I DON’T MEAN to overhear. I’m not even trying to eavesdrop, I swear. It’s just that the store is so small, and Vera talks so loud, and with all the windows shut because of another cold snap, there’s not even the sound of traffic to drown it out.
Which is why I’m awkwardly reorganizing the comics in the dollar bin and trying not to listen to Vera yelling at Peak for hanging out with me too much. She’s shouting that it’s distracting her from school, that she got a C-plus on a test for the first time in her life, that she never sees her other friends anymore, and that she doesn’t spend enough time with her family. I hate knowing I’m a part of that. I hate that I’m dulling her shine—that instead of her pulling me up, I’m dragging her down—and now she’s lying to her family the way I’ve been lying to mine.
Which, speaking of, her parents apparently also want to meet my parents, which can’t happen for very obvious reasons, the biggest being that the second she sees my dad, she’ll know exactly who he is, and who I am by default, and how I ended up in her shop. She’s been grumbling about my dad more lately too—especially since he responded to her latest op-ed by going on a ten-tweet rant about the dangers of idolizing indie shops to the point where we ignore the “evolving landscape of our industry.” Yesterday, Vera even made a joke that my dad probably has a whole team working on a plan to “evolve her right out of his way.” Which made me feel like shit, because it’s true.
I should tell her the truth, or I should go. Or maybe both.
Jubilee raises her voice at Vera then, shouting that she’s going to college in a year, that this is her life, that there’s more to it than textbooks. I want to go and break it up; I don’t want them to fight because of me. I shouldn’t even still be here, and I know it. We’ve been on borrowed time ever since I sent that first text.
And it’s always the wrong thing, no matter what I do. It’s lies on top of lies on top of lies, all of it, and god, Vera is the mom I wish I had, and Jubilee is the person I’ve always dreamed of meeting, but this is all a house of cards, trembling on a foundation made of sand, and I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe, and Vera is still yelling at Jubilee about a missed lesson, how they don’t have money to waste on lessons she can’t be bothered to show up for, and about everything else that used to matter in her life, and should still, but doesn’t because of me, and.
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The whole thing started because Peak asked her mom if she could cut out early to grab some dinner with me and Frankie. And I told her not to; I knew this was coming. I told her Vera wasn’t my biggest fan anymore. That she was giving me the look, the same one Jayla gives me when she thinks I can’t see her, the look that says I’m ruining Peak’s life. And you know what? I get it. I do.
If I had a kid, I wouldn’t want them hanging around someone like me either, but that doesn’t make it not hurt. That doesn’t make my stomach not churn deep down, doesn’t make it not grow from a spark to a full-fledged panic attack, so that by the time Peak storms out of the back room, I’m already outside, gasping for cold air with my back pressed hard against the bricks and my head between my knees.
“Ridley.” She crouches down next to me, and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. She combs her hand through my hair more gently than I deserve. “Want to hear something cool?”
I give her the tiniest nod, forcing my eyes open.
“Did you know that if you measured all the blood in a newborn, it would only equal about one cup?” she asks, her eyebrows raised as if I’m going to challenge her. I’m not. Mostly, I just want to know who decided to measure blood volume by baby. But then I start thinking of, like, freshly squeezed babies and all this other weird stuff, which kind of freaks me out more, and I put my head back down.
“Okay, wait,” she says. “That was a bad one.” She laces her fingers through mine, squeezing tight. “Let me think . . . um . . . did you know you’re less likely to get bitten by a shark if you blow bubbles in its face?”
I sniffle hard and wipe at my nose, hating the way the cold makes it run, while I let my brain catch up to what she just said. “Wait,” I say, my voice rasping out. “What kind of bubble mix can you use underwater?”
She wrinkles her forehead, and I drop my chin, realizing too late she doesn’t mean the soap kind you buy in the store. “I . . . see my error now.”
“Yeah, seriously.” She laughs and sits down next to me. “Feel a little better?”
“Not really.”
“It was just a panic attack. It’s over.”
I shake my head. “I shouldn’t be the reason you’re fighting with Vera.”
“You’re not!” She reaches for me again, but I slide back up the wall and shove my hands in my pockets.
“I heard you guys.”
“She’s just freaking out like she does every time she gets stressed. It’s not even about us. She just put a new title on Kickstarter, and it way overfunded, and she’s going nuts about distribution channels and finding a new offset printer. That’s it. I promise. She always takes it out on everybody around her. Mom and I generally try to avoid her when she first launches for this exact reason.”
“I just don’t want to be the thing that stands between you and the rest of your life.”
“You give yourself way too much credit.”
I feel like I’ve stepped into some kind of a trap here, and I don’t know how to get out of it. Because the truth is, I think her life would be better, easier, if I left, that it’s the right thing to do—not just for her, but for her family and mine.
But I’m selfish.
“Seriously, Ridley,” she says, dusting off her backside as she stands up. “If you think I’d give up my dreams for a relationship, you’re out of your mind. I love you, but I love myself way more.”
And my jaw drops, and I kind of huff out a breath, because we’ve never said it out loud before. Never, but that’s what this is, isn’t it? Love?
My sister used to say all the time, “You can’t love anybody else until you love yourself,” and I believed that for a little while. It made everything seem so much bleaker and more hopeless, but then I met Peak, and the thing is . . . I love her. I do.
And it has nothing to do with me loving myself, because I don’t even know where to start with that. But she makes me want to be here, to kiss that spot behind her ear that makes her breath catch, to hear her laugh when I fall off my skateboard, to see the faces she makes when she’s lost in her music. She makes me see possibilities that I didn’t know existed. Like the capacity to love and be loved was not a thing that was on my radar before.
“What are you thinking about right now?” she asks.
“I’m thinking that you’re pretty fucking amazing.”
“It’s true.” She laughs, and the sound settles across my brain, calming me in ways even her endless facts never could.
“And that I love you too.”
She grins and kisses me, because we said it. We finally said it. I wish it was all we had to say. I wish the biggest obstacle was “I like you—do you like me back?” But.
“And that I can’t lie to your family about who I am anymore, and you shouldn’t be lying to protect me,” I say, and she frowns.
Because that’s the thing. Thinking about love is one thing, but saying it out loud comes with responsibility—the responsibility to do right by the other person, no matter what. And doing right isn’t turning them into the person you’re so desperately trying not to be yourself. We have to tell the truth now, to her parents and mine. We have to believe that our love could survive it. There’s not a future any other way.
“Come on, let’s walk,” she says. We fall into an easy silence, our footsteps striking in perfect rhythm.
“Where are we going?”
“I told Frankie to grab pizza with us before I realized things were going to get so heavy. He’s waiting at the shop across the street.”
I shrug. “I think I’m just gonna head home. Allison’s visiting her parents in New York, and my dad’s not back from his work conference until tomorrow. Maybe you can come by later, if there’s time?” And this is not how I thought things would go after my first declaration of love.
“I’d rather you come with me.” She takes a half step away, and even though our arms are still linked, now we’re walking off rhythm.
“I can’t.” Just thinking of walking into the pizza place with all the noise and smells is setting me on edge.
“Because of Vera or because of your little freak-out?”
And it feels like someone just shoved toothpicks under my nails and ripped out my heart. I can handle everybody else acting like I’m crazy, but not her.
I drop her arm, blinking hard. “Don’t say it like that.”
She hesitates before pulling her hands into her coat sleeves. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
I walk a little faster, leaving her a few steps behind, and then hop on my board. “Tell Frankie I said hi.”
“Ridley,” she says, but I push off faster and don’t stick around. I can’t.
I’m lying in the tub, water only up to my chin this time because I’m being safer, more careful. The room is dark, another of my sadbaths, and it’s not that I’m even depressed—well, not more than usual—it’s just that I want to not think for a minute. I want my brain to be quiet. I want to sit in the dark and float and not worry about anything else.
Except now someone is ringing the doorbell, and it’s so goddamn loud I could cry.
I towel off and throw on some shorts, and whoever it is has taken to knocking now too. I grumble down the stairs. Maybe it’s Peak. I don’t know. That would be nice. She didn’t text, but.
I enter the alarm code and pull open the door, ready to apologize for torpedoing her perfectly good night. Except it’s not Peak; it’s Frankie, which is . . . weird.
“Took you long enough. Now invite me in,” he says, holding up a pizza box.
“I’m gonna just grab a shirt,” I say slowly, pointing upstairs. “What are you doing here?”
“JuJu was freaking out about everything that happened tonight. I sent her home and told her I’d check up on you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t need a babysitter, so.” But my traitor stomach growls at the smell of food.
“Get your shirt,” Frankie says, pushing past me. “Your kitchen this way?” He walks off, not even waiting for me to reply.
I make my way back downstairs a few minutes later, my damp skin sticking to the hoodie I found under my bed. He’s already sitting at the table, the pizza box open in front of him. He’s not even using a plate, but he did seem to find the good linen napkins. “Eat,” he says, without looking up.
I grab a slice and sit down. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Actually, I did,” he says, pausing his chewing long enough to look at me. “For one, I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t, and for two, I wanted an excuse to eat another pizza. It’s more for my benefit than yours.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen. JuJu’s really worried about you, you know. If you need someone to talk to, I’m all ears.”
I take another bite of pizza, considering the offer. It has been a while since I dumped my shit on a stranger, and that was my primary coping method before meeting Peak, so.
“You’ll just tell her whatever I say.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “Maybe not. Depends on what it is and if I think it’s her business.”
“How do you decide if it’s her business or not?”
“I’ll know when you say it.”
And yeah, I probably shouldn’t tell him anything, but once I open my mouth, I can’t stop. Peak has helped me so much, but one person can’t carry it all. Not all the time.
So yeah, I tell him everything. I tell him how Peak and I met at the con. I tell him why I’m really in town. He stops me there and asks a lot of questions. I don’t miss the way his hands curl into fists when I talk about my dad’s plan for Verona Comics. And then I tell him how I want to come clean, even though she doesn’t, because how much of a fresh start can I really get when I still have to report to my father every Tuesday and Thursday, just like the rest of his spies do, even if I am feeding him useless info.
And that’s what I’m most bitter about, I realize—that I’m not even special. I don’t even get to tell him directly, even when he’s home. I just send my reports to the marketing email, just like all the other people he has working for him. There are probably twenty other people just the same as me, vying for his approval via form emails. And maybe I paw at my eyes while I’m talking, but I’m not sad, I’m upset, and it’s just that sometimes my brain can’t tell the difference.
And I tell him what even Peak doesn’t know, that my dad has a good friend on the board of the conservatory that could complicate everything. If he ever found out, my dad would have all the ammunition he needed, and Vera would have every motivation in the world to go along with it. Frankie rubs his temples when I explain that part, and I know, I know, but I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.
When the words finally stop, when there’s nothing else to confess, I feel ten pounds lighter and completely exhausted, like I could sleep for a year and still never wake up.
“Hey,” Frankie says when he’s sure that I’m finished. “Listen, I’ve found myself in some tough jams over the last couple years, and all I know is that if your gut is telling you something is wrong, it probably is.”
“You think I should tell Vera, then?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and tucking my hands behind my head. “That’s what you would do?”
Frankie blows out a breath so hard his cheeks puff out. “I don’t know, kid. I really don’t. I can see JuJu’s point. You’re not doing it anymore, it won’t change anything, so why does Vera really need to know right now? Especially with the risk of you getting shipped off to the left coast. But I see your point too. You’re holding in a big secret, and you’re looking for a little redemption. And if Vera found out from someone else, it would be way worse.”
“Yeah,” I say, swallowing hard. “So what do I do?”
“I think you follow your gut.”
“Okay. Next question: How can I tell if it’s my gut talking or my myriad of anxiety disorders?”
Frankie chuckles. “Is there that much of a difference?”
I laugh too, and it’s a bitter sort of laugh. Because I don’t know. I sincerely do not know.