Break(34)

Did I honestly just figure this out?

Naomi says, “Jesse? How was this supposed to help him?”

I close my eyes. “Forget it.”

“You said this wasn’t about him.”

“I know! I f*cking know what I said!”

No. I didn’t just figure it out. I knew it. I always knew it.

Shit.

She doesn’t speak. I can hear her breathing, all slow and even, like this isn’t the worst moment of my life. Like she really thinks staying calm is going to help me.

“You can’t cure him,” she whispers.

“I know that! You think I don’t f*cking know that? You think I need you to tell me that?”

“I’m just saying.”

“No! Don’t say it! I f*cking know it, Naomi!”

The bus rolls up to the curb and the doors spring open. One is loose and wobbles back and forth in the breeze.

I gimp onto the bus and stick my phone in my pocket so I can drop a handful of change into the meter. I could probably get disabled fare, if I wanted, but I’m too damn tired to ask.

“He’s generally okay,” Naomi says as I retrieve the phone from my pocket.

“Yeah, generally.”

“That’s better than you are.”

I sit down and put my head against the window, holding the cell away from my ear so she sounds very far away.

“Aren’t you in class?” I say.

“School just ended.”

“Where’s Charlotte?”

“Don’t know. Aren’t you mad at her?”

I ignore this. “Seen Jess?”

“Yeah. He’s in the weight room. Wouldn’t talk much. I brought him an apple.”

“Clean?”

“Of course. I’m not an idiot. But he didn’t eat it.”

The bus speeds up and all those damn houses start to blur. “I’m coming to school now.”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve got to find Charlotte.”

“She told on you.”

“Yeah, I’m aware. That’s why I’ve got to talk with her.”

“She f*cking betrayed you!”

“Yeah, because she’s not an idiot. She found out I was breaking my own bones, Nom. What was she supposed to do?”

Naomi gets her pissed-off voice. “Uh, okay. So does that make me a crappy friend, or what?”

Basically. “Nom.”

“I was being supportive. Friends are supposed to be supportive.”

“Okay.”

“No, don’t ‘okay’ me. What should I have done?”

I swallow and look around the bus, but none of the other passengers even look conscious, let alone interested. “You probably shouldn’t have encouraged me to keep breaking when I wanted to stop.”

“Jonah,” she says, and her voice is back to kind.

I chew the inside of my mouth.

“What was I supposed to do? Let you think you could stop? And then let you fail?”

“I can stop.”

“Okay,” she says, and she’s so quietly begging, so quietly . . . supportive. “Okay. I hope you’re right.”





twenty-seven


FIVE MINUTES LATER I DISMOUNT THE BUS, CROSS to the school, and there she is, her shoes tip-tapping through the parking lot on the way to her car. “Charlotte.”

She keeps walking. The daffodil in her bun looks like it’s crying.

“Charlotte, listen to me. Come on. I can’t chase you.”

She stops. Her shadow is small and sad on the pavement.

“I have to feed the cats,” she whispers.

“Please.”

She takes the teeniest little steps towards me, like this can help her convince herself she’s not really giving in.

“How are you?” she asks.

“I’m okay.”

She swallows and looks down. “I heard you’re getting help.”

“Yeah. Please don’t give me that speech, that sad look, okay? Listen, babe. I’m not crazy. I swear I’m not crazy.”


She looks down, and I see her eyelashes are wet. She’s not crying, though, not really; it’s like her mascara has a mind of its own.

“I know how this works,” she says. “I know the—okay. I’ve been doing research. Lots of people do—do what you’re doing. It’s just normally not so dramatic.”

“That’s not what this is.” But I know how goddamn counterproductive this argument is getting, and I’m so sick of it. It doesn’t matter why I did this, not anymore; the point is that I did it and now I have to deal with the consequences. I have to make it better.

I say, “I just don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

She’s shaking. “I don’t know if I can wait for you—”

“Damn it, Charlotte, I’m going to a psych ward, not jail. Not war.”

“But—”

“Frankly, Charlotte, I don’t give—”

“Don’t do that.”

“No. It’s your fault I’m going, kid, because you didn’t wait long enough for me to explain this to you! You just went to Mockler. . . . Babe, you weren’t even there when he confronted me! That’s a low move. You’re such a nice person—you know that wasn’t nice.”