Langston almost smiled. “Ha-ha,” he said. He closed my bedroom door behind him and hopped on my bed. He was still wearing his pj’s even though I knew he was supposed to be at an early morning class about now. It was almost like Christmas mornings when we were kids, both of us huddled on my bed wearing our pj’s, waiting for our parents to come in and lead us outside to the presents. From my bed, Langston and I would eavesdrop on our parents’ Christmas-morning squabbling in the next room. But those “fights” were more lighthearted jabs, like one of them said they’d finished wrapping the presents but hadn’t, or one of them said they bought coffee the day before but hadn’t. Oh, the good ole days. Before “Connecticut” was a mean, hateful word that augured bad things to come. When life was so innocent.
God, I love presents. Especially when they come with fresh-baked Christmas scones, drizzled in red and white frosting. I don’t even mind if there’s no coffee. Sometimes it’s impossible not to remember how much I love Christmas, and then my heart pangs extra hard for how everything is fudging suck this year. I just can’t get into the holiday mood no matter how hard everyone else tries to coax me there.
It might be all the coaxing that’s holding me back from getting there. These feelings have to happen organically. Forced gaiety is the worst. I need sincerity to feel the season.
“What’s going on?” I said to Langston.
“I think it’s pretty apparent what’s going on!” he said, but not jokily. He looked too serious.
“Are they getting divorced?” I asked. I assumed that’s what happened to parents who fought so loudly. I wondered if I should suggest to Dash that he get his hearing tested to check for any ear damage caused by exposure to his crazy parents’ fights when he was a kid. Probably not. Knowing Dash, when they fought, he probably wore headphones while he was lost in a book, even as a little man.
“Hardly,” said Langston. “It’s just a rough patch.”
“Like you and Benny have?” My brother and his boyfriend break up about every other month, and then there’s a flurry of five thousand text messages, and crying and heart emojis, and Robyn songs, and then they can’t live without each other again.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” Langston announced.
“They are getting divorced!” I cried out.
“Shut up, not so loud. Of course they’re not. They’re fighting because I told them last night what I’m about to tell you, and I think it tripped their alarm on other issues.”
I gasped. “You have cancer? And you can only be treated in Connecticut!” Cruel universe, why, why, why? My brother hasn’t even finished college yet. Don’t take him away so soon.
“Would you just shut up and let me finish? No, I don’t have cancer, and if I did, why would I go to Connecticut for treatment when I live in the city?”
“Exactly!”
“Listen, Lily…I wanted you to hear it first from me and not Mom and Dad. I’m moving out. Benny and I got an apartment together.”
I laughed. “Now’s not the time for jokes, Langston.”
“I’m not joking,” said my brother. A traitor, just like Dash. Pretending like everything’s okay and status quo when clearly it’s not.
—
I realize there are much worse things happening in the world, but my East Village apartment is the only place I’ve ever lived. It and the people in it are my world, and it felt like my world was ending. My brother was moving out. They hadn’t told me yet, but Mrs. Basil E. had offered to have Grandpa come live with her. That left my parents open to possibly leaving the city—if they could just figure out what to do about me in such a way that didn’t cause me to have a meltdown. (Funny how everyone worried over that dilemma without asking me. Funny, and infuriating.)
The world as I knew and loved it was disintegrating, and maybe Dash and I were, too. I could see how hard Dash was trying, and it only made me feel more distant from him. He shouldn’t have to try so hard. It should just be or not be. As if he also knew it, Boris had just finished ripping Dash’s charred gift sweater to bits, and I didn’t even care. I was almost glad. It seemed the appropriate way to dispose of the sweater once and for all.
My parents were late for work after their argument, and they didn’t stop to say goodbye to me, or sorry for ruining my day. Langston left to go thrift-store shopping for new furniture for his new apartment rather than console me through the pain of his announcement that he was deserting me for his boyfriend. Grandpa was still asleep, and probably wouldn’t wake up till his home health worker came to check on him later in the morning.
Grudgingly, I put on my uniform and prepared to leave for school, even though I was late and Mom hadn’t left me a note to excuse the tardy. I gave Boris a kiss and told him to nap for the day until I got home, and I reminded him not to pin down Grandpa’s visiting nurse again, because she carries mace in her purse and doesn’t like sudden movements. I was about to leave my apartment when Edgar Thibaud’s number appeared on my phone, calling me on FaceTime.
“What?” I answered. I sat on my bed. Edgar’s face appeared on my phone screen, looking sweaty and disheveled. He’d become quite the club kid in the last year, and he was probably calling me as his previous night’s shenanigans were ending and my already ruined day was just beginning.
“Lily! Dude! Ramen emergency.”
“Excuse me?” I could see a group of club kids laughing and stumbling around on the street behind him.
“We need ramen to soak up the drunk in our tummies. But every ramen place we went in Koreatown after karaoke wasn’t open this early.”