The Break(65)

He’s wounded that I’ve said this—of course he is. Immediately I try to smooth it over. “Hang on!” I call across the street. I dodge a taxi as I cross Seventh Avenue to get to him. I just want this interaction to happen as far away from the theater as possible—and from what just happened inside it. I want Sean separate from this night.

“Everything’s fine,” Sean says when I arrive on his side of the street. I’m out of breath from sprinting and postaudition nerves.



“Oh,” I say, trying to understand what’s going on here. “Then why are you here?”

“Why am I here?” he repeats.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to mask how annoyed I am.

“I’m here because it’s getting dark out, and I didn’t want you to have to come home from Brooklyn all by yourself. You barely know the subway system, June.”

I stifle the grimace on my face; I try hard to make my attitude more palatable. I’ve signed a lease for one year with Sean. I could break it—of course I could—but not without financial penalties.

“How chivalrous,” I say, even though it’s not. It’s controlling. And I’m really starting to get fed up. “But Sean,” I say carefully. “Please, next time, shoot me a text so I have a say in it, okay? If you’re trying to be helpful, I appreciate that. But it’s seven o’clock. It’s hardly pitch black out and plus I know how to take the subway. I’m not eleven.”

His jaw drops. “That’s very ungrateful, June,” he says. “Maybe I’ll just be done helping you, and you can see how you do all by yourself.” And then he turns and walks away.

“What? Wait!” I call out. Did he seriously come all this way just to huff off back to Manhattan because I called his bluff? “Sean, come on,” I say, trotting after him in my heels, which is hard. A few sidewalk slabs later one of my shoes catches on a crack and I lurch forward. I think I’ve caught myself, but then my ankle twists and I go down. “Ouch!” I cry out.

Sean turns and I watch it happen: his anger melts into an easy, gooey expression that turns my stomach. He’s going to help me; he’s going to be my rescuer, which is all he’s ever wanted to do. I don’t even think he wants to touch me. I’m not kidding when I say nothing about us feels romantic: it’s something so much more twisted. Maybe I do need to break that lease.



I spit. I’m on my hands and knees, and my ankle is screaming at me, and I don’t think I’ve ever been pissed or humiliated enough to spit, but apparently there’s a first time for everything.

“Oh, June,” Sean says.

He’s coming toward me. I can hear the squeak of his sneakers even above the sounds of Brooklyn, which makes me feel like maybe I’m imagining it—or maybe he’s driving me so insane I’m tuning in to his frequencies like an animal would. I find myself feeling like that in our apartment all the time: once I smelled him outside my door before he even knocked.

“Leave me alone, Sean,” I say. I’m still on my hands and knees, and tears burn my eyes.

“There, there,” he says, bending, his sweatpants-cloaked knees too close to my face.

“There, there?” I repeat. “Are you for real?”

“June, you’re upset,” he says. “You’ve had a fright.”

“A fright?” I can’t even with this guy. “Sean, enough,” I say. “Enough with all the concern for me. I’m completely fine. Stop acting like I’m a child. I don’t like it. I never even liked being a child in the first place.”

“Me neither,” Sean says. He brushes dirt off the thigh of his sweatpants. They’re so thin I can see the deep line of his quad muscles.

“Well, then we have that in common,” I say. “Now help me get up.”

He does.

“Let’s go home, June,” Sean says. “We should get ice on that.”

I follow him, limping toward the subway in angry silence.





THIRTY-FIVE


Rowan. Friday afternoon. November 11th.


My mom isn’t okay when I get to her room. Something’s clearly gone down before I get there—an episode of sorts. The nurse tells me my mom has had a rough day, and that I shouldn’t expect her to be lucid, and also that Gabe’s mom is coming later and still planning to take my mom to bingo. “Sometimes Elena needs to see your mom for herself to realize she’s not up for it,” the nurse tells me before she leaves us alone.

I can tell by the way my mom is lying there in her bed with her hair a mess and tears streaking her face that it’s been bad. Sometimes when she’s confused she lashes out, and I’ll never get used to how scary it is when it happens. She’s so tiny I’m not worried about her hurting Lila or me, only herself.

I want my mother back.

I sit with Lila at the edge of the bed. My mom is sleeping, and I don’t want to wake her, so I hold Lila and watch the dark sky. There was so much good my mom gave me, so much of herself she poured into making us as okay as we could be. I never once doubted her love, and I used to think that was magical because I knew something so different with my dad. But now that Lila’s here I realize the word magic—or any other word, really—can’t begin to describe what’s between a mother and her child. It’s the first thing that’s ever defied my ability to write about it.