by Lily Summers
“I made a mistake, but I’m trying to pick up the pieces,” he says, his tone desperate. “Please help me. Please forgive me. Don’t I deserve to have a life?”
I try again to pull away, my panic mounting. There’s a weapon on the edge of my tongue. It’ll hurt me to use it much more than it’ll hurt him to hear it. But it will still hurt him. So I use it.
“Didn’t she deserve to have a life?”
At once, he lets me go and I stumble away from him. The broken pieces of me that were just starting to mend shatter all over again, and I watch the same thing happen to him. Damien folds in on himself, clutching his stomach like his heart imploded and squeezing his eyes shut. A cry rises in my throat and I struggle to keep it in.
The room tilts sideways.
Somewhere in the distance, there’s the sound of a bell. Everything’s a blur. Damien’s talking, shaking me, and I’m yelling or screaming, I’m not sure. There’s another person beside us, strong hands prying Damien’s fingers off my skin. I clutch my hand to my chest and gasp for air. I manage to register Ezra gathering fistfuls of Damien’s jacket and getting up in his face, backing him toward the door. Ezra shoves him, hard, and when Damien tries to talk to me around him, Ezra uses his body to block our eye contact. Finally, the bell rings again and Damien’s gone.
He’s gone. Something inside me uncoils.
Then Ezra’s in front of me, his gentle fingers lifting my chin so all I can see is him. Tears sting the corner of my eyes and I try to blink them away.
“Are you okay?” he says. “Did he hurt you?”
Did he hurt me?
God, if only Ezra knew.
I take a deep, shuddering breath.
“No, it wasn’t like that, not exactly,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. I pull away to gather my things. My fingers are numb and shaking as I zip up my jacket.
Ezra’s brows tense up and his jaw clenches with concern. He’s treating me like a spun glass figurine, like I might shatter any second. What destroys me most is that he’s not entirely wrong. I’m cracking everywhere. Every wall I’ve built over the last ten months is crumbling. It’s not supposed to be this way. No one here is supposed to know.
“Can we just go?” I say in a strangled voice. Before he answers I’m already rushing for the door.
I’m half a block away when Ezra catches up and stops me. “Hey,” he says. “Mia.”
The sidewalk bustles, the steady stream of foot traffic parting around us. A couple passes by, laughing on their way to dinner, pushing a double stroller with a pair of screaming twins. A man in a suit bumps into my shoulders. I feel like I’m drowning, like I’m lost. I just want to disappear. With all of these strangers, it would be so easy to melt into the crowd. But Ezra is here, squeezing my hand with a tender pressure. He won’t let me drift away. He anchors me to the present, to him.
“Mia,” he says again, brushing a finger across my cheek. It comes away wet with tears. I hadn’t realized I was crying. “That was scary back there. Talk to me. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Who was that guy?”
His questions open up the stitches I sewed in my heart and I try to pull them closed again. “He’s my ex,” I manage. I take a shaky breath, straightening my shoulders. I pull on my armor again, guard myself with ice. “Just my horrible ex, trying to make nice.”
He’s part of why I’m so messed up, I want to add, but I don’t.
Ezra isn’t buying it, though. “That wasn’t your typical breakup baggage,” he says. “What’s going on?”
Why does he have to keep pushing?
My seams split open. My armor cracks, leaving me defenseless and alone in the pulpy mess of my pain. I curl over on myself as it rushes out, a sob escaping my clenched teeth. I try to free my hand, but Ezra’s grip is firm. Not iron and grit like Damien’s, but warm and steady as stone. I’m drowning and he’s trying to save me.
But Ezra doesn’t realize that it’s too late.
What was I thinking? That I could be normal again, that I could go on a cutesy date and drink cutesy beer and make cutesy flirt-talk with a beautiful guy like someone who isn’t a wasteland inside?
Ezra doesn’t deserve this. He deserves someone who isn’t broken.
“Mia…” he starts, tracing a finger down the side of my neck, and his voice is so full of genuine comfort that it sends another jolt of pain clean through me.
“I can’t,” I sob. I wrench myself free, backing away from him. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
Confusion, hurt, maybe even anguish—they’re drawn across his features, interlacing the raw agony of his emotion with his beauty. He looks like one of his paintings, the darkness folding in on itself, but illuminated by an indestructible glint of hope. It strangles my heart to see him like this, so I turn away. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, but now it’s just a whisper. Before he can say anything that would make this more gut-wrenching than it already is, I back away and disappear into the crowd.
11
Before
I’m not sure how I got back to the parking lot outside student housing, but I did. My face itches and my eyes ache from driving the entire thirteen hours between Maple Valley and San Francisco without stopping, except for gas. The dried tear tracks on my cheeks don’t help. I cover my face with my hands and suck in air. It makes my lungs feel raw.
My boyfriend’s a cheater and a liar, and that’s not even the worst of it.
For the six millionth time since I started driving, my ringtone plays from deep inside my bag. I’ve managed to tune it out with my blaring music up until now, but I finally yank my phone out, powering it down without looking at my missed calls. I don’t want to talk. There’s nothing to say.
The battery was dying, anyway.
I lean back on my headrest with my eyes closed, blearily wondering how I’m even still conscious. I haven’t slept since yesterday. It’s mid-morning now, and there are people everywhere filtering by on their way to classes. Three days ago, I was among them, thrilled that I got to be a student at San Francisco Art Institute, among the next generation of artists getting ready to change the world.
Now all I want to do is go up to my dorm room and sleep for a week.
I kick my door open, get out, and slam it, startling a few passersby. I don’t care. I shove open my trunk and pull out my bag. It’s packed for a long weekend at home, including the nice dress I was going to wear when Mom and Dad took me out to a belated twenty-first birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant.
I didn’t even get the chance to unpack before I came back here.
Happy fucking birthday to me.
Climbing the stairs to my second-story room feels like an exercise in masochism. My body hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts.
I drop my keys twice before I finally manage to push my way into my bedroom, where Kimber is frantically buttoning her pants. I shoot a quick glance up at her bed, and sure enough, her new girlfriend is clearly getting dressed under the covers. I snort and roll my eyes as I dump my bag and climb my ladder to roll onto my own bed.
“Sorry, sorry,” Kimber says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to her lady-friend.
I try to force myself asleep, but my brain is working overtime and refuses. There are some creaks and thumps as the other girl climbs down, then some mutterings and whispered goodbyes. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tune it out. Seeing a happy couple is not what I need right now.
Once our door clicks shut, Kimber reaches up and smacks me on the leg.
“Hey, dude, talk to me,” she says. “You weren’t supposed to be back until Sunday night. You could have called to give me a heads up that you were on your way home. Somebody’s been calling for you on my phone and I at least could have told them you’d be here soon. They sounded worried.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it at all. It sounds and tastes bitter. Apparently not answering my cell phone wasn’t a strong enough hint to leave me the hell alone.
“I really don’t want to talk
about it,” I grumble into my pillow.
She climbs up the first two rungs of my ladder so she can punch me in the hip and I sit bolt upright. Her face is set, determined, and I kind of want to yank her lip ring out.
“What the hell?” I snarl.
“I was having a really nice morning cuddling with a really cute girl and then you had to barge in like a freaking moose. Something obviously happened and someone’s worried about you back home. I’m your friend and I’m annoyed, so tell me something. Did you even stop at my folks’ place to rest? You could have driven off the damn road.”
Kimber’s from Arcata, a ways up the coast. We’ve been roommates for two years, and her folks always let me use her old room for a nap when I make the trip up home so that I don’t have to do the whole stretch in one go.
“I was fine, and it’s none of your damn business, okay? Let me sleep.”
When I flip over and bury my face in my pillow, I have to choke back a sob so she doesn’t keep bothering me.
Kimber’s phone rings, buzzing against her desk, and I grit my teeth.
Kimber doesn’t answer it. “That’s going to be for you,” she says. She really does sound pissed.
“I don’t care,” I say through my gritted teeth.
“Fine,” Kimber sighs and I hear the thump as she jumps down and goes to get the phone.
Whoever it is, they can fuck off. I’m going to nap and then I’m going to go to the commons for a pint of ice cream.
“Hello?” I hear Kimber say. “Yeah, Ms. Kavanagh, she just got here. I’m sorry she worried you.”
There’s a pause. “I don’t think she wants to come to the phone right now.”
Another pause.
Then, “Oh my god. Okay, yeah, I’ll get her on. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
Somewhere in the fog of my brain, I understand that something isn’t right. I raise my head and turn to look at Kim, who’s holding the phone away from her ear and looking at me with wide eyes.
“Mia, you really need to talk to your mom,” she says.
Her tone spreads a numb sort panic inside me. I climb down the ladder and take the phone from her. A heaviness settles in my gut, a small ball of molten lead that burns me up inside. When I put the phone to my ear, I hear my mother’s hitched breathing and realize she’s crying. My mouth tastes like bile.
“Mom?” I croak. “What’s going on?”
“We were worried sick, Mia, damn it,” she sobs, and I know it’s bad because Mom doesn’t swear. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? For hours and hours. We couldn’t take it if both of you…”
Everything around me goes very quiet and very still, like I’m frozen in a bubble of time.
“Both of us?” I repeat.
Mom’s crying too hard to answer and then Dad comes on the line. He’s not crying, but his voice sounds ragged and old.
“It’s your sister,” Dad says. “She was in a car accident with Damien last night. He was driving, and the police are pretty sure he was drinking.”
My knees give out under me. Kimber grabs me as I sink to the floor.
“What?” I whisper.
“He’s got a broken arm,” Dad says. He’s stating the facts in this mechanical voice, like turning computer will help him stay strong. That’s a bad sign. The last time I heard him like this was when we found out Nana had cancer.
“I don’t care about him,” I say, and I mean it. “What about Iris?”
There’s a pause. It feels like it goes on forever, swallows me whole. Then Dad says, “She’s still in surgery. They… keep telling us her condition is critical and they’re doing all they can.”
My mouth moves without sound for a few seconds before I manage to say, “But she’s alive. She’s going to be okay. Right?”
He doesn’t say anything. My mother’s crying echoes in the background.
“Dad,” I beg, my voice cracking. “Tell me she’s going to be okay.”
“I think you’d better come back home as soon as you can, baby,” he says. “We’ll wire you some money for a plane ticket. Turn your phone back on. I have to go be with your mother now.”
“Dad?” Tears are welling up in my eyes, my throat, my entire body. I feel like I’m drowning.
He’s barely audible as he says, “I love you, baby. Come home.”
The line goes quiet and I know he hung up. I drop the phone into my lap. Kimber’s sitting on the floor next to me, her arm around my shoulder. She says something, but I don’t register it.
My sister’s in the hospital, unconscious and alone, surrounded by cold metal and sterile people she doesn’t know.
My sister’s dying 800 miles away.
Reality crashes and I twist my hands into my hair as the room falls apart all around me, because this is my fault.
12
After someone’s seen you completely lose it on a public street right before your first real date, you can’t expect them to pretend that it never happened.
That’s what I keep telling myself as I stuff another spoonful of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia into my mouth. I’m wrapped in three different blankets on the couch and binge watching New Girl like it’s going out of style. It seems like the thing to do. After all, it’s not like I’m going to be going on any more dates, probably ever.
I swallow my ice cream and push my glasses up the bridge of my nose. I haven’t worn my contacts in about three days, ever since that night with Ezra. He hasn’t called or come by the bookshop, and I can’t blame him one bit. After all, I told him I couldn’t do it. I thought I wanted this. Didn’t I?
On screen, Jess is crying into an entire box of tissues in her pajamas and I can relate so hard it hurts.
Or maybe that’s just the ice cream induced indigestion settling in.
The front door opens and I hear the click of Audrey’s heels down the hall as she comes into the living room, home from the work. She looks like an entirely different person when she’s dressed for the office. Her hair’s up in a French twist and she’s wearing a pencil skirt and a honest-to-goodness blazer. She sighs when she sees me.
“Isn’t that the exact same place I left you this morning?” she says.
“Probably.” I’d shrug, but there are too many blankets weighing me down.
She checks her watch and shoves me over on the couch. I don’t turn to look at her, so she yanks a blanket off my head and tugs my ponytail.
“Ow. Cut it out,” I mutter.
“You haven’t showered in three days. I’m not even sure you’ve brushed your teeth. It’s gross. Your manager at the bookstore is probably freaking out.”
She’s not wrong. When I came into my shift yesterday, I thought Sampson might be getting the vapors. He said something about needing to lie down. He also asked what the hell happened that made me go from passably fashionable to mopey grungeball in the space of a few days, but I blew him off.
I spoon another bit of ice cream into my mouth. It’s going pretty runny.
“It’s actually better for your microbiome not to shower every day,” I say. “It helps your digestion.”
Audrey takes the carton from me and gets up to put it in the freezer, ignoring my feeble “hey.”
“If you’re concerned about your digestion, maybe you should lay off the all-ice cream diet,” she says.
I scowl at her from over the back of the couch. She crosses her arms and pops her hip, looking at me like a concerned guidance counselor.
“Would you talk to me?” she says. “Everything seemed like it was going really well with —”
I cut her off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “Then will you at least consider coming out with me and the girls for drinks at The Cantina? It’ll be good for you.”
“Now?” I ask, incredulously.
Audrey purses her lips. “I can give you some time to shower first—”
“No. I’m really not up for it,” I say. Then I slump back down on the cushions,
my eyes fixed on the television.
Audrey sighs behind me. Softly, she says, “Whenever you’re ready, you can talk to me, Mia. I’m here.”
I bite my lip and hope she’s not waiting for an affirmation, but I don’t have to worry. After a beat, she sighs again and leaves. The front door clicks shut. I consider getting up to go dig the ice cream back out of the freezer and ultimately decide it’s not worth extracting myself from my blanket cocoon. The pint probably needs a few more hours to harden up again, anyway.
Unfortunately, after three more episodes, my bladder doesn’t give me a choice anymore.
Since I’m already in the bathroom, I decide that I probably should brush my teeth as well, if only to remove the jank coating on my tongue. I really look at myself in the mirror and frown. My hair’s knotted in its ponytail and microbiome or not, I definitely smell pretty ripe. I vaguely recall the grief counselor my parents made me see before I took off for Portland recommending that I take steps to treat my body well so that my mind could follow. Or something. I turn on the shower and let the water warm.
After I’m scrubbed clean and have my contacts in, I sit down in front of the vanity in my bedroom to get the knots out of my hair. I let my mind wander while I comb. My eyes are unfocused as I zone out, and if I don’t look directly at the mirror, I could swear the reflection is Iris peering back out at me.
Tightness behind my breastbone pulls at me sharply and I close my eyes, humming “Killing Me Softly” by The Fugees. Iris had a thing for 90s hip-hop. She made me listen to it all the time.
I miss her so much that it’s a constant ache, like an old injury that never really stops hurting. You learn to put it into the back of your mind until the weather turns, and suddenly the pain cuts through you, reminding you it’s always going to be there. Iris wasn’t supposed to die before me.
When I first got to Portland, every time I got a Skype notification or a text, I expected it to be her. It took months of me refusing to answer for anyone to stop trying. Eventually all the communication dwindled until only my parents were left, calling dutifully every two days. That was fine. I owed Kimber better, probably, but she has a life of her own to worry about. She doesn’t need to deal with my shit. I wonder if she’s still with the same girl.
