“Agh!” She started rubbing the top of her head with both hands, like she was checking all her hair was really gone. “I don’t know! Because he’s not hideous? Because I was bored? Sometimes you feel like hooking up with someone, and it’s better to do it with a friend because that way you can laugh about it later.”
“That’s space talk,” I said. “Hooking up is not eating pizza. Or watching every episode of Buffy in a row. Having sex is not a casual activity.”
She snorted. “Oh, right. Because you’re an expert?”
I gripped the pizza box against me like it was a shield. “I really liked him. You knew that.”
She rolled her eyes. “He uses people. Everything he touches turns to stone.”
“Well.” I shrugged. “I’m not the one who slept with him.”
Mika stopped rubbing the bristles on the top of her head. She really did look awesome with short hair. Sharp and androgynous. She reminded me of the girls I sometimes saw in Paris, standing on sidewalks in leather jackets and oversized wool scarves, smoking cigarettes and glowering a lot.
The thought of Paris made me feel even more out of control. I was still mad at Mika, but I also wanted to talk to her. I needed my best friend.
“He likes you,” I said, putting down the pizza box. “I think he wants to be your boyfriend.”
“That’s his fucking problem,” Mika said. “I’m here because I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to hate me forever. Not over an idiot like David.”
“You lied to me. You lied and you were my best…” I spun around and started pawing through a cabinet, searching for coffee grounds. Mika came behind me and pulled at the fabric of my tank top.
When I turned around, she looked shyer and smaller than she had a few minutes ago. “I hope you’ll still come to our birthday–going-away thing tomorrow night,” she said tentatively. “That’s what I came here to say.”
For a few seconds, I just let myself breathe in and out again. All I wanted was to forgive Mika. All I wanted was to sit on the kitchen floor and drink coffee and tell her about last night and Jamie and Paris. I wanted to trust her again.
But then I thought about her and David, saying they were going out but going to her apartment instead, flicking off her bedroom light, pressing their mouths together. My stomach heaved.
“I’m not sure I can forgive you,” I said.
Mika blinked. “So you’re really going to let David do this to us? You’re really going to let him get between us?”
“It’s not just David,” I said. “I can’t forgive you for—for other things, too. For the way you treat me like I’m a little kid sometimes. For telling me to stay away from David and making fun of me because I don’t drink or have sex or whatever. That’s why you slept with him, right? Because you guys are the experienced ones, and I’m just the dumb, innocent little Sofa?”
Mika’s expression went carefully neutral. “You’re not actually mad about that.”
I held back a scream. I grabbed the empty pizza box and jammed it into the full garbage can.
“Come on,” she said. “You know that dating David would have been a catastrophe. On a government-intervention level. He doesn’t deserve you. He deserves someone who—will divorce him. And take all his money.”
“I don’t care if it would have been a mistake! It was my mistake to figure out!”
“Jesus!” she said and then softened her voice. “Just—please. I never wanted you to hate me. I never wanted everything to explode like this.”
I scoffed. “Oh, it’s way past exploded. Way past.”
“Please,” she said again, something that could have been anguish filling her eyes. “I’m not abdicating my position as best friend yet. We can still talk about this. We can come back from this. Right?”
I crossed my arms and didn’t say a single word. Neither of us moved a muscle for a minute. The cicadas outside were so loud, it felt like the noise was filling up the room, crowding up my head, drowning me even more.
“Fine,” Mika said. “You know what? That’s fine. Have it your way. I’ll see you later, or maybe I won’t. Or whatever.” She left the kitchen.
I heard the door to the genkan open and then close. Followed by the front door.
Opening. Closing.
CHAPTER 21
THURSDAY
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: I drooled on some guy’s shoulder on the train :-/
Good morning! (Sort of.)
So I have no idea if this is your e-mail address anymore. Or if you still use e-mail. I probably should have sent you a message by carrier pigeon. That would be more my style.
I hope this isn’t stupid. I would have tried to call you, but we don’t have a house phone and Hannah won’t lend me her cell. She says I’m “up to something.” Of course I’m up to something. I wouldn’t ask for her phone if I weren’t.
What I’m trying to say (attempting to articulate) is that I’m going to Meiji Shrine. I just Googled it, and it’s open till sunset. So I’ll be there around fourish, and I guess I’ll loiter around the entrance, and if you’re there, then cool. If you’re not, also cool. You should sleep. I should sleep.
No. I’m lying. WAKE UP, SOPHIA!! I WILL BE LOITERING!
CHAPTER 22
THURSDAY
TO GET TO MEIJI SHRINE, I took a train to Harajuku and walked along an avenue of kitsch boutiques that became a row of cubed apartment buildings that became Yoyogi-koen.
Inside the koen, everything melted to green. Trees replaced buildings. The sound of traffic grew more and more muffled until it was drowned out by thousands of cicadas singing. The entrance to the shrine was a tall wooden torii, a Japanese gate shaped like an enormous, elegant pi sign. That’s where Jamie was. At Meiji Shrine, loitering outside. Wearing a Studio Ghibli T-shirt and a pair of sunglasses with square red frames. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, and he was watching the milling crowds.
Every time I saw him, it was different. This time, it was waking up. My fight with Mika, the conversation with my mom, those things didn’t exist anymore. The night Jamie and I had spent in Shibuya burned back to life. It was real. It was the only thing in the whole world that was real.