Jennifer shows up at 8:47 PM with a bottle of wine I won't drink and a bag of cheese puffs I absolutely will.

"I brought sustenance," she announces, pushing past me into the apartment like she owns it. Which she doesn't, but Jennifer has never let technicalities like property ownership slow her down. "The wine is from my aunt's vineyard, which sounds fancy but actually means it tastes like grape juice left too long in a hot car. I brought it for me. The cheese puffs are for you."

"I wasn't expecting—"

"I know." She drops onto the cozy chair—Mabel's throne, which Mabel vacates with a look of profound betrayal—and kicks off her shoes. "That's the point. You've been weird lately."

"I haven't been weird."

"You've been weird." She's already opening the wine, which suggests she came prepared for argument. "You've been doing that thing where you say 'I'm fine' but your voice goes up at the end like it's a question. So I'm here. With terrible wine and excellent cheese puffs. Talk."

I don't sit down. I stand in the middle of my own apartment, holding the cheese puffs like they're evidence in a trial I didn't know I was on, and I think about telling her the truth: that I've been thinking about grace lately. About receiving things. About a hundred-dollar bill taped to the wall downstairs and a journal I found behind this very chair.

But what comes out is: "You never give up, do you?"

Jennifer pauses mid-pour. "What?"

"On people. On—" I gesture vaguely, which is not helpful. "You just keep showing up. Even when people don't want you to."

"Rena, that's either a compliment or an insult and I genuinely can't tell which."

"Compliment," I say. "Definitely compliment."

I reach for the wine bottle—not to drink, just to read the label, because I'm curious about this hot-car grape juice situation—and my elbow catches Jennifer's purse.

Contents everywhere.

Lipstick rolling under the bed. A truly alarming number of receipts. Something that might be a granola bar from 2019. Her phone, which thankfully lands screen-up on the rug.

"Sorry—I'm sorry—" I'm already on my knees, grabbing at the debris field.

Jennifer doesn't move. "Third time this month you've done that."

"I know."

"Same purse."

"I know."

She laughs, and the sound of it does something to my chest—cracks open a door I didn't know was closed—and suddenly I'm not here anymore.

I'm in the Starbucks break room, three years ago.

It smelled like burnt espresso and disappointment, which was fitting because I was full of both.

"You should come to church with me."

Jennifer said it like she was suggesting a movie. Like it was nothing. Like she hadn't just dropped a live grenade into my carefully constructed system of survival.

"I can't," I said, not looking up from my phone. I wasn't doing anything on my phone. I was just looking at it so I didn't have to look at her.

"Why not?"

Because my parents would find out. Because it's not my church. Because I don't know what I believe anymore and I'm terrified to find out. Because you're kind and bright and normal, and I'm a mess held together by rules I'm not sure I trust, and if I go to your church I might fall apart entirely.

"I just can't," I said.

"Okay." Jennifer shrugged. "Next week, then."

She asked again the following Tuesday.

And the Tuesday after that.

And the Tuesday after that.

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time, I stopped being polite. "Why do you keep asking? I keep saying no."

Jennifer tilted her head—the same way she still does, actually, when she's thinking—and said something I've never forgotten.

"Because you look like you need someone to ask twice."[^1]

The sixth time she asked, I said maybe.

The seventh time, I said yes.

I went to that potluck not because I was ready, but because Jennifer had made it clear that the invitation wasn't going to expire. That she would keep asking, keep showing up, keep holding out her hand until I was brave enough to take it.

I didn't know what that cost her. The awkwardness of being refused. The risk that I'd say something cruel, or report her to management, or just stop talking to her entirely. She had no guarantee I'd ever say yes. She asked anyway.

Seven times.

That takes something. I don't think I understood what until right now, kneeling on my apartment floor with Jennifer's 2019 granola bar in my hand, realizing that the courage wasn't mine.

It was hers.

"Rena?"

I blink. I'm still on the floor. Jennifer is looking at me with the expression she reserves for when I've gone somewhere she can't follow.

"Sorry." I stand up, knees protesting, and hand her the purse. "I was just—remembering."

"Remembering what?"

"Starbucks." I sit down on the edge of the bed, across from her. Mabel immediately claims my lap, which means I've been forgiven for the purse incident. "The break room. You asking me to church."

Jennifer's face does something complicated. "That was a long time ago."

"Seven times."

"What?"

"You asked me seven times before I said yes." I've never counted before. I'm counting now. "I said no six times, Jennifer. And you just—kept asking."

She's quiet for a moment. The terrible wine sits untouched in her hand.

"You looked so scared," she finally says. "Every time. Not scared of me—scared of something I couldn't see. And I thought..." She pauses, takes a sip of the wine, makes a face that confirms everything she said about the hot-car situation. "I thought maybe no one had ever told you that the invitation doesn't expire. That you could take your time. That I'd still be here."[^2]

I don't say anything.

I don't have to.

Jennifer smiles, lifts the cheese puffs, and throws them at me. I catch them—barely, fumbling, sending three puffs onto the bed—and Mabel considers eating one before deciding it's beneath her dignity.

"So," Jennifer says. "You gonna tell me what's going on, or do I have to ask seven more times?"

We talk until midnight.

About the hundred-dollar bill. About the journal. About grace and receiving and how hard it is to stand still while someone pours something into your hands that you didn't earn.

Jennifer listens. She doesn't try to fix it. She just stays.

When she finally leaves—terrible wine mostly undrunk, cheese puffs demolished—she stops at the door.

"Hey, Rena?"

"Yeah?"

"You can say no to things. I'll keep asking." She grins. "That's kind of my whole deal."

The door closes.

I sit in the cozy chair that Jennifer vacated, Mabel resettling into my lap like she's been waiting all night for this, and I think about courage.

I always thought courage was the person who jumps. The one who takes the risk, makes the leap, says yes when everything is uncertain.

But maybe courage is also the person who keeps asking. The one who shows up with terrible wine and excellent cheese puffs and says talk like it's simple. Like she hasn't been doing it for years.

[^1]: I dropped my name tag into my coffee when she said this. Just—plop. Right into the cup. She didn't mention it. She just handed me a napkin. I think about this more than I should.

[^2]: I'm not crying. I'm just—there's dust. From the cheese puffs. It's a whole situation.