shook some into her palm. “No.” She lifted her hand and sniffed. “It appears to be pepper, just very old pepper.”

“Fifty-year-old pepper. Perfect.” My mouth tasted like the bottom of a dumpster. “That’s it. I’m going to bed.”

“But it’s only seven o’clock.”

“I know, but I feel like every minute I’m awake on this nightmarish day is a danger to my life. So far, this Valentine’s Day has wrecked my car, revoked my fellowship, stolen my boyfriend,moved my dad far away, and possibly poisoned me. I’m going to read myself to sleep before things get any worse.”

“I find it unlikely that things could get any worse.”

“Right?” I walked over to the linen closet and grabbed the clear bag of bedding that Grandma always kept clean for my sleepovers. “But I’m erring on the side of caution, just in case.”

CONFESSION #6

I’ve left my initials somewhere inside of every library book I’ve checked out since the second grade.

THE SECOND VALENTINE’S DAY

When my phone started playing “Walking on Sunshine” at six o’clock, I blinked and squinted to see my phone in the dark. Six? I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. Like I’djustgone to—

Wait, what?

I stared at the glow-in-the-dark stickers I’d put on my ceiling in middle school. When had I come home? I pushed back the covers and got out of bed, looking at Logan’s wide-open little mouth as he lay sprawled across my mattress. I remembered going to bed at Grandma’s the night before, but I couldn’t remember leaving her house.

I’d been wiped out, though. The day from hell had sucked every bit of life from me, so it was entirely possible I’d been so out of it that I didn’t remember Grandma bringing me home.

I glanced at my planner, lying open to February 14 on my desk, just like it’d been the day before.

To-Do List—February 14

Reorganize scholarship planning binder

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