When Thad gets home, Aunt Nora’s practically pacing.
“I’m glad you’re here—she’s been in her chair for almost three hours now.”
“Three hours?” He hadn’t even realized he’d been out that long.
“She got into the wheelchair when the therapist was here, and she wanted to stay in it for a while after the therapist left. But I can’t get her back out of it alone.”
He stumbles over a couple excuses about losing track of time. The truth is that he wasn’t careful enough—that he didn’t want to have to keep track. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay, hon, let’s just…” She motions for him to follow her.
In his mom’s room, he sees her in the wheelchair, her head leaning to the side. It gives him a strong and sudden ache. She just looks so small. So frail. So helpless. Tears push upward, but he squints them back.
“Mom?”
She opens her eyes and lifts her head, and in a groggy voice says, “Oh, good. You’re home.”
Thad gets behind the wheelchair and places his hands under his mom’s arms. Nora scoops her forearms under her knees. “One, two,” Nora counts, “three!”
They sweep her onto her bed, Nora making a tiny grunt, Thad not making a sound at all, not even a breath.
“So tired,” his mom says.
“You can get some real rest now,” Nora says.
Thad tries to help Aunt Nora put the pillows just right and arrange the bed, but she shoos him away.
“’Night, Mom,” he says.
“Mmm-hmm,” his mom hums, too tired for actual words.
He goes out to the kitchen and grabs a Yoo-hoo out of the refrigerator. He takes a swig.
Aunt Nora appears, her hands on her hips. “No way, uh-uh, not before dinner!” she says. It’s more of a scold than the usual good-natured badgering.
“Okay, calm down,” he says, his hands lifted in surrender.
“Have some plain milk instead,” she says, and blows some air out of puffed cheeks.
Okay, she’s definitely annoyed.
He opens the refrigerator and puts the bottle back in. “I didn’t know you were waiting. You could’ve called me.”
“I did.”
Whoops.
Did he even check his phone at all?
Nope.
He sighs. “I’m sorry. I guess I was”—having fun for once; pretending this new life wasn’t waiting for me, counting on me—“distracted.”
“It’s just hard, you know.” She looks like she might cry.
Oh no.
He doesn’t know what to do. His eyes dart around the kitchen and land on the kettle. He guides Aunt Nora to a chair at the table and fills up the kettle with water. She sniffles. He brings her a paper towel. “Peppermint or lemon ginger?” he asks, words he knows she likes.
“Peppermint, please.” She looks up. “With honey?”
The water boils and he pours it into two cups. He sits down at the table with her. She looks up at him. And smiles. Finally. Thank god she smiles.
“Well, look at you,” she says. “Actually drinking tea.”
“It can’t be that bad,” he jokes. He swirls the tea bag around his mug, watching the hot water turn greenish-brown.
Her eyes rest on the shelf behind Thad. A stack of mail sits unopened. A useless phone book. And the folder. The manila folder.
“What’s that?” she asks, jutting her chin in its direction.
“What?” he tries.
“That file folder. Behind you.”
“Oh,” he says. What now? “I don’t know.”
“Where’d it come from?”
“I think”—his back straightens—“that guy—”
“Dirk?”
“Yeah, I think he dropped it off.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “Here, hand it to me, hon.”
So he does. He crosses his foot over his knee and lets it bounce under the table. He watches her face. It doesn’t crumble, but her mouth tightens and her eyebrows pull together and she says, “We need to talk about this. These are important.”
“Okay.” He braces himself. “What is it?”
“Your enrollment papers.”
Relief.
“Well, Thaddeus, what do you think?”
“What about Mom?” What about days like today, when she’s stuck in her wheelchair?
“We’ll…” She takes a breath and looks away. “We’ll figure that out. We will. But I need to know. Are you ready to go to school?”
Yes. No. He’s not sure. He’s not even sure they’ll allow him in once they figure out he broke the window. If they haven’t already figured that out. Maybe this is his punishment—mind games. “Can I think about it?”
“Thad.” She tilts her head. “The longer you take, the harder it is to get back into the routine.”
“I know, I just…” His voice trails off, and she lets it. She’s opening the envelope.
She pulls something out and stares at it for a full minute.
His foot stops jumping.
Her face crumbles. She blots her tears with the paper towel he gave her earlier. She pushes the envelope across the table to him. Inside is an old photo. Two young boys, maybe ten years old. They’ve just caught a big fish. One of them holds the fishing rod; the other holds the line. They are both squinting in the sun and smiling.
Officer Dirk. And Thad’s dad.
His face feels wet.
He was warned.
yo llamo
tú llamas
ella llama
nosotros llamamos
ellos llaman
On Thursday, Sirina and I are on our way to our first-period classes when we see Officer Dirk. He’s leaning against the doorjamb, sipping something from a mug and listening to Ms. Roach. She’s moving her hands around and smiling as she talks.
“Holy something. That’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him,” Sirina says, motioning for me to follow her. “Come on, maybe he won’t be a jerk in front of Ms. Roach.”
When he sees us, his already stern face hardens. It’s like watching a regular stone turn into granite. I start to slow down but Sirina pulls me along.
Ms. Roach stops talking and looks at us.
“Do you have a few minutes, Officer Dirk?” Sirina asks.
He looks at his watch. “EIGHTY-TWO SECONDS.”
Ms. Roach excuses herself and ducks back into her classroom.
“Well, I need more time than that. Can we schedule something? To talk about the window?”
“OH. I HAVEN’T TOLD YOU.”
A few of those seconds are eaten up by the time it takes for us to realize he’s asking a question rather than making a statement.
“Well, no, you haven’t, but we were hoping—”
“MAYBE THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.”
Sirina shrinks. The warning bell rings. Officer Dirk’s granite face softens back into its usual stone, and he walks away.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t, either,” Sirina says. “But I do know one thing. This doesn’t end here.”
Later, as we are being herded into the cafetorium for an anti-bullying assembly by a group of rude teachers (“Left! Left! Not right! Didn’t you learn the difference in kindergarten!?”), Nick spots me. He stops and holds his hand up in a stiff wave, disrupting the line and earning a scolding by Ms. Hilliard, the P.E. teacher tasked with managing the lines into the cafetorium (“I said go! G-O! It’s pretty simple, folks!”).
Nick gets back in line and scampers off, no doubt embarrassed. But when we get weaved into the seats, I see his tiny ears two rows up. And when Ms. Hilliard barks “No changing seats!” from the back of the room to some kid who apparently wasn’t happy with his original seat assignment, and everyone cranes their heads back to see who this poor and slightly dumb soul might be, our eyes connect. You can almost hear
the clink of our eyes locking.
And suddenly his eyes seem too close together.
Get out of my head, Thaddeus Bell. Get out.
Then Ms. Hilliard yells again. “I said stay there, didn’t I?” And I notice a strange gap between Nick’s side teeth.
Wait. That’s what I notice first, because stupid Thad Bell has poisoned my thoughts. But then I realize that Nick—my Nicolás—is smiling at me. Admiringly. Gloriously. He is smiling, not just at me, but for me.
And his eye spacing doesn’t matter. And his tooth gap is actually quite charming.
So I just do it—I give him the bold, daring Mariela smile. Forget about the rules of heartbreak, what about the rules of true love?
“Maybe I should call the police department,” Sirina is saying as we walk home from school later that afternoon. She’s been staying up late watching old Law & Order episodes.
“Oooh.” I suck in a breath. “I’m not sure that’s ever a good idea.”
“Why not? I just want to see the police report about the broken window.” Then she looks at me and laughs. “Oh my god. You’re thinking of Señora Trujillo again, aren’t you? Wrongful imprisonment for the crime of pig stealing.”
“And Luis!” I say. The most recent episode of La Vida Rica revealed that the police were in cahoots with the bad guys that kidnapped Cristina’s love, Luis. “How could you possibly forget about him!?”
“Come on, Mabry. This is real life.” We stop in front of her house. She’s about to go to a dentist appointment. “Well, want to come watch them scrape my teeth? I hear there are some old copies of Better Housekeeping in the waiting room,” she jokes.
“That sounds—uh—great, but, no.”
She smiles. “Okay, I’ll call you later, then.”
I start the walk to my house. My phone buzzes and I fish it out of my jacket pocket, and almost immediately drop it.
Because it’s Nicolás!
In the millisecond it takes for me to press the answer button, I have three miniature fantasies of what Nick could want, and where this could go. He could plead with me to forgive him. He could tell me how wretched life is without me, and how he’s been unable to eat or sleep since his mom’s fateful phone call. He could ask me what I’m doing—dreamy sigh—for the rest of my life.
“Hel-loo?” I say, my voice like satin.
But there’s no voice in response. Just a few weird sounds—a crushy sound, a swishy sound, and that’s it.
“Hello? Hello?” There’s no more satin in my voice, just the breathlessness of desperation.
The call disconnects.
I stare at my phone and wonder what I should do.
Sirina’s voice pops into my head: Call him back! What if he has more information?
And then there’s Thad’s: Think nose picker, Collins. Public picker.
I don’t want to have to decide. Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe he’ll call me again. Please, Nicolás, My Love, llámame!
And then I put the phone back into my pocket and start walking again. Or, really, waiting in motion.
My phone stays still and silent, even hours later.
I call Sirina. The phone just goes to voice mail, but it makes that sound like she’s on another call. So I call Thad.
“What’s up, dorkus?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Absolutely nothing. Can you call me right back?”
“Um, no.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“Didn’t you just call me?”
“Well, yeah, but I want to make sure my phone’s working.”
“Uh.” He pauses. “Look, I’m no genius, but I’m kind of sure that your phone’s working. I mean, don’t freak or anything, but we are actually speaking. On the phone. Right. Now.”
“No, I mean, call it. Sometimes, you know, ringers just stop working. And voice mail doesn’t always kick in.”
“Collins? Is this the stuff that goes on inside your head all day?”
“Can you just please call me back? Okay?”
I hear a beep. The call ends. Did he just hang up on me? Did he? The nerve—
But my phone rings. It’s him. “Knucklehead,” I say.
“Hangnail,” he says back. “Anyway, did it ring, or are you just psychic?”
“It rang.”
“So, it works.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“No problem,” I say.
“Liar. You’re waiting for Nick to call, aren’t you?”
Sometimes this ruse is so hard to keep up! “Only because he called earlier and we got disconnected, that’s all,” I say.
There’s a pause. It feels like Thad could be reading my thoughts. “I can’t believe I have to say this. Don’t even think about calling him back, Collins. Got it?”
Great. Am I really that predictable?
“Okay, fine, I get it,” I say.
“Tell me you won’t call him.”
“I’m not going to call him. It’s not like I wanted to in the first place,” I tell him.
“Good. Also, I need a flaw. A new one. Go.”
I sigh. “Fine, he needs braces.”
“That’s a stupid one,” he says.
“Whatever,” I say. “I’ll try harder.”
“Yeah, maybe you should actually try.”
“I am! It’s just that—well, the Cotillion’s getting closer and I don’t know”—if he really likes me or not—“if he’s actually going to ask me. I’m never going to be able to break his heart if he doesn’t ask me.”
Thad sighs. “Collins, jeez. Chill, dude.”
“I mean, what if he really doesn’t like me after all? What if something’s wrong with me?”
“Like, besides your ears?”
“You said you were joking about my ears!” I say.
“I was! I am!” He hyena-laughs, even though it’s not funny.
“No, but what if—I’m not smart enough? Not pretty enough?”
I can hear some exasperation in his voice. “You’re enough of those.”
I feel myself blush, and I’m glad he can’t see it. “Well, what, then?” I scan through all my possibly irritating habits. Chewing the insides of my cheeks; laughing too loud, sometimes accidentally snorting; talking a lot. I wonder which of these is the worst. I think about listing them out so he can rank them. I know it sounds painful, but the truth often hurts. I just have to know!
“Okay, Collins, stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Doing this. Thinking you’re not whatever enough. You’ve got to understand how a guy thinks.”
“Okay, well, tell me.”
“Okay. Here’s the thing. A guy might like a girl—maybe he even likes her a lot. But he also likes Tex-Mex. And he likes cartoons or basket-ball or whatever. And he likes Xbox. Maybe he just wants to focus on a burrito in peace, and you know what? Maybe you should learn something from it. Find something else to do besides sitting around and wondering if your phone works.”
I sigh.
“Think about it,” he says. “What does Mariela do with her time?”
“She plots things,” I say.
“Like what?”
“Schemes,” I tell him. And then I realize that’s kind of what I’m doing with Nick. Only I really do secretly love him.
“Well, whatever they are, I’m sure they don’t involve waiting around for some sack to look at her or text her or whatever.”
“O-kay,” I say. I try to think of something else to do with my time, but feel a little stumped. My head keeps filling up with stupid things like bean dip and hot sauce. It’s useless.
“And, Collins?”
“What?”
“The fact that sometimes calling you is going to be less important to a guy than, say, a Funyun?”
Ouch! “What about it?” I ask.
“Just don’t take that personally. It’s not you, it’s just how our brains sometimes work.”
But a
Funyun? I’m stunned into silence.
“Hey,” he finally says. I can hear him smiling. “You asked!”
Jeez. Yes, I did. I asked for it. And knowledge is power, right?
But wow. To be as significant as a Funyun. Sometimes I guess knowledge just doesn’t feel that empowering after all.
When he comes back into the kitchen, Aunt Nora is giving him this weird smile. “Who was that?” she asks.
“No one,” he says, embarrassed to have been overheard.
“Oh, it was definitely someone.” She still has this strange smile on her face.
Oh god, he thinks. He doesn’t need Aunt Nora grilling him. “It was nothing.” He brushes past her, opens the refrigerator, and stares.
“There’s some of that chicken in that Tupperware container. And mashed potatoes,” Aunt Nora says. “Your mom ate half a plateful today.”
“She did?” He looks over at Aunt Nora.
She nods, looking pleased.
“Why don’t you just sit down, okay? I’ll make you up a plate.”
Thad takes a seat. It’s not like he can’t heat it up himself, but sometimes it’s nice to be doted on.
“So,” Aunt Nora says as she puts the chicken on a plate, “how is everything?”
“Oh,” he says. “Okay, I guess.”
“You know you can always talk to me, right? About anything?”
“I know,” he says automatically. Since the accident, nearly every adult says that. It’s like he’d be doing them some massive favor or something by spilling his guts. He finds it hard to believe, and even harder to take seriously. What good would it do anyway?
He watches her put the plate into the microwave, pour a glass of milk, and bring it to him at the table.
“About school,” she starts. “We can’t put it off much longer, you know.”
“I know,” he says.
Aunt Nora sighs. The microwave dings. She stirs the food inside and restarts it, leaning on the counter.
Thad feels her looking at him, but he finds a scratch in the surface of the table and traces it with his thumbnail.
How to Break a Heart Page 13
