The Best Possible Answer(49)

“It’s—it’s just a phone— I mean, how dare you even stand there—” I try to get the words out, to stand up for myself, but I am immediately nauseous and dizzy—and my breath is gone—completely gone. I am sitting firmly on the floor, but I feel like I’m falling, spiraling, plunging back into the disaster that is my past.

Evan gets up and starts to close the door as a signal for Dean to leave. “You’re clearly bothering her, and so I think it’s time for you to go.”

Dean chugs the rest of his drink. “And I think it’s none of your business.”

“You’re standing in my room and clearly bothering my friend, so it very well is my business.”

“You mean your girlfriend?” Dean asks with a laugh. He sounds like a six-year-old.

I really want to throw up.

“And that’s none of your business,” Evan says. He gestures toward the door. “I’m going to ask you one more time to leave.”

For some reason, Dean’s refusing to budge.

I catch my breath. “Dean, would you just go? Please?”

“Does your friend here—” He’s laughing and slurring his words. “Does he know about your texting habits?”

“Dean, please stop—”

“Does he know how you like to break up with people over text? How you don’t even allow them the courtesy of a face-to-face conversation? How you like to—”

Oh God, my heart.

“You can stop.” Evan puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Now.”

Dean laughs and then tries to sucker punch Evan, but thankfully Evan’s too fast and Dean’s too weak and too drunk to make the hit.

Instead of punching his face, Dean sort of lands weakly into Evan’s chest, which allows Evan to grab hold of him by the shoulders and basically push him out the door. “You’re letting hot air in the room. Be safe now.” And he slams the door in Dean’s face.

“Ex-boyfriend?” Evan says.

“Something like that.” I nod, stunned, unable to say anything else.

“I should call campus security.”

“Please don’t.”

Evan nods. Thankfully, he doesn’t pry further. Instead, he just turns up the music and sits next to me, his shoulder pressed against mine.

I do my best to catch my breath. I try to make my breathing slow and quiet. Somehow, it works.

A few minutes later, Virgo and Sammie return with pizza in hand.

Evan doesn’t say anything to them about Dean or what just happened. We spend the rest of the night in their room, eating pizza and listening to music. The three of them talk about everything from school to Kanye West to Game of Thrones to the Mars One project and whether or not they would apply. I mostly just listen.

Evan doesn’t ask me how I am anymore, but it’s okay.

I feel really good, sitting here with him next to me.

He doesn’t have to ask.





Mistakes to Avoid Your Senior Year of High School #1

You should challenge yourself in new ways, but don’t overextend yourself, either. It’s not worth taking all AP classes if it lands you a C or you can’t pass the exam.


Every Monday morning, I sneak back into my apartment when I know that no one will be home. I usually text my dad to tell him to make sure the apartment is empty so I can go in by myself, and he always texts back a simple Okay. I woke up on Saturday morning back in Sammie’s bed and found a multisentence text from him saying that he was leaving for Singapore for a week, and that the apartment would be clear for me today. He also wrote that I should come back home now that he’s gone, that my mother and Mila need me and miss me.

But I’m not ready to move back in. I’m afraid that I might end up telling them everything I know. I don’t want to be the one to ruin their lives.

I unlock the front door.

The apartment smells like onion and garlic. I miss my mom’s cooking so much. I miss her.

But I just can’t face her yet.

I head to my room. She’s made my bed and straightened up my desk and left a basket of clean, folded clothes on my bed. There’s a drawing there, too, from Mila, with my paycheck from Bennett Tower, Inc., and a note from my mom: Come back when you’re ready. I love you, Viviana. I love you unconditionally.

I fold the papers and stuff them in my backpack.

I walk down the hallway to Mila’s room, which is a mess, as usual. The floor is covered with stuffed animals, Legos, uncapped markers, and crumpled clothes. My parents never let me live like this when I was her age. My dad would yell at me if I even left my bed unmade. I don’t feel jealous so much as relieved that Mila is experiencing a freedom they never gave me. It actually makes me hopeful in some way.

I go into my parents’ room. The bed is made, and everything is clean, as my mom likes it. The photos on the walls are perfectly lined up. She had my dad put them up the week after she was diagnosed with the cancer. She knew she was going to have to rest in bed for months, and she said she didn’t want to stare at blank walls, that she wanted to stare at the people she loved more than anything else. There are photos of me as a child with my mom’s family in Israel on various trips that I hardly remember taking before Mila was born, and then there are photos of all of us together at the hospital when Mila was born, at her first day of kindergarten, of my eighth-grade graduation.