Sick Kids In Love

by Hannah Moskowitz

  “I don’t have time to go back and grab Ashley from—”

  Maura waves her hand. “Okay then, fuck Ashley. Ashley’s controlling and bossy and…whatever, fuck her, but what about you and me? We’ve been best friends for years. You can’t just not even give me a shot to get on board with this new thing you’re doing. I want to be on board. You’re the one who changed, and I’m happy about it for you, but you’re the one who changed, not me. You can’t just drop me for not changing when you didn’t even tell me I was supposed to. I deserve better than that, Ibby.”

  I swallow and look down at my roll. It’s sitting half on and half off my plate. I feel bad for it for some reason.

  “I changed,” I say quietly.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t…” I take a deep breath. “You’re right. I changed, and it was good. I didn’t know I could change.”

  She smiles at me a little.

  “Okay,” I say. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  She nods.

  “I still don’t want to talk to Ashley, though.”

  “Fuck it. I’ve been looking for an excuse to spend less time with Ashley. Siobhan and Luna already told me they want to stay neutral.”

  “That’s fine.”

  She spears a few pieces of pasta and slips them into her mouth. “So what’s going on with you?” she says. “You were weird yesterday even before the thing with Ashley.”

  “Yeah.” I open my yogurt. Sasha loves yogurt. “Stuff’s not great with Sasha right now.”

  She puts her fork down and pushes her plate aside. “Okay. Let’s talk it out.”

  And God, everything in me wants to. All my instincts are telling me to put it all on Maura, to get her advice, to do exactly what she says. I look down at the blank sheet of paper where I’ve been trying all day to write what I’m going to say to him. I could give it to her and have her write it. She’d love that. Let her make the decisions. Let her take the fall.

  I changed, and it was good.

  I lick my lips. “I think I need to figure this out on my own.”

  What are you afraid of?

  Dogs. Why do people have dogs in the city? Don’t they know they live in tiny apartments? Are they living somewhere else? Where are all these dogs coming from?

  —Abby Lincoln, 29, lawyer

  Did you know more people are afraid of public speaking than are afraid of death? I learned that from Seinfeld. I don’t know if it’s actually true. It doesn’t seem right to me. I think everyone’s so afraid of death that they don’t even think to mention it, but people who are afraid of public speaking… I don’t know. Maybe they think they’re special. Honestly, everyone’s afraid of that, too, right? Who wants to get up and talk? After answering this, I’m gonna have to be quiet for two days to make up for it.

  —Jenna Shields, 31, writer

  Cops, mostly. And I don’t like needles!

  —Mason Carter, 22, assistant manager at Pete’s Diner

  Don’t ask me, girl. I’m not taking the fall for this one. You’re on your own. Can ghosts slam doors? I’m gonna try.

  —Claire Lennon, 17, dead

  Failure.

  —Melanie Drake, 19, actress

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I spend the rest of the day drafting out what I want to say, and then I go home and keep working. I read it over a few times, then recite it in front of my mirror, then crumple it up and throw it away because I’m doing this wrong and it’s supposed to be spontaneous. Sasha didn’t write what he was going to tell me after the Snow Ball. That wasn’t planned. He’s never planned anything in his life.

  I think about putting on my Snow Ball dress, but that seems like overkill. At the last minute, I dig through my closet to find a white scarf—not silk, but something—and drape it over my neck. He probably won’t notice, but it makes me feel braver.

  I get on the subway and head into Manhattan and spend the entire trip typing what I remember of the speech onto my phone. I’m hopeless.

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Sasha hasn’t called. He’s given no indication he has any interest in ever talking to me again, and here I am taking the train to his apartment at ten on a school night. If not for the fact that I’m obsessively taking notes on my phone right now, I’d think I’d been body-snatched.

  But at the same time I have this electric feeling inside of me. I drum my fingers on the empty seat next to me and stare out the train window. I can’t remember ever feeling this energized before, not in a very long time.

  At least something is going to happen. I remember how I felt when he called me on Thanksgiving and how it felt when he kissed me for the first time, the kind of inescapable inertia of it all. This is a much-higher-stakes version of that. Back then, I knew it meant we’d eventually get together. Now, I just know we’re about to…something.

  But at least I’m doing something.

  I transfer at Times Square, take the 1 down to Chelsea, and walk to his building. I take a deep breath and call his phone.

  He picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey,” he says. No rasping hi there, Isabel. Just hey, like a normal person.

  “Hey,” I say. “Can you come out?”

  “What?”

  “I’m outside your building.”

  “You’re outside my building.”

  “Come out? Please? It’ll just take a minute.”

  “I…yeah. Let me put some shoes on.”

  “Okay.” I hang up and look up at his apartment and wring my hands.

  He comes out of the building a minute later, in sweatpants and a thermal long-sleeved tee and shoes with no socks. He starts to come toward me, but I hold up my hand to stop him.

  “Stay there,” I say. There aren’t any stairs in front of his building, so I back up down the sidewalk a little. This will have to do.

  He crosses his arms and watches me. There’s nobody else on this block right now. His doorman’s off duty for the night. I’m sure someone will turn the corner and walk past us any second, but right at this moment, there’s only Sasha and me.

  And of course I’ve forgotten everything I was going to say. But he’s standing here, and he’s waiting for me, and I cannot let this go, so…bombs away.

  “I know I overthink things,” I say. “I just…all the time am overthinking everything. I think about things that don’t need to be thought about. And I know it drives you crazy, and trust me, I get it, because it drives me crazy, too.”

  He watches me.

  “I get a little rash over my infusion site and I think what if I’m having some major allergic reaction and I’m gonna die? The train stops when it’s not supposed to and I think what if someone jumped in front of it? I hear a key in the door before my dad’s supposed to be home and I think maybe it’s my mom. And…and you do something that annoys me, and I think, maybe this was a mistake. And I know. I know that’s frustrating.”

  He doesn’t say anything. I wait for a couple to pass by me but start talking again while they can still hear me.

  “I’m going to do better,” I say. “I’m going to commit. I—oh fuck, the first thing I was supposed to say when I got here was yes. I was going to say that first. I was just gonna say yes, and then I was gonna stand here and… Can I start over?”

  He’s trying not to smile.

  “Okay, fine, yes, this was rehearsed!” I say. “I wrote this all down! I practiced this on the train on the way over! I’m going to do better, but I’m still… I am always going to overthink things. But, like… Oh okay, this part is good, I remember this part.”

  He rubs his hand over his mouth. It’s so casual and so beautiful and I’m messing this up and it’s still working and I think I’m crying.

  “No wait, okay, this part is good,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says. His voice sounds m
uffled.

  “I’m going to do better. But I think you should know that I’m already, even right now, before I’m doing better, there’s…” I shake my head fast. “Okay so I think too much, I think about bad things, but I also think about…what you and I should do this summer. And if, like, if we had kids, would we do genetic testing first. And if”—I catch my breath—“if we should be Sverdlov-Deckler-Garfinkel or Garfinkel-Sverdlov-Deckler.”

  He clears his throat. “Or Sverdlov-Garfinkel-Deckler,” he says. “That’d be weird.”

  I do some kind of laugh-sob. “Or that. And I know that those are not responsible things to think about, because we’ve known each other for not even five months, so I’m not saying we actually do anything about the fact that I’m thinking these things, I’m saying… I mean that’s my point, that they’re irresponsible and ridiculous and sappy and I’m thinking about them. I’ve been thinking about them for a long time. So while I’m overthinking everything else, I’m overthinking that too. I am in this. I am so in this that it’s embarrassing. But I’m going to try to stop being embarrassed and just…and just be in this.”

  He nods.

  I say, “Oh, there’s an ending, wait. I…okay, and…and for what it’s worth, I’m in love with you.”

  He smiles, slow and big, his face lighting up like a jack-o’-lantern.

  “I think…I think Sverdlov-Garfinkel-Deckler?” he says after a moment. “I want to really confuse people.”

  I sniffle. “Sounds good.”

  “Okay.”

  “So…is that good?” I say. “Is that yes enough?”

  “Really just yes would have been fine,” he says.

  “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

  “Are you going to come here and kiss me now?”

  “Yeah,” I say, but he catches me halfway and kisses me so hard I see stars.

  Or maybe that’s just the moonlight.

  Sick Girl loves Sick Boy.

  …

  We sit on the sidewalk outside his building and talk for a long time. We haven’t gone two days without talking in months, and it’s weird how much we have to catch up on. I tell him about the thing that happened with Ashley, and he tells me about Nadia’s new friend at school. His moms sent him a postcard. And my mom got dumped by his dad. I thought maybe I’d feel a little bad, but I don’t.

  “That reminds me,” he says, taking out his phone. “She gave my dad… Hang on, I have it in my phone.”

  “This better not be some kind of STD picture.”

  “Yes, I have a junk shot of my dad on my phone,” Sasha says.

  I make like I’m gonna get up and walk away, and he laughs and pulls me back down.

  Gently.

  “It’s a phone number,” Sasha says. “After my dad explained everything to her, she wanted you to have it. Here.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “I’ll text it to you, okay? Whether you want to use it, that’s up to you. But at least you know how to find her now. If you want to.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Thanks.”

  I lean my head against his shoulder, and we sit there on the sidewalk a while longer, watching the Empire State Building spear into the sky. It’s lit up green tonight.

  I’m not even thinking about the number, not right now.

  I missed him so much.

  Should Sick Girl call her mom?

  Honestly? Yeah, I think you should. You have so many unanswered questions, and she deserves to have to answer them. She shouldn’t just be able to walk away and forget about how much she hurt you. Call her and yell at her. Otherwise you’re just going to wonder forever, and maybe she’s going to think you’re okay.

  —Maura Cho, 16, best friend

  Yeah. I mean…yes, she messed up, but that was about your dad, not you. Clearly, she wants to reach out to you; she’s just trying to be respectful, so she wants it to be on your terms instead of her just calling you. That’s kind of the best possible thing she could do at this point, right? I think you should at least hear what she has to say. I mean, someday you’re going to run into her again, like some cousin is going to get married or something and you’re going to see her so at least this way you’re controlling when it happens. Facing your demons and all that. Plus, she’s your mom. She gave birth to you. She deserves a phone call. And if she doesn’t deserve anything after that, then that’s up to you. But you should do one phone call.

  —Luna Williams, 16, junior

  I don’t know, girl. My gut wants to say yes, but I would really understand if you didn’t. I’m not sure I could do it. But also, I just… God. I don’t even know how you’ve gotten through the past six months. I can’t imagine a mom doing this to her kid. How do you give advice on something like this? It wasn’t supposed to happen.

  —Siobhan O’Brian, 17, senior

  You’re asking people about your mom, now? I’m so confused. You’re not supposed to be crowdsourcing your life, but it feels like talking about your mom is progress? You’re so confusing.

  —Claire Lennon, 17, dead

  Whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you.

  —Sasha Sverdlov-Deckler, 16, patient

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I’m sitting at my desk at eleven thirty in the morning on Saturday, the last weekend in March. There are birds screaming outside and a number entered on my phone, and my thumb hovers over the green button. I’m about to tap it or erase the number or do something when a text pops up.

  Sasha: Come over?

  I don’t hesitate.

  …

  Sasha and I watch a movie in his room, my head resting against his collarbone while he does a nebulizer treatment to open his lungs up. It’s a good movie, this coming-of-age thing from Sundance, but I can’t concentrate.

  “Should we have sex?” I say.

  He starts coughing. I wait patiently.

  “Are you trying to break my lungs?” he says.

  “No. I’m just wondering.”

  “Like right now?” he says. “We’re in the middle of a movie.”

  “No, just like…in general. We’ve been together for a few months now. I’m just wondering if it’s something that you’re thinking about. It’s okay if you’re not.”

  “Ibby, I’m a red-blooded bisexual with my hot girlfriend lying on my chest. Of course I’m thinking about it.”

  “Oh, you’re going with bisexual officially?”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been staring at the love interest this whole movie instead of the lead girl, so I feel like I should at least try it out.”

  “Yeah, he’s pretty cute.”

  “He can wait.” He reaches for his remote and pauses the movie. “Have you ever done it before?” he says.

  I shake my head.

  “Me neither,” he says. I don’t know if I’m supposed to act surprised by that just for his ego or whatever, but I pretty much know his life backward and forward at this point.

  “Do you have condoms?” I ask.

  “Yeah…”

  I sit up. “Well…do you want to? Because I want to.”

  “I do, I just…”

  I wait for him to finish his sentence, but he never does. I say, “Oh my God, you’re nervous!”

  “Shut up.”

  “I’ve never seen you nervous in a situation that doesn’t involve ordering food before. Or phones.”

  “Is this how you seduce guys? You mock them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m just worried about my shitty body,” he says.

  “No, I planned for that already.”

  He takes a pull off the nebulizer, one eyebrow up. “You planned for my shitty body?”

  “Yeah,” I say. He laughs. “What! I don’t want to like crush your organs. I figured I’d be on top, so we wouldn�
��t have to worry about putting pressure on your stomach, and I’d kind of…angle myself. Like this.” I slide my hips forward.

  He puts a hand over his eyes. “Ibby.”

  “Oh my God, you’re not supposed to cover your eyes.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s a little weird to see you fully clothed and, like, miming sex positions with the quilt my bubbe made for me.” He peeks through his fingers, nebulizer mouthpiece dangling out of his mouth like a cigar. “Plus that’s not even what I was talking about,” he says.

  “Okay, then what.”

  He says, “You realize you’ve never seen me with my shirt off.”

  “You’re worried I won’t like your shitty body?”

  He scoffs. “What? No, you think I give a shit if you enjoy looking at my shitty body? If I have to live in it you can fucking look at it, you’ll survive.”

  “Okay good.”

  “What I’m worried about,” he says, “is how I will feel if you don’t like my shitty body. It’s a very important difference.”

  “Nuance.”

  “Yeah, nuance.”

  “I have never seen you openly self-conscious before,” I say.

  “Well, you’ve never tried to get me naked before,” he says. He cocks his head to the side. “It’s a pretty gruesome sight.”

  “This isn’t working. You’re not scaring me away.”

  He groans. “And yet I’m still scared, and I’ve told you I’m solely concerned with my feelings on the issue.”

  “Right. Your reaction to my reaction.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Simple deal. One-to-one trade. You take off your shirt, I take off my shirt.”

  He points at me, hesitating. “I’m interested. Question, though.”

  “Go for it.”

  “How does your bra play into this?”

  “Oh, okay, good question. Um, okay, first I take my shirt off, then you take yours off on good faith, then I take my bra off. Fair?”

  “Is it a stick-on bra?”