You in Five Acts(50)

“I want to know something other than sadness,” I said, my chest starting to tighten. “I want to see something besides my mother’s face as she—” Answers the door and doesn’t even seem to notice how f*cked up I am. “As she . . .”

“Liv?” You were looking at me again, concerned this time.

“Sorry. Where was I?

“I want to see something besides my mother’s face.” You paused, a flicker of annoyance registering in your tensed jaw. “I thought you were off-book.”

“I am, I am. Right. OK. I want to see something other than my mother’s face as she lay dying,” I said, the words tumbling out too fast again. “I want to touch something—” You. I wanted to run across the room and touch you, hold your hand, lean on your shoulder, raise my fingers up to your chin and pull you down toward me and kiss you, breathe you in. “—other than a sewing needle,” I finished, feeling my face flush.

“I think we can stop,” you said.

“No! I want to keep going.” This time my voice came out louder than I’d meant it to, almost a shout. You took a step back.

“OK, you seem weird . . . I don’t think you should . . .”

“Just let me finish!” I cried, my eyes suddenly filling with tears. “I want to finish my monologue!”

I’m not sure what made me break—why that moment was the tipping point when I’d been teetering on the edge for months—but something just swelled up inside, so fast I barely saw before it broke the surface. I was scared (my first thought, a whisper in the dark: Did I take too much?) and deeply, deeply sad—and embarrassed, a little—but mostly, against all odds, I was grateful. Because finally, even if Ethan didn’t, I understood what Viola was feeling on that bridge, and why she had run there. For the first time, maybe in my whole life, I could say lines and actually mean them.

“I want to feel something more powerful than I am,” I said, my breath coming in gasps, the tears blurring my vision. I was glad I couldn’t see you. “I want to feel the current dragging me under. I want to feel something that makes me know I was alive once. I just want—” My voice broke then, because I couldn’t stand it anymore, how true it was, and I didn’t care anymore who knew.

“I just want to feel something real.”

My hands flew to my face and then I was sobbing, big wracking gasps that rolled in waves down my body, pulling me toward the floor, where I would have gone if you hadn’t stopped me, wrapping your arms around me, squeezing like a tourniquet with your face bowed into my hair, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

And then I was leaning into your shoulder, and then I was looking into your eyes, and I don’t think I pulled you and I don’t think you pulled me, but something pulled us together, because then we were kissing, stumbling, until my back found the wall and your hands found my face, my neck, my breasts, my waist. I tasted the salt of my tears on your tongue and arched toward you, my fingers slipping under your shirt, splaying open on the taut, warm skin of your stomach. It was breathless and sudden, like a fall in the seconds before you hit the ground. I remember the urgency of it more than anything. It felt like if we stopped, we might die.

It felt like our time had run out before it started.





Intermission


   Joy





Chapter Nineteen


    April 16

27 days left


“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!”

Mom beamed at me from across the table, her face partially obscured by a candle sticking out of a wedge of tiramisu. We were at V&T Pizza—my favorite restaurant since I was old enough to behave well enough to be taken out to eat—and the whole Sunday dinner-rush crowd was singing to me as I held my breath and pinched my face in my best impression of a smile. I didn’t want to seem surly or ungrateful, but I hated being serenaded, which my parents knew but were willfully, gleefully ignoring. Eighteen was special, they insisted. Adulthood was something to celebrate.

I might have been in a more celebratory mood if the fourth chair at our table hadn’t been empty. It had been sort of last-minute, sure, but Liv could have at least texted me back. Our impromptu dinner date on Friday had gone pretty well—aside from her throwing down a fistful of twenties and running out before the check arrived—so when I messaged her later that night to ask if she would come out for my birthday (no official party this year, not that she’d offered to throw me one and not that I would have wanted her to after the last party at her apartment), I thought she’d say yes. Or, at least, I thought she’d say something. But two more texts and not so much as a flimsy excuse accompanied by a frowny emoji shedding a single tear, so apparently we were back to not really talking.

“Come on, honey,” Dad said. “Quit stalling and blow out the damn thing before you set the tablecloth on fire!” My eyes snapped back into focus just in time to see the tiramisu listing to one side as the candle started melting the chocolate powder on top. I blew it out in a quick, perfunctory burst, and everyone clapped.

“So, what did you wish for?” Mom asked, propping her chin up with her fingertips, her hands pressed together in prayer position. It was the stance she took whenever she expected a thoughtful answer, but I wasn’t in the mood. Underneath the tablecloth, under my jeans, I could feel my ankle pulsing angrily against the layers of Ace bandages, which had stopped working weeks back. I was in trouble and I knew it. Walking without limping took more effort than performing on stage ever had.