I count the number of days I have actually known Bernardo. I multiply that by the number of days I spent watching him. I divide that all by the things he’s said that fit perfectly into what I need. It’s some kind of crazy relationship math so I can ignore the voice in my head that says loving someone this early on is insane.
I have my hand on his chest and I swear his heart stops beneath it.
“I like that. I love you so far too,” he says. I somehow hadn’t realized I said it first.
“Did I just see the first time? Was I a witness?” Karissa says. She hasn’t stopped dancing since she started. She’s tripping a little now, her dance more a series of stumbling steps and sloppy hand movements.
“So far!” I say, too loudly. “I said so far!” I’m giggling in the best way. Loose and sloppy and giddy. Saying I love you feels effing good and I had no idea. It’s like a drug. It’s better than wine.
I can be a girl who says I love you first and fast to a boy who deserves it! I can!
I wonder if everyone feels like a superhero after a few sips of martini and a ton of wine.
Bernardo keeps looking at me like I matter, like I’m his. And Karissa does too.
“Guys? I like wine,” I say when we’re all dozing off. It doesn’t really sum up everything I’m feeling but will suffice. Everything seems okay. For this one drunken moment. Even Karissa and my dad being together. Even that.
The room fills with the sounds of deep breathing. I’m too full to sleep. Full of wine and feelings and anticipation and giggles and mistakes.
“We have to get you home,” I whisper in Bernardo’s ear, giving him a little shake. Karissa’s hand falls from her stomach to the ground with a thump. She doesn’t make a sound, she’s that far gone. She looks younger than me, and sad in her sleep. It moves me, the things she’s survived. I have to tell Arizona and reach for my phone to text her immediately, but I’m just un-drunk enough to think better of it.
“No, we have to sleep here. On the floor. Together,” Bernardo says. He keeps touching my face. With only his fingertips. He traces every feature like he can’t believe how lucky he is to see them all up close and personal, and it feels even better than the wine.
I try to push him to his feet, but it’s so tiring and he is radiator-warm and comfortable and my legs are already all wrapped up in his, so I rest my head on his chest for a moment and fold into him. He wraps his arms around me.
“It’s a lot,” I say.
“Can you use more words?” Bernardo says, and I sigh, because the whole point is that sometimes a few words are enough to sum up something very large and unmanageable. Tonight is large and unmanageable. I don’t answer but instead let Bernardo fall asleep, and before I can stop myself, I fall asleep on top of him.
I wake up a few hours later and manage to carry Bernardo out to the street and pile him into a cab. He is heavier than I had imagined. He smells sweet, though. Sweet and a little sour, too. An exciting smell. A smell that means he is living.
I smell the same way.
seventeen
I don’t remember much about Mom, except that she dressed me and Arizona in matching outfits and told us how jealous she was that we would get to be best friends forever. She’s also the one who introduced us to Washington Square Park and people watching and sticking our feet in the dirty fountain water, picking up pennies with our toes.
On my fifth birthday, a few weeks before she left, Mom bought us a dozen cupcakes and said we had to try each of them. We sat on the edge of the fountain, balancing on the curved stone surface. I kept kicking water at Arizona and she kept laughing. Cupcake crumbs fell into the fountain, but I didn’t care.
“I love that you don’t get mad at your sister. You respond with joy,” Mom said. I didn’t understand at the time, but I memorized the words, loving the singsongy way Mom said them and the seriousness with which Arizona nodded her head in response.
“She likes splashing,” Arizona said with a shrug.
“You’ll be an amazing mom someday,” Mom said. She sounded sad. She’d been sounding sad more and more often.
“Can I be Montana’s mom?” Arizona said. Even at seven, her voice had a deep, adult quality. Grounded. Mom took her seriously. I kept splashing water and licking icing off my fingers and the sides of my mouth. I couldn’t get a single bite in without a huge mess.
I guess I never really tried to eat it neatly. Licking it up was half the fun.
“What about me?” Mom said. Arizona shrugged and put her hands in the fountain. Her cupcake floated for a moment, then sank. She used her hands to splash the water at my face, and I laughed so hard that cupcake sputtered out everywhere.