Yolk(15)

Mari widens her eyes at Chinara and Trev at the registers. “He lost his virginity to her,” she whispers gleefully. I look over and try to imagine them having sex. It’s not altogether unpleasant. Trev’s short but lean, Latino, and sometimes brings a skateboard with him, and she’s Nigerian with a pixie cut and a nose piercing.

“Recently?” They’ve got to be in their late twenties at least.

“No.” Mari shakes her head sharply and rolls her eyes. “When they were in high school.”

“Oh.” I smile, unsure about the appropriate reaction. “That’s cool.”

“But don’t you think that’s so New York?” She gestures hugely, platter-eyed and expectant. “They hadn’t seen each other in ten years before they both got jobs here. Plus, she married someone else!”

“Random.” I nod carefully. I know I’m disappointing her. I’m dying to know the right words to say, but I’m still a little stoned and failing. She probably thinks I’m a freak.

“See.” She sticks her tongue out and grins. “See, that right there. That’s why you’re hard to be friends with.”

As I go stow my stuff, I’m reminded of something I overheard a few weeks before I was kicked out of my old apartment. We all had shitty drywall bedroom walls, and mine had a six-inch gap where it didn’t meet the ceiling. I heard my roommates talk about how I was selfish because I was an only child. I remember thinking how absurd that was. Everything about me is a little sister.

As I’m restocking displays in the four-thousand-square-foot store, I can’t stop thinking about June. How we used to play restaurant with real cups and dishes from the kitchen because we didn’t have toys. The way she brushed my hair. How she’d make me eat things like whole garlic cloves and once her toenail clipping, laughing when I would.

In a slatted wooden fruit crate beside a stack of trays that read YOU’RE A MESS, there’s a burlap-lined tangle of bright-orange bottle openers. The chalkboard sign reads $12. I flip the corkscrew part out like a switchblade. It snaps out beautifully, and snaps back in. It’s perfect.

As I walk it up to Mari at the register so I can buy it on break, my heart rate quickens with how easy it would be to put it in my pocket. The only reason I don’t is because it’s for June and that feels unlucky. If I wind up karma-killing my sister because of a stupid $12 wine opener, I’d feel like a real dumbass.

After work, when I get back to my block, I’m gripped by a cold wave of nausea. I take a deep breath, press my ear to the apartment door. I haven’t responded to Jeremy about his stupid portrait. He hit me up a few times but thankfully he’s not home. I kick off my shoes, shuck off my clothes, and toss myself onto the bed in my underwear. My face mashes against a pillow. I’m so exhausted I could sleep for days. I miss this bed. My bed. But now the sheets smell of him. Not unpleasant but just the way his skin smells. It’s incredible how attraction works. I used to love the familiar scent of him. The plane of his chest. His hair. And now it’s othered. Dank. Musky. Foreign.

I get up, pulling the elastic straps of my cotton Calvin Klein sports bra down and leaving it looped around my waist. I’m too lazy to take it all the way off. I throw on my Jonas Brothers sleeping sweatshirt. I’m happy that Nick came back. He’s always seemed like the smart one. I can’t help but wonder how the other two managed to bully him into returning. What exactly they had over him.

I investigate the fridge and the cupboards and then I ransack both.

I fill up a jar at the faucet. They call New York tap water the champagne of water. They say bagels and pizza taste different because of it. I’ve never told anyone, but sometimes when I’m drinking it, I wonder if it’ll imbue me with an essential New York something.

Even if it’s trace amounts of lead.

I chug it in great tidal gulps, spilling it down my chin, feeling like a snake eating an egg, the fluid sluicing through my throat with such force that I almost choke.

I raise one hand above my head and heroically burp into the living room as I lower it.

I put the kettle on for tea and make myself a mug of rooibos, immediately burning my tongue. Fuck. This always happens. For twenty years of life you’d think I’d have a cup of tea that was the exact right temperature at least once. I fling open the freezer door. Of course he’s finished the vodka. Or maybe that was me.

Honestly, fuck Jeremy. I’m glad I never sent him the photo he needed. Fuck all these awful Jeremy feelings. My fuck-it switch is flipped as I shake off the shame and dread and heartache.

I pull out my phone, scrolling and chewing. I’ve been checking Patrick’s feed obsessively without liking any of the photos. He doesn’t post often, but he’s tagged on random images. But this time, feeling nostalgic and lonely, I DM him. Hey. Nice photos. Like some kind of poet laureate.

I cringily jump up and down a few times to get the douchechills out of my spine.

When I go for my tea, it’s ice cold.

I drink it, looking over the rim of the mug at the wreckage. The emptied tub of ice cream, the crinkly bag of Life cinnamon crumbs, scattered Cheerios, and the square crusts of Jeremy’s oat bread where I’ve bitten out the pillowy centers.

There are seven of them. I arrange them into diamonds.





chapter 10


The coffee tastes burnt but sweet and my heart skips when I see her. Thank God. Hot-pink sweatpants with exactly matching coat and shoes. She’s holding her slice of pizza, and the pockets of her fuchsia fur jacket are stuffed with napkins. I check the time—we’re both running a little behind.