I’d sort of like to know what people love about me.
“You don’t know Montana,” Bernardo says. I stroke his arm too. I’m scared of this version of Tess. I’ve never seen the ugly aftermath of my father, the stepmoms after they’ve been discarded. I’ve only seen the butterfly transformation of Natasha and nothing else. This is treacherous.
“I know her. I know all about her.” At the end, Dad used to call Tess shrill, and I guess I know what that means now, even though I hate being on Dad’s side. “You and your sister treated me like a joke.”
“I liked movie nights,” I say. I’m going to cry if I don’t shut up. Maybe it’s what I should have said to her on the stairs that day, maybe that would have meant something, meant that I’m a good person, meant that she was a real part of our family for a minute.
“I wanted to know something about forever and why it didn’t happen for you,” I say. I don’t know why I came here.
“You need to leave,” one of the managers says.
“I’m only trying to understand,” I say.
“I’m not some project,” Tess is yelling. Then she’s pushing the other teachers out of the way and coming at me. Her hands reach my shoulders and she gives one giant push before they can pull her back again. Bernardo pulls me into a protective hug.
“We’re going, we’re going,” I say. The tears are coming, but I don’t want them here. We make it into the elevator before they splash out.
“We can press charges,” Bernardo says. He’s hot, his whole body feverish from indignation.
“It’s my fault,” I say.
“She touched you! She hurt you! She’s insane!” He punches his own thigh. I can’t stop crying. I don’t have any anger in me. She’s right. And Bernardo doesn’t see it. Which means he either really loves me, because he only sees the good. Or he doesn’t love me at all, because he doesn’t really see me at all.
“We were rooting against them. Arizona and me. Like it’s a game. We root against all of them. We’re the worst,” I say.
Bernardo rubs my back and tells me I’m the best over and over again, but he says it too many times and it loses all meaning.
June 30
The List of Things to Be Grateful For 1 My new pet turtle, Floyd, a present from Bernardo, who says he will live longer than my chameleon did back in the day. Turtles are sturdy and don’t change. Bernardo gets me.
2 Emoji-only texts from Arizona that are half apology and half octopuses and cats with hearts for eyes.
3 Outdoor movies with Roxanne in the park and the tiny relief of summer nights after summer days.
twenty-nine
I wake up a few mornings later to the sound of Karissa rummaging around in my room.
I’m asleep in the clothes I wore out with my Bernardo the night before. I took him to Reggio to explain to him why I continue to love my dad. I still smell like the café: espresso and butter and toast and candle wax. I am not ready for Karissa. Not this early. She has on blue-striped pajama bottoms and a cropped white lace top and this oversize sweater cardigan that is all wrong for a summer morning, except that the AC is on so high that it’s almost warranted.
“Morning!” she says at the first sign of me shifting into wakefulness.
“You’re in my room,” I say. I want to be cool with it, but it’s too early to be cool. I can’t feel anything but confused and exposed and deeply awkward. The thing that shifted last week when she said yes and put a sparkly ring on her finger didn’t unshift because we got drunk right after. The shift happened, and I’m not sure it can unhappen. When the earth quakes, does the land go back to its original state, or do things stay slightly askew? Do the fault lines become faultier?
They must.
“I need a strapless bra,” she says. There is zero hesitation on the word bra. I make a grumpy morning coughing sound.
“It’s early,” I say, like that’s the real issue here. I want to be having a fuzzy dream about what sex with Bernardo will be like. I do not want to be watching her tornado through my room.
I don’t want her anywhere near my room. I don’t want the life where she has access to my room.
“It’s actually late. I waited. But then I figured, what the hell, you’ve had a sister your whole life, no big deal, right?” Karissa is rummaging through my sock drawer. I have no idea if she’s made it to my underwear drawer at this point or not.
“No. Not right. Not okay!” I shake my head back and forth to wake it up and adjust last night’s tank top and jeans. I feel chalky and dry. The AC makes my eyes burn first thing every morning, a blast of cold air after a night of warm dreams.
Karissa stops unpacking my socks from the top drawer. There’s a pile of white athletic ones at her feet. T-shirts are strewn all over the floor. My closet is open, the contents rustled and misplaced.