“I just want to feel something real.”
My hands flew to my face and then I was sobbing, big wracking gasps that rolled in waves down my body, pulling me toward the floor, where I would have gone if you hadn’t stopped me, wrapping your arms around me, squeezing like a tourniquet with your face bowed into my hair, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
And then I was leaning into your shoulder, and then I was looking into your eyes, and I don’t think I pulled you and I don’t think you pulled me, but something pulled us together, because then we were kissing, stumbling, until my back found the wall and your hands found my face, my neck, my breasts, my waist. I tasted the salt of my tears on your tongue and arched toward you, my fingers slipping under your shirt, splaying open on the taut, warm skin of your stomach. It was breathless and sudden, like a fall in the seconds before you hit the ground. I remember the urgency of it more than anything. It felt like if we stopped, we might die.
It felt like our time had run out before it started.
Intermission
Joy
Chapter Nineteen
April 16
27 days left
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!”
Mom beamed at me from across the table, her face partially obscured by a candle sticking out of a wedge of tiramisu. We were at V&T Pizza—my favorite restaurant since I was old enough to behave well enough to be taken out to eat—and the whole Sunday dinner-rush crowd was singing to me as I held my breath and pinched my face in my best impression of a smile. I didn’t want to seem surly or ungrateful, but I hated being serenaded, which my parents knew but were willfully, gleefully ignoring. Eighteen was special, they insisted. Adulthood was something to celebrate.
I might have been in a more celebratory mood if the fourth chair at our table hadn’t been empty. It had been sort of last-minute, sure, but Liv could have at least texted me back. Our impromptu dinner date on Friday had gone pretty well—aside from her throwing down a fistful of twenties and running out before the check arrived—so when I messaged her later that night to ask if she would come out for my birthday (no official party this year, not that she’d offered to throw me one and not that I would have wanted her to after the last party at her apartment), I thought she’d say yes. Or, at least, I thought she’d say something. But two more texts and not so much as a flimsy excuse accompanied by a frowny emoji shedding a single tear, so apparently we were back to not really talking.
“Come on, honey,” Dad said. “Quit stalling and blow out the damn thing before you set the tablecloth on fire!” My eyes snapped back into focus just in time to see the tiramisu listing to one side as the candle started melting the chocolate powder on top. I blew it out in a quick, perfunctory burst, and everyone clapped.
“So, what did you wish for?” Mom asked, propping her chin up with her fingertips, her hands pressed together in prayer position. It was the stance she took whenever she expected a thoughtful answer, but I wasn’t in the mood. Underneath the tablecloth, under my jeans, I could feel my ankle pulsing angrily against the layers of Ace bandages, which had stopped working weeks back. I was in trouble and I knew it. Walking without limping took more effort than performing on stage ever had.
“What do you think?” I asked, digging into the dessert with my fork, instantly turning the artful layers of sponge cake and mascarpone into an amorphous mush. As I raised it to my mouth, I could see my parents exchange a look, like, here we go again, which is exactly what I was thinking. Because, seriously, what did they expect me to say? That I suddenly wanted to become a dance professor instead of actually dancing? That I’d fallen and hit my head during a leap and woken up with a passion for microbiology? Or maybe I should have just made like a Miss America contestant and asked for world peace.
“You know we’re excited about your performance . . .” Dad started unconvincingly, looking at Mom in a way that made me realize they’d probably planned this out; they each had lines and he was telling her to wait for her cue.
“Great!” I said brightly, taking another bite. In fact, I pulled the plate all the way over from the center of the table. If I was going to have to sit through a birthday lecture, then they weren’t getting one goddamn bite of my birthday tiramisu.
“. . . but we want you to be prepared for every outcome,” he went on.
“It’s very likely,” Mom jumped in, “that even if you win an apprenticeship, it will be hard to move up the ranks in a company. It’s extremely competitive. I’ve been looking at the statistics.”