I haven’t been in Dad’s car for more than two minutes when my phone yodels.
It’s a text from Evan:
I think we should take a break. Agree?
In light of what just went down at rehearsal, it’s the most nonshocking message of all time. Yet I’m shocked.
“Everything okay?” Dad asks.
It takes me a moment to process what he’s said.
“Eh,” I say. “Evan dumped me. In a text.”
“Aw, Banana. I’m sorry.” But I can tell he’s kind of not.
“He was only my boyfriend five days. I feel like I’m defective or something.”
“You? Win, you’re not defective, he’s a huge asshole.” I laugh. “That’s not a joke,” Dad says. “It’s the truth. I’m sorry you feel bad. But you deserve someone so much better.”
When I get home, I head straight to my room and take out my phone.
“That’s atrocious,” Azadeh says, her voice on speaker as I lie in bed on my back.
“Really, he saved you a lot of trouble,” Leili says, and I can tell that she’s knitting. “You would have agonized over whether or not to break up with him till at least next year.” I want to argue, but I know she’s probably right. “Did you respond yet?”
“You should write AGREE in all caps,” Azadeh says.
“Yeah, or write the same exact message back to him,” Leili says. “Mess with his head.”
“Ha, maybe I will,” I say. “Hey, at least Oz and Roxanne are still going strong.”
“Oh,” Azadeh says. “Yeah, we’re good. But what’s not good is I gotta go write a paper about the Revolutionary War. Love you, Winner! Screw him!”
“Love you, Oz!”
Azadeh mumbles something to Leili as she leaves the room. I notice Enya playing softly in the background.
“Oh, hey,” I say to Leili. “Do you know what Evan said to me before he left rehearsal?”
“Uh-uh.” She’s still knitting.
“I thought we were gonna talk about how awful our scene was, but instead he said I’m not doing improv right! He said I’m showing up with characters in advance, so it doesn’t count. What the hell?”
Leili hesitates a little too long before responding. “Well, yeah, that’s annoying.”
“Wait, do you agree with him?”
“No. Like, obviously he’s a dick for saying that, but…”
I sit up. “But what?”
“It doesn’t matter, Win.”
There’s a vibe I’ve been picking up from Leili all week. I can’t figure out what it is, but it’s unsettling. “No, what?”
“Just that…there’s some truth to what he’s saying. Like, improv is supposed to be about starting with nothing and leaping into the unknown. Which isn’t exactly what you’re doing. But whatever, it’s fine.”
I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. “You’re seriously agreeing with the asshole who dumped me?”
“I mean, not completely, just…Forget it.”
“What is up with you this week?” I ask. I’m feeling fiery.
“Ha!” It’s a sarcastic laugh. “This is the first time it occurs to you to ask that, when I say something you don’t like?”
I’m not sure what’s happening. Leili and I aren’t friends who fight. At least not since the epic blowout we had in fifth grade after I copied off her math quiz. (I’m not proud, but I’ll own it.) “Well, yeah, when the something I don’t like is you insulting the way I do improv, yes.”
Leili sighs. “Has it not even occurred to you to ask how I’m doing after I left during lunch Monday?”
“I…” My mind scans back through the days since that happened. “What’re you talking about, I texted you after.” I think I did. Didn’t I?
“I literally said to you ‘What do you care?’ before I left, and you completely proved my point by actually not caring.”
“I care! I care a lot! You’re my best friend!”
“Yeah. Words, words.”
Ohmigod. She’s completely serious. I have somehow hurt my best friend without having any idea I was doing it. “They’re not just words,” I say, “I mean it.”
And anyway, she was having a fight that day with Azadeh! Why is this my fault?
“I know you have a lot going on with your dad and everything,” Leili says, “but lately, it feels like you’re so wrapped up in Evan stuff, and obsessing over how improv is going, and how funny everyone thinks you are, and whatever else, that I’m just an afterthought.”
“What? That is so not—”
“I’m always telling you how well you’re doing, and trying to be supportive, and I feel like you rarely do that for me.”
“You are so not an afterthought!”
“Well, that’s how it feels, okay? And Connie says—”
“You’ve freaking talked about this with Connie?”
“Uh, yeah, she’s my therapist. That’s what you do at therapy. Not that you would know.”
Now she’s taking a dig at me for not going to therapy? What the hell is happening? “Look,” I say, standing up from bed and pacing around wildly. “I’m sorry for whatever you’re feeling, but it’s been a hard month for me. My dad needs a cane to walk.”
“Winner, I know, and that’s awful, but no offense, sometimes you act like you’re the only one with any problems.”
“What?” I got dumped literally forty-five minutes ago, and now I’m receiving a surprise lecture from my best friend on all the ways I’m a subpar human.
“I’m well aware it’s been hard for you,” Leili continues. “That’s why I haven’t brought this up sooner. But it’s not like I have zero problems—”
“I know that!”
“You do? What are my problems?”
“Like, you know, not getting to see Oz as much because she’s with Roxanne. And, you know…being so busy with everything you do I’m sure is hard.” I pause to see if I’m right or not. “Are there other ones?”
Leili hits me again with her sarcastic laugh.
“Are there?” I ask again, searching for ground beneath my feet and finding nothing.
“I actually should get going,” Leili says.
Get going? She can’t get going! We haven’t figured anything out at all, and I’m gonna be left with this horrifying feeling all night.
“Connie says that if people can’t make me feel seen, I have every right to step away. Otherwise I’m only enabling them.”
It takes me a moment to chew over that one. “Wait, do you think you’re enabling me?”
Leili doesn’t say anything.
“Do you?”
“I don’t know,” she says finally. “Maybe.”
“Okay, so let me get this straight: I’m doing improv wrong, I’m a terrible friend, I only care about myself—have I covered everything?”
“I really should go, Win,” Leili says, unnervingly composed.
“First tell me—”
But she’s already hung up.
I call back. It goes straight to voice mail.
I grit my teeth and quietly scream as I push my Lisa Simpson piggy bank off the dresser. There’s a clangy thud as it hits the floor, at least five years’ worth of change shifting around.
I call again. Voice mail.
I am angry. But I also can’t shake the feeling that I am a terrible friend. And a terrible person. And a terrible improviser. Definitely didn’t Yes, and that conversation.
How has everything gone so wrong, so quickly?
I scroll back through all my texts with Leili from the past few weeks, desperately searching for confirmation that I’m in the right, that I’m an okay friend, that I did text her that day she stormed out of the cafeteria. (I didn’t.)
An old text from her stops me in my tracks:
Are you making prudent decisions?
I stare at the words.
“Doesn’t seem like it!” I want to shout at my phone.
It’s only when I see my actual response that I remember Leili was jokingly quoting Mrs. Tanaka. It was the night I found out about Dad.
And Leili was there for me. Like she always is.
I sink down on my bed and cry. For a long time.