The breakup happened five days later.
Looking back, Maya realized that it wasn’t really either of their faults. It was a Saturday, and they should have been hanging out, but Claire had to watch her little brother and Maya was up to her neck in physics homework. Their make-out session in the grass at school had been pretty great, but it didn’t solve anything. Maya couldn’t help but think of it as like the Hello Kitty Band-Aids she and Lauren had had when they were little: super cute, but not so great when it came to fixing major wounds.
When they finally got together that afternoon, Maya was cranky from homework and Claire was exhausted from watching her little brother. They were supposed to go to the movies, but the one they wanted to see was sold out and they couldn’t agree on anything else.
“What about that one?” Maya suggested, pointing at the board.
“That looks dumb,” Claire said, squinting up.
“It’s literally just a title. How do you know it looks dumb?”
“It sounds dumb.”
Maya sighed. “Okay, what about—”
“No aliens.”
“How do you even know there are—”
“It literally says aliens right there in the title.”
“What if it’s a metaphor?”
Claire just raised an eyebrow at Maya.
“Fine,” Maya said. “Let’s just get coffee. No aliens there.”
But Claire was sulky about not being able to see the movie, and the weather was the sort of warm that became uncomfortable and sweaty after more than five minutes of sitting in the sun, and Maya’s dad had texted her and Lauren saying that his business trip to New Orleans had been extended by two days and could they grab dinner on Tuesday night instead of Sunday? He loved them and was really, really sorry.
“Figures,” Maya said, tucking her phone back into her pocket without answering him. Let Lauren handle that part. What was the point of having a younger sister if you couldn’t make her do your dirty work, after all?
Claire eyed her as she sipped at her drink. There’s way too much whipped cream in that cup, Maya thought, then wondered when things like that had started bothering her about Claire in the first place.
“What figures?” Claire asked, talking around her straw. “Who was that?”
“My dad,” Maya said. “He’s stuck on a business trip in New Orleans. He can’t have dinner with me and Laur until Tuesday.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks.”
Maya glanced at Claire. She could feel a sunburn starting to spread across her bare shoulders. She hadn’t put on sunscreen since they were supposed to have gone to the movies. “Go ahead, say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say what you’re really thinking.”
Claire paused before saying, “Well, I mean, that sucks, but at least you’ll see your dad next Tuesday, right? It’s just a few days. Maybe you can spend more time with him next weekend.”
It was a perfect reasonable response, Maya knew, and it was exactly the sort of response that infuriated her. Claire was too measured, too reasonable, too Claire. Even her goddamn name sounded calm. Maya wanted someone to be as angry as she was, someone to be at her level so that she wouldn’t feel all alone up at the top of her volcano, red lava spewing everywhere inside her.
“Why do you have to do that?” Maya said. She would have sipped at her drink, but she had finished it a long time ago. On top of everything else, Claire was a slow drinker, too.
“Do what?”
“Always be so freaking calm,” Maya said. They had been sitting on a wall by the fountain, and Maya hopped down, too agitated to sit still. “Why do you always have to be like my mom?”
“Your mom?” Claire said, starting to laugh. “You think I’m like your mom? That’s pretty fucked up, My.”
“Why can’t I just be angry?” Maya continued. “I miss my dad, okay? I miss. My. Dad. And I’m sorry you don’t get to see yours anymore, but just because I have a better situation than you doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t make me feel bad!”
Claire sat up straight, making Maya think of a cobra rising up to strike. “Because you have it better than me?” she said slowly.
“That’s not what I—”
“Yes, it is. That’s exactly what you said.” Claire hopped down off the wall as well, so now they were eye to eye. “Look, Maya, don’t try to hang your shit on me, okay? You’ve had a really rough couple of months, I know—your dad moving out, Grace and Joaquin and that whole thing—”
“I think you mean me finding not one but two biological siblings,” Maya shot back, “not ‘that whole thing.’”
“And I know you’re worried about your mom—”
“Do not bring up my mom!” Now Maya was yelling. She wished she had something to throw, something to ricochet off buildings with the kind of force that she felt building up behind her heart. “Leave her out of it!”
“But I can’t, My! That’s the problem! You’re angry at all these other people but you can’t tell them, so you just take it out on me instead!”
“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you had become my therapist instead of my girlfriend. That’s a surprise. Do you take insurance?” Maya didn’t actually know much about therapists and insurance, but she had heard her parents talking about it. Her mom had always said couples therapy was too expensive because they didn’t take insurance, but her dad had offered to pay anyway. It hadn’t worked.
“Maya!” Claire yelled. “God, you’re so annoying sometimes! You act like a little kid!”
“And you act like some know-it-all!” Maya yelled back. “You don’t know anything about my family, okay? So stay out of it!”
“I don’t know anything because you don’t tell me anything!” Claire cried. “You keep dropping all these little bread crumbs and you expect me to trace them back to you, but you don’t leave enough.”
Maya blinked. “That is a terrible metaphor.”
“Fine, how’s this? You shut me out because you don’t want me to find out too much about you. You think that if I know too much about your family, I’ll leave you.”
Maya started to laugh. “You are so terrible at this,” she said. “I’m sorry, how much have I told you about my dad? All of it. All of it!”
“What about your mom?” Claire said, and Maya looked away. “Exactly, My.”
“That’s private,” Maya said. “That’s about her, not me.”
“Bullshit. It’s about all of you. You just don’t realize it. And who cares if it’s private? I’m your girlfriend. You can tell me this stuff.”
Maya could feel herself careering down the hill, the wheels starting to come off the cart even as she continued to pick up speed. “Well, then, if you don’t think I tell you enough, then maybe I shouldn’t be your girlfriend anymore.”
Claire had been about to yell something back, but Maya’s words stopped her short. They stopped Maya short, too, for that matter. She hadn’t even known that that was something she was going to say.