Break(29)

“Someone has to be.” She takes a step back. “Are you limping?”

Shit.

“Jonah?”

I start walking ahead, this time without Charlotte on my arm. “I’m fine.”

She follows. “Is your . . . is your foot broken?”

I take her hand. “Toes.”

“Jonah! What’s happening to you?” She plants her high heels on the linoleum and digs her fingers into my wrist until I have to stop. The hallway flow continues around us. We’re an island, together.

And there’s nothing for me to say.

“Skateboarding.” I swallow. “You know how I am.”

“No. You can’t skateboard with three broken ribs.”

I don’t correct her with Five.

We face off. She’s got this glitter on top of her eyes and she’s so beautiful and so angry.

“Jonah,” she whispers. “Tell me.”

I close my eyes and pray for a trapdoor.

“Jonah.”

I pray for a closed-over throat and no more breathing.

“Is it your parents?”

“No. It’s not my parents.”

My headache is back and it’s destroying down to my neck and shoulders. I don’t know if this is a sign of my trapdoor or my impending doom.

“Look,” I say. “There isn’t an answer for this that you’re going to like.”

She croaks, “Jesse?”

“Jesse would never hurt me. Seriously, Charlotte, let it go.”

A speck of glitter flickers into her eye.

I see her thought process.

I see her crossing out every other possible option.

I see her chin shake.

She says, “Are you doing this yourself?”

I’m afraid I’m going to vomit on her pretty shoes. “Charlotte, I’m really not feeling well. Can we talk about this later?”

“No!”

But I’m not faking it, and I’m trembling so hard I almost fall over. She catches me, and I stabilize myself on a locker.

“Geez, are you sick?” she says.

“No, just . . . I can’t talk about this right now.” The bell rings. “Look, are you coming to Jesse’s game tonight?”

She pauses, tongue against her cheek, and nods.

“Okay. We’ll talk there, okay? You know where I’ll be.”

I don’t know why I think this will help. Maybe I’m just stalling the inevitable. She knows. My only option is to confess and deal with the consequences.

But confessing to Charlotte will take a f*ckload of courage. Of strength.

In short, I want to watch Jesse when I do it.





twenty-three


THE UNOFFICIAL FAMILY SPOT IS JUST BEHIND THE box. We’d have a great view of Jesse, if he were ever on the bench.

We used to all come together, but now Mom stays home with the baby. We never let the baby out of the house. I guess we’re afraid what people will say if they see him crying like that.

I tap Dad on the shoulder. “Look at him.”

He stops cheering and turns to me. “He’s doing great.”

“He’s so pale.”

Dad folds the sleeves on his sports jacket. “He’s fine.”

“He looks sick.”

“Don’t go that far.”

“I’m going that far.”


The puck heads straight to Jesse’s stick, and we scream at him for a minute as he flies down the ice.

“His skating’s off,” I say.

“It’s not.”

“He’s wobbly.”

“Jonah. It’s fine.”

Dad’s never going to get it. I don’t care how many allergic sisters he had. She wasn’t Jesse, and she didn’t have his willpower. Nobody does.

I tear my eyes away from Jesse to scan the bleachers. “Do you see Charlotte?”

“Nope. No Naomi, either.”

Right when he says this, though, I see Naomi standing on her backpack, leaning over the plastic shield that separates the bleachers from the ice. She pounds her mittened hands together and screams, “Come on, Jesse!” Her cheeks are blown fuchsia from the cold.

She really is cute for such a psycho.

The other team calls a time-out and Jess leans with his fists on his knees. His back’s to us, and I can see how hard he’s breathing. His shoulders fall and rise under his jersey.

I nudge Dad. “Look.”

“Jonah, stop trying to scare me.”

“He shouldn’t be playing.” I stand up and yell, “Jesse!” until he looks at me. I hold up both my thumbs, and he does it right back.

“See,” Dad says. “He’s all right.”

Jess winks at Naomi and goes back to his heavy breathing.

“He’s having trouble.”

“Have faith. He will be okay.”

My parents tend to turn to “Have faith” when they have no better defense. The thing is, they rarely seem to try faith themselves. They just expect me to do it for them. Maybe that’s why they had children.

I yell, “Catch your breath, Jesse!”

He grumbles something back. He’s too far away for me to hear, but my brother lip-reading sense tells me it’s “I’m working on it.”