“All I meant was, if you don’t know her, she gets tough to deal with.”
“Right,” I manage, suddenly hyperaware that although I’ve gone to school with Kat Scott for years, I’ve never talked to her, and I guess it’s because she’s so quiet. I don’t know, there’s this romantic idea about quiet people in movies and books, like, Oh, they’re so mysterious, whereas in my experience it’s not like that at all. It’s more like, Okay, you don’t want to talk? Fine, I’ll let you do your own thing, since you obviously don’t want to associate with me.
“Listen,” I say, “I’m sorry, okay? I keep . . . things just won’t come out right when . . .” I can’t finish the sentence. My thoughts are snarling up like yarn inside my head. Jesus, what is it about this girl that wrecks my ability to goddamn talk?
After a second, she rescues me: “Well, I sort of snapped, too, so . . .”
I search for words, but the knowledge about her family is a roadblock, detouring my attention. Their mom walked out. She and her sister have been fighting ever since. I’ve had this thing for Olivia for years, feeling like I knew all about her because . . . I don’t know why. Because I’ve had a couple of classes with her. Because, like everyone else, I know the guys she hooks up with. Now, though, I picture her blue eyes and try to imagine the miles of thoughts hiding behind them, the years of history concealed back there, and I wonder why it took me this long to think of her as someone with a hundred thousand dimensions, of which I know maybe one. It was too easy to see her as a cutout doll of the perfect girl.
Then a shout bursts into my attention, ringing through my door: “—be quiet!” and I wince and smother my phone, but Olivia’s already asking, “Everything all right over there?” and I’m like, “It’s my parents,” because it’s easier than a lie.
“That’s rough. It’s pretty late,” she says, and I sigh. I don’t want her to pity me, but I do want her to know that I get what it’s like, coming home to a house you can’t deal with, so I shrug and say, “They’ve been like this since I was, like, ten. On and off. So I get . . . I hope your sister gets better. I hope you guys work it out. Because this shit drives you insane. You know?”
For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. Then her voice comes back, calm and slow. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “I get done with school and everything and come home to this, like, hovering atmosphere of—I don’t know what I did, you know? I’m going crazy trying to figure out what I did,” and I say, “You probably didn’t do anything,” and she says, “What?” and I say, “I mean, my parents are always angry because they’re miserable.”
Silence. I feel as if the words should have been hard to say, but they slid out as easily as thin liquid, not an ounce of resistance. I stare at my bedroom wall, and my voice trails on without me, careless, thoughtless. “My mom feels like she’s wasting her fancy degree out here in bumfuck Kansas, and my dad gets all, Why are you so ungrateful? and nothing I do changes that. So, like, your sister? If I had to guess, she’s probably going through something personal, and she needs to figure it out before she’s ready to treat you like . . . I don’t know. A person.”
Looking over at the windowsill, I realize my blunt has smoldered down on its plate. I stub it out, not even angry about having wasted half a joint, because, what the hell, when did this turn into an actual conversation? I’m perched, tense, on the edge of my chair, waiting for her answer.
Olivia says, “Where’d your mom go to school?” And I say, “Yale. She’s a biologist.”
“How do you deal with the fighting?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I rummage around for a better answer but come up empty-handed. “I don’t deal with it. I’m just here.”
“You don’t try to stop them?” she asks, and I’m like, “Nah. Last time I tried was freshman year. Now I only speak up when they get Russell involved,” and she’s like, “Your little brother,” and I look over at him, his mouth cracked open in sleep. “Yeah,” I say. “He’s better than the rest of my family combined.” A breeze washes in through the window as I listen to her silence on the other end. I haven’t talked like this in a long time, and something in my heart is waking up, lifting its drooping head.
“What’s, uh, what’s going on with your sister?” I ask.
“She’s missing classes, she never comes out of her room, and every time I, like, dare to seem worried, she snaps. It’s like living with a . . . I don’t know, a Venus flytrap. A large, deeply angry Venus flytrap.” Olivia chuckles, and it breaks, and she’s quiet, and I rearrange my fingers on the hot plastic casing of my phone and wish I knew what to say.
“It’s frustrating,” she goes on, “?’cause we’re both dealing with the same thing, you know? She’s the only one who would get it, but we’ve never spoken about Mom, not once. I wish she’d talk to me. Jesus, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss middle school.”