He’s flustered and fluttery and his belly is saggy and it’s just the sort of stuff that would make a lesser girl scream or cringe or cry. But this is par for the course. I had to get over the silly idea that I might actually walk around my house without running into a mate of my mother’s a long, long time ago. They are always underfoot; ingesting coffee at the table in the morning, draped across the couch in the evening, foraging in the fridge after hours. If I didn’t have my own bathroom, I might never stay at my mom’s place on her half of my fifty-fifty nights.
Not that I have much say in the matter. I have no agency. I have no choices. I’m too young.
Warren somehow finds the strength to retreat to the cave of dark and sordid late-night festivities—my mom’s bedroom; though it’s more like an opium den.
I finish off the apple in the silence, return to my upstairs bedroom, and fiddle around on Instagram, checking out a new collection of found hearts in nature—wild red fireworks forming a heart, a drawn heart on a sandy beach, a heart-shaped stone. I save them and send them to a special folder on my phone as I settle into bed. The pictures help me forget the kitchen run-in. I check my text messages one more time. I’m still waiting to hear back from him.
I’ve heard nothing.
Maybe it’s all in my mind.
Noah
The elevator dings on the sixth floor, and the doors slide open. I’m still clutching my phone, and I could justify with a million reasons the way I stare at the screen. Responding to clients. Writing back to producers. Dealing with my boss. All that is true. But all that is a lie because one little text has me right back where I know I shouldn’t be.
But I gave in long ago.
With my free hand, I unlock my apartment door, then drop the keys on the table. I turn on the light, rub my hand over my eyes, and sigh heavily. I’ve already gone through all the reasons to ignore her. I’ve already tried to fight this for far too long. I’m not winning any awards for resistance. I never did. I threw in the towel many moons ago.
Besides, one text won’t kill me.
One. One. One.
The word echoes through my skull like a temptress. Only one text. Only one kiss. Only one date.
It’s always one thing that leads to another. I know this. Even so, I reply. There’s nothing magical about my words. The only thing magical is her. And the hold she still has on me.
Then I add a picture because I know what she likes. I know what makes her happy. If I can’t have her, at least I can make her smile. I attach an image I uncovered online of snow fallen on twigs in the shape of a heart.
Kennedy
I slide into bed, under the covers. I place the phone on my pillow, just inches from me. I touch the necklace I wear every day, feeling the shape of the three different sparkly charms that hang from it.
I close my eyes, but sleep is so far away it might as well be in Indonesia.
Then my phone buzzes. I hold my breath for a second, making a wish. I open my eyes and I slide my thumb across the screen.
Hi to you.
Three words. They’re enough to get me through another night of wanting him back but knowing I can’t have him.
Then I see a picture, and I could die of happiness.
Chapter Two
Kennedy
“Did you know that only fourteen percent of twelfth graders know why the Korean War started?”
This is how my good friend Lane greets me in the lobby of the shrink’s offices the next day. We don’t share the same shrink; just the same practice. Yes, I am that girl. The messed-up, mixed-up seventeen-year-old child of well-to-do divorced parents who sees a shrink in Manhattan. It’s a bit of a caricature, and caricature is something I aim to avoid in life. Especially because, unlike many other teenagers in New York City seeing shrinks, I actually enjoy my weekly visits to Caroline. They’re perhaps the only times when I can be in the presence of an adult and not feel an instinctual need to lie.
“I did not know that. But I do know why it started,” I say to Lane as he drags a miniature rake through a Zen sand garden on the table in the lobby. This is where we met many months ago. In this lobby. We’re both seniors, but we go to different schools on different sides of the city.
“Why?”
“I’m guessing a bunch of people didn’t get along with each other and they came to fisticuffs.”
Lane touches the tip of his index finger to his nose. “Bingo.”
He rattles off other random facts, party chatter we call it. Lane checks out a new big book of facts from the library every week and endeavors to memorize the most interesting tidbits about human nature. “Never be without a little conversational nugget,” he likes to say.
He never is.
He informs me that snakes don’t live in Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, or Antarctica, then his shrink opens the door down the hall, and the patient ahead of Lane leaves. Lane stands up, salutes me, and says, “Because they can’t migrate long distances over water.”
A minute later, I walk into Caroline’s office, shut the door, and sink down into the black leather couch.
“How are you?” I ask. “Did you fix anyone today?”
She waves a hand in the air dramatically. “Everyone. I have wrought miracles between these four walls.”
“You don’t want to be too good. You’ll run yourself out of business.”
She nods, then flashes another small smile. “That is true.”
As I hand her the monthly check from my dad, I check out her shoes. She’s wearing a pair of her trademark ballet flats, which I want to tell her not to wear because she has gigantic feet, and women with gigantic feet only look like they have bigger feet when they wear flats. But I don’t ever manage to get the fashion critique out of my mouth. I don’t need a shrink to tell me why I stay mute on this point. I like Caroline far better than any other adult. With Caroline, I don’t feel like a cat crouching in the corner as the family dog struts by.