Yolk(34)

“I’ll have to get off work.” Not everyone has a trillion vacation days like my asshole sister.

“So get off work.”

“Fine,” I tell her, looking up flights of my own.

“I’ll buy your ticket. I’ll get it on miles.”

“Fine.”

“Fine what?” she says, knocking my knee with hers.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you what?” she says, really joggling me this time.

“Thank you, Unnie.”

“That’s right, you little dickhead.”

We drink our teas. “I’m pretty sure this is expired.” I peer into my mug. The yuzu’s bloomed at the bottom, but it doesn’t taste like much.

“This shit always tastes kinda expired to me,” says June. She points at the empty bedroom behind her. “So, what now? Are you staying here? It’s so fucking depressing. Like, Christmas-morning-at-a-strip-club depressing. I feel like I’ve only seen places like this in night-vision goggles because the feds in the movie are about to do a raid.”

I look around. I don’t want to. In the last week, I’d forgotten how deeply unhappy I’ve been here. I’d only thought as far as checking if Jeremy had left. I can’t imagine closing my eyes and trying to sleep in this place. “I guess I should,” I tell her. “It’s where I live.”

I didn’t know I’d be leaving June’s for the night when we left. She’ll probably abandon all the wet towels in the washing machine and let them get smelly again. Plus, she’ll Seamless fried chicken instead of heating up the leftover lentils and turkey I made her. And we’re only halfway through the episode of Gilmore Girls where Christopher comes back. For the third time.

June gets up. “Okay.”

I get up too.

“Text me if you need anything,” she says.

“Thanks for the ticket.”

“It’s just miles.”

She holds her mug out. “Should I? Just put it in the sink or…?”

My sister moves toward me just as I step in the same direction.

“Sorry.”

“Let me…” I take the cup from her, relieved to have something to do with my hands. “I’ll see you soon,” I say, suddenly not knowing when I’ll see her. “I guess at the airport.”

“Oh,” she says. “Sure.”

“Okay.” Friday sounds like ages away.

We face each other.

“Actually, you know what?” she says abruptly, rolling her eyes. “You’re such a numbnut. Did you even bring any of your things? Do you have your toothbrush?”

“No.” I shake my head theatrically. “I’m so stupid.”

She kisses her teeth. “You know I haven’t had a single cavity?” My sister smiles big with her lips pulled back, going slightly cross-eyed from the effort.

I nod approvingly. “You’re really lucky,” I offer.

“Look, just come to my house,” she says. “It’s so fucking cold and depressing here. And you have fucking roaches.”

“I had a roach,” I correct her. “One. And it’s dead.”

“Okay, asshole, do you want to stay here or…?”

“No.”

“Besides,” she says, ordering an Uber. “You can’t sleep on someone else’s cum stains. That’s just not right.” I shove her as she laughs.

We take a black car back. With Halloween surge pricing it’s a depraved amount of money and it has heated seats. I settle in, feeling warm inside and out. June leans over the middle seat to show me something on her phone that I barely register. When she gets back on her side, she feels far. On long car rides as kids, she’d twist, practically strangling herself with the seat belt as she hurled her legs over mine to stretch out and sleep. It never seemed particularly comfortable. It was more the principle of it, that she could because she was older.

I bite my lip to stop from smiling. June really is such an asshole.





chapter 18


“Okay, so Buc-ee’s we gotta go to for jerky….”

June’s counting off all the stores we need to hit while we’re in Texas.

“Totally.”

Buc-ee’s also has the absolute hands-down best bathrooms in the entire solar system. Clean and enormous.

“Also, I want the Izzy roll.” The sushi rolls at Mom and Dad’s restaurant are the size of burritos. “And I want migas. And puffy tacos. And Taco Cabana chips.”

I realize there are things I miss about Texas. Sweet tea, the velvety quiet nights, people in flip-flops and shorts who don’t discuss prestige TV shows like it’s a competitive sport, the eye contact and nodded acknowledgments in grocery store aisles. I might not miss the house we grew up in, but there are plenty of nice things to be said for San Antonio. Like how it’s 82 degrees right now.

We stop by June’s dedicated mail room. That might be my favorite feature of her building. At my place and the one before, if you ever actually received a package, it was a miracle. Plus, none of the bougie tenants at June’s apartment ever want their catalogs. There’s always a stack in the recycling area. I bend over to scoop the L.L. Bean and a Harry & David for the holidays.