Break(35)

She stares at the ground.

I say, “If you don’t want to be with me because I’m crazy, just say it. I’m only going to be gone for, like, a week. Don’t give me this waiting talk.”

“I’m not with you!” She throws her arms in the air and her bracelets slide all the way down to her shoulders. “We’re not dating, remember?”

“Oh, bullshit, Charlotte.”

She pulls back like I hit her.

I imagine everyone in the parking lot holding their breath as I wait for her to speak.

“This isn’t working,” she says.

“What’s not?”

“Nothing.” She laughs, deep and sick. “I guess nothing isn’t working. That’s what this is, right?”

“Stop.”

“I don’t even know why you told me.” She shrugs, faking heartless. “If I really don’t mean shit to you, I don’t know why you told me you did this yourself.”

The word sounds especially foul from her mouth.

“I didn’t tell you,” I spit. “You forced it out of me.”

I snap my mouth closed, like this will stop what I’ve already said.

“Well, then,” she says under her breath.

Someone nearby lights a cigarette, and my mouth fuzzes with the candy-apple taste of the smoke.

I turn around and leave before she can stop me. Not that she would.

Students giggle as I walk through the parking lot. I don’t know if they’re laughing at me or if they’re just happy, and I don’t know which option would depress me more.





twenty-eight


IT’S ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE FOR THE CRAZY BIN, but there’s one thing left to do. At about six o’clock, I take an apple from the refrigerator. I bring it to the sink and scrub it so hard that it would bleed, if it were alive. Will watches me, screaming while he sucks on his fingers.

I won’t touch him right now.

I can hear Jess snoring from halfway down the hall. Some stupid part of me doesn’t want to wake him up.

Really stupid part.

I crack his door open. He’s curled up on top of all his blankets, his arms tucked underneath his chest. Every snore gives away how stuffed-up he is.

“Jess.” I put my hand on his back and work my fingers around his skinny ribs. “Wake up, kid.”

He frees his hand and rubs his eyes. “Hey.” He sees the apple. “What are you doing?”

“Sit up. I need to talk to you, all right?”

He rocks upright and wraps himself around his stomach. I sit down beside him and tuck him under my good arm.

“Okay?” I say.

He nods and buries his face in the armpit of my T-shirt. “Don’t go away. Don’t go away don’t go away.”

“Listen, Jess.”

He keeps swallowing, and I can see it in his neck.

I shouldn’t have woken him up.

“Don’t worry about me while I’m gone,” I say. “That’s an order.”

He croaks, “Okay.”

“Look at me. Jesse, look at me.”

He’s crying a little bit and trying to hide it from me, which is stupid. His eyes are struck pink, and his tears are thick like spit.

I say, “I’m not going to be gone for long. I’ll be back really soon. And you’ll be fine until then. Really.”

“Okay.”

“If I hear you’re in the hospital with a reaction while I’m gone, I’m gonna f*cking kill you.”

He cough-laughs.

“And if you come to my crazy-person place with some kind of eating disorder . . . that’ll kill me, man.”

He covers his cheeks with his hands. “I don’t have an eating disorder.”

“Jesse. Jesse, come on.”

He puts his hands on his forehead. He’s struggling not to cover his ears—that’s what he does when he’s really upset.

I make shhh noises.

“It’s . . . I’m f*cking terrified,” he says.

“I know. I get it.”

“I don’t want another reaction.”

“I know. But I don’t want you to starve, either. It’s been, like, five days since you’ve eaten.”

He nods.

“You’ve got to feel awful.”


He keeps nodding, like he doesn’t know how to stop.

I say, “I’m not leaving if you don’t eat. I’ll kick and scream and they’ll have to drag me away from here.” I hold him more tightly. I’m his seat belt. “And then they probably won’t let me out for a long, long time.”

“Are you seriously blackmailing me?”

“Uh-huh.” I hand him the apple. “It’s totally clean. You’re not going to get sick. I’ll stay here and watch you for a reaction if you want.”

He stares at the apple. “Come home soon, okay?”

“I will. And you can come visit me.”

“Okay.”

“Seriously, now. Just eat the apple.”

He stares at the skin for a long time, then tucks his lips between his teeth and shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”

“Don’t care. I’m making you.”