Break(36)

“Don’t.”

“I’ll shove it down your f*cking throat, Jesse.” I stand up. “Eat it. Now.”

He doesn’t move, so I grab his scratchy jaw and force his mouth open. He coughs on me.

“Eat now. Eat the apple.”

He doesn’t move—doesn’t fight, and doesn’t lift the apple to his parted lips.

“I’m not giving up, here, Jesse. Eat.”

When he latches his teeth around the apple, I let him go and watch him bite. All the terrible things I’ve ever done to him come back to me. The time I convinced him to come leaf-jumping with me and he swelled up like a sprained ankle. The time he was choking from an egg reaction and I just stood there with his EpiPen reading the directions because I couldn’t remember how to give it to him. All the foods I’d given him that ended up making him sick. All the hives I’d ignored.

He chews and swallows.

“All right?” I say.

“Yeah.”

He looks at me with drizzly eyes that are somewhere between angry and grateful.

I try to ignore it all. “Okay. Listen . . . take care of Mom and Dad. Don’t touch Will. Let the parents worry about him, okay?”

Jesse swallows and takes another bite.

“And don’t let them make you too crazy,” I add. “Remember that whole family thing, okay?”

“You and your Confucianism.”

“It’s important.”

He says okay and I hug him.

“Don’t think I’m leaving until you’ve finished that,” I say, and I don’t. He finishes.





twenty-nine


THE RANDELLY CARE HOME DOESN’T LOOK LIKE home at all. It’s just another name for a hospital building, and it’s brown and hides behind a grove of cherry trees, like this will help it go away.

Dad carries my duffel bag. Mom hits the buzzer on the door and identifies us. We’re admitted with this awful grinding noise.

Yeah. They’re both out of the house at the same time. They left Jesse with the baby, which is the worst idea ever right now.

“The waiting room’s lovely,” Mom says, examining the curtain and the upholstery. The room’s been sprayed so heavily with lemon air freshener that I can taste it and feel it between my teeth.

Dad and I slug up to the front desk. “This is Jonah McNab,” he says. “He’s here for evaluation.”

I wonder who wrote that little speech for him.

The girl behind the desk wears a volunteer polo and has matching barrettes in her hair. She couldn’t be older than eighteen. But still, you’ve got to wonder what kind of person wants to volunteer here. Probably a little nuts herself.

She makes that study-me-like-she’s-not-studying-me thing.

“Hi,” I say. “I’m Jonah.”

Dad looks at me like I’m not supposed to speak. Like I’ve broken the law of the crazies.

She doesn’t. She just smiles. “I’m Mackenzie. You’re going to be in room 215, Jonah. That’s second floor, all right? Elevator’s there, and the doctor should be in to speak with you and run you through inspection within the hour.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I walk with Mom and Dad over to the elevators. When the doors swish open, a boy’s already in there. He’s barefoot and wearing pajamas. He looks normal, if a little high-strung.

He nods at me when I walk on, then he eyes my parents. “New kid?” he says through the side of his mouth, like a spy.

I nod.

“Welcome to the clan.”

Well. I’ve always liked clans.

Mom and Dad look at each other, pissed-off-worried. Yeah, parents, I get it. They don’t want me associating with these kids, but . . . do they really expect me not to talk to anyone the whole time I’m here?

“What room are you?” the boy asks.

“215.”

He nods. “I’m 212. Stop by sometime.”

My room’s just off the elevator and to the left. The boy stops a few doors before me, hits it with his hip, and goes inside.

Dad puts his hand on my back as he opens my door.

The bed and desk are nailed to the floor, but there is threadbare carpet and a drippy radiator and a closet—it’s not a prison. The bedsprings squeak when I sit down.

“No roommate,” Dad says. “That’ll be nice.”

I shrug.

Mom sits down beside me and holds my hand. “Do you want us to stay until the doctor comes?”


“No. Please don’t. I want you to be home in case the baby wakes up.”

“Jesse can get him.”

Dad says, “Jesse should not be touching the baby, Cara.”

Mom stares into my face like she’s expecting something more.

“I kind of do want to be alone,” I say.

Dad chews the inside of his lips, and Mom keeps watching me, her cheeks shaking in that about-to-cry face.

It’s insensitive and awful of me, but I get so f*cking pissed off when my Mom cries. It’s just never what I want to see. It doesn’t help.

“I’ll be fine.” I hold my hair.

Mom wipes a minuscule tear off her eye. “We’ll come visit every day.”

I hug them good-bye. Dad holds me and puts his hand on the back of my head in this totally way-affectionate-not-Dad way. “You’re a good boy,” he says. “You’re going to be fine.”