The Break(83)

I hear footsteps behind me so I turn, but there’s no one. Probably being drunk has me a little paranoid. The streets are oddly quiet until a homeless man rumbles past me with a shopping cart. He looks like he’s freezing, so I pass him my earmuffs and my scarf, which he takes, smiling at me and thanking me profusely.

I turn onto Gabe and Rowan’s street, suddenly sure I can feel someone behind me, their eyes all over me. I walk faster toward the building. A car honks in the distance. I turn and watch a taxi approach, but it changes course and takes a sharp right, and in the back seat I see a girl who resembles Kai. A group of teenagers are coming up the sidewalk in the opposite direction, all of them laughing. I shrug off my nerves and finally I’m at Gabe and Rowan’s building, pulling open the front doors. “Hey,” I say to Henri. “How ya doing?” I’m trying not to sound drunk, but I don’t think it’s working.

“Not as good as you, apparently,” Henri says, blond eyebrow cocked.

“Rowan and Gabe are expecting me,” I say.

“Then go right up, June,” he says, his gaze following me just like always. Ick.

I take a breath at the elevator bank. I’d take the stairs, but Rowan always has a weird thing about the staircase. I press the button and wait. I really hope they’re not mad at me for coming, or that I don’t catch them in some awkward argument. Sometimes the tension in their apartment is thick enough to make you want to call it quits. But I never did until today; I wanted to stick with them, that’s the thing that makes me feel so bad about leaving.

Up I go to the sixth floor. The elevator doors open with a clank and I step onto the carpet. I’m trying to seem sober, to make my face go like it would naturally, but I feel a creeping paranoia that I shouldn’t be here. I pass the staircase with its iron swirls and tread softly toward their apartment, and then I raise my hand to knock. Heat sweeps over my spine. I need to get out of this down jacket.

Knock, knock. I do it softly at first, but then I hear voices inside, urgent voices, arguing. I know I should probably go but . . .

The voices escalate. The alcohol is hitting me hard. I never should have had that final drink. The hallway outside Rowan and Gabe’s apartment seems to twist and turn and blur. I don’t think I’m going to be sick, but just in case I sit—I think I just need a moment—and put my head between my knees.

I sit there in the hallway staring at the tan carpet between my feet. Tears spill onto my cheeks. I think of Harrison and the look I saw on his face before he left, how I’d never seen him look that sad before. I think of my parents, and how I’m getting on a train first thing tomorrow, and then I think of Rowan, who doesn’t remember Gray, and suddenly everything feels so incredibly dark. It’s a combination of the alcohol and the things that make me sad, but suddenly I’m in a way worse place than I’ve been in for a very long time. I make myself get up. My legs are shaking as I stand. I really should just go home, and I almost do, but then I swear I hear something inside the apartment. I listen closer and I’m sure it’s crying. And I assume it’s Rowan, so I knock hard. Immediately feet pound toward the door. Is she okay? I hope she’s okay.

Gabe swings open the door. He looks like a wreck, standing there in sweats with bedhead even though he doesn’t look like he was sleeping.

“June?” he asks, like he’s never seen me standing there before.

“I have more to say,” I announce. Oh shit. I’m way too drunk. I’m not even sure what I mean by it, but I think I mean I want to tell him why I’m really quitting this babysitting job, which is because of this entire charade, but I can’t say that if Rowan’s in earshot.

“Is Rowan here?” I ask dumbly, peering into the apartment. Where else would she be?

“She’s sleeping with Lila,” Gabe says, looking understandably confused as to why I’d be here at ten thirty at night.

“Oh,” I say. “I heard a woman crying. Are you stashing someone else here?” I’m trying to make a joke, but it doesn’t go over.

“Are you all right, June?” Gabe asks. He’s no fool. He knows I’m drunk.

Around the corner into the foyer comes Gabe’s mother. Birdlike, just as always. It’s almost like she floated in, her tiny feet soundless. I look at her face, her eyes as dark as Gabe’s, rimmed in red. She’s tried to wipe them dry.

“June,” she says, her voice full of distaste for me.

“Elena,” I say back. I’ve never called her by her first name.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “What brings you here in the dead of the night?” she asks, suspicious, like I’m the harbinger of bad news.

“It’s hardly the dead of the night,” I say.



Gabe doesn’t invite me inside. He just stands there. “What can we do for you, June?” he asks. I hate his tone. It’s always different when his mom is around—he’s way more professional with me, which makes me feel like he thinks he’s doing something wrong when we’re casual with each other all the times she’s not here.

I try to get my bearings, to feel my feet beneath me so I don’t sound too drunk. This wasn’t exactly the welcome I was expecting, so I guess I may as well go for it. “I met with Rowan today in a café in my neighborhood,” I say. “We talked about what happened. Did she tell you?” I ask. I don’t look at Elena, only Gabe. And the way his dark eyes widen, I know this is news to him. Which makes me feel like I have one up on him, like Rowan and I have something important between us, something sacred. “I wanted to talk with her,” I say, “to clear everything up, to make sure she knew it wasn’t her fault that I can’t work here anymore.”