The hardest thing, with Luke being miles away, was not letting him, not letting us, become the single most important thing in my life. When we weren’t video chatting or talking on the phone, we were texting. It had become my mission to make him an emoji fiend by the time I was done with him. Which, if I had my way, was going to be never.
School became a simple hurdle to get over before we could get to the weekend, when we would see each other again.
We told Mel and Rowan the last weekend in September. The first weekend of October, Luke drove all the way back to Winchester. It was late on Friday night when I got his text:
I jumped out of bed, finger-brushed my hair, and raced down the stairs and out the front door. I waited outside his car door, leaping on him when he opened it. We kissed for what felt like eternity, and then we both slid back into the car, him behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat.
“Your parents are going to hate me,” Luke said, running a hand through his hair. It was already messy from me pushing my hands through it while we kissed. I loved seeing Luke, perfect put-together Luke, all disheveled and rumpled, and knowing it was because of me.
“My mom won’t notice, and my dad goes to sleep at like nine.” It was after ten now. “What will most likely happen is that Mel will start to hate me.” Even as I said it, a hint of fear sparked in me. I guess it was natural now to second-guess how each and every one of the Cohens felt about me. After all these years, it turned out that Luke saw me completely differently from the way I’d always thought he had. That was a good thing, but it also meant that the others might have seen me differently, too. Rowan was certainly never in a good mood with me lately. And there was the whole thing the night his mom was diagnosed and the way he’d been after the fact. Maybe even Mel’s feelings about me were more complicated than I understood.
Luke grinned now, as if what I’d said was absurd. “Never.”
“You skipped your last class to drive all the way out here,” I pointed out.
“She doesn’t need to know that.”
“And you’ll get home smelling like ChapStick and me.”
“I hope so,” he said, and leaned across the console to kiss me again. “Stop worrying what Mom thinks. She loves you.”
Something lit up inside me at his words. Most days, I was ninety-nine percent sure of this, but occasionally, insecurity reared its ugly head.
“All this time we wasted,” I said, shaking my head and wanting to get away from the subject. “Being friends. Not kissing. So stupid.”
“So stupid,” Luke agreed, and I kissed the grin off his face.
When we broke apart again, he had a serious look on his face. “How’s Ro doing?” he asked.
“Good. I think,” I said. Ever since I’d told him about me and Luke, Ro had been even more distant. We had a couple of classes together, but other than that, I hadn’t seen very much of him. He had a different lunch period than I did and normally sat with his tennis friends anyway.
When I went over to the Cohen house, he usually wasn’t there.
“I’m worried about him,” Luke said, swiping a hand over his face.
“I don’t think he’s drinking much anymore, now that school’s back on,” I said. All the times I’d seen him, at least, Ro had seemed sober. Cranky, but sober.
Luke nodded, but he still had a worried crease in the middle of his forehead.
“My dad’s flying out to see me this week,” he said then. “He wants me to show him around the campus and my dorm and everything.”
“Really?” I knew it had been a couple of years since Dr. Cohen had seen Luke or Ro. “Is that . . . a good thing?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, on one hand, he’s helped with a lot of Mom’s bills since she’s been sick, so I guess he’s not completely heartless—”
“But?”
“But he still cheated on her. He’s still him.”
“I could probably never forgive him,” I admitted now. “If he was my dad.”
Luke looked at me with a thoughtful expression and reached out to brush some hair off my face. “You’ll really ride or die for Mom, won’t you?”
I remembered Ro’s words over the summer, about how Mel’s illness was their business, not mine, and my face warmed.
“It’s not a bad thing,” Luke said gently. “It’s just . . . you know, she’s not perfect.”
“I don’t think she is,” I said, though honestly, I couldn’t see any reason why I would ever pick anyone else to be my mother.
“I think she’s part of why I hate Dad,” he said, leaning back against the headrest.
I tried to hide my surprise.
“Maybe she just wanted us to know the truth, but the older I get, the less sure I am. She told us about all the lies, the affairs, the ways he disappointed her even years before those started. I think she needed us to be on her side.”
“Mel would never do that. Not purposely.”
Luke looked at me for several seconds. “Okay,” he said. “Well, intentional or not, it worked, because I can’t stand the guy.”
“I know he sucks,” I said now, “but I think it’s a good thing that he’s making an effort. Some parents don’t even try.”
“We still talking about mine?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Talk to me,” he said, tracing circles on my kneecap.
“Okay, well, my mom is sick. I get that.”
He nodded.
“But she’s been so adamant about not getting help, and I just think that when you love someone, you’re willing to try to get well for them. Even if I’m not enough of a reason, you’d think that for my dad she’d at least try.”
Luke said nothing, so I kept going. “Also, Dad is always reminding me that she loves me, but everyone knows that the first time things got really bad was right after she had me. How can she love the person responsible for ruining her life?” It was the first time I’d ever allowed myself to say this out loud, though the thought had been there for years, niggling at the back of my mind. How could it not be?
A deep frown was etched between Luke’s eyebrows. “Jessi. You don’t really think that, do you? That you ruined her life?”
I shrugged. “I mean, having me made her sick.”
“Maybe, but maybe not,” he said. “Also, she has all this help available to her, and she won’t take it. That’s not on you. You know that, right?”
I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I nodded.
“Have you ever tried talking to her? Telling her how you feel?”
I hadn’t—not really. When something is your normal, it doesn’t occur to you that it can be any other way.
A lump had filled my throat, and I found it hard to look at Luke. “Can we talk about something else? I’m sick of parents.”
“Same,” he said, playing with a strand of my hair again. “Have you heard anything back from State yet?”
I shook my head.
“You know where there are no parents? College,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.
“That sounds glorious.”
“Mhm,” he agreed. His lips were moving along my jaw and down my throat now. “And you know who is at State?”
“You?” I said distractedly as his breath set fire to my skin.
“You’re so fucking smart,” he breathed against my neck. I grinned from ear to ear. When Luke had been deciding about schools last year, I’d secretly hoped against all hope that he would pick one in the state. He had his choice of a few, and I’d been over the moon when Mel told me he’d chosen State. I knew it meant I’d get to see him more often, but I hadn’t let myself think ahead to going there, too. To being there with him, or even being there as his girlfriend.
“My, my,” I said. “It sounds like you’ve picked up some bad habits from college.”
“I say fuck,” Luke protested.
“Not like Rowan,” I said. It had just slipped out, the comparison between them. I’d spent so many years rehashing all the similarities and differences, all the ways Ro was and wasn’t Luke.
“I guess not,” Luke said, straightening in his seat again. “I really should go before I get you in trouble.”
“You mean before I get you in trouble.”
He grinned. “That, too.”
When I hopped out of the car that night, I couldn’t stop smiling. Being with Luke was everything I’d dreamed of and more. The Luke in my head had been, well, the Luke I knew as Ro’s brother and Mel’s son. But the Luke I was getting to know, the Luke I was dating, was so much more. He was funny and sexy and kind and good. He had told me the night he came to my house weeks ago that he was just as fucked-up as everyone else, but to me, he was turning out to be pretty perfect.
When I entered my house, I was surprised to see the kitchen light on. When I went in, my mother was staring into the open fridge, like she was riveted by something. Scattered around the counters and on the kitchen table were the entire contents of our refrigerator. Milk, condiments, full Tupperware containers, vegetables.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s stupid,” Mom said, her voice weirdly shaky. “I couldn’t sleep and I . . . I thought since you and your father do so much around here, I thought I’d help out and do some cleaning. I had this burst of energy, and I took everything out, and now . . .”
She looked so small standing there, so defeated, that I heard myself saying, “That happens to me too sometimes.”
When Mom said nothing, I continued. “The other day I decided to clean out my closet, and I dumped everything out so I could organize from scratch. And then halfway through, I got tired and overwhelmed, but it was too late to stop. It sucked.”
The sound of Mom’s laughter surprised me. It was short and light, more like a giggle really.
“I guess overambition runs in the family,” she said.
I walked over and took the sponge from her. “Here. I’ll help.”
“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved. “That would be great.”
As we worked silently, scrubbing and wiping and putting everything back, I thought of Luke’s words tonight. Have you ever tried talking to her? Telling her how you feel?
I stole a glance at Mom, a strand of hair falling over her pale face as she worked. The topic of her illness felt too big, too delicate to broach without warning, so I decided to start small.
“Why did you name me Jessi?” I asked.
For how much I hated my name, it had never occurred to me to ask my parents where it had come from.
Mom looked surprised at the question, but after a moment she said, “It’s silly.”
My heart pinched.
So I was right about how little thought they’d put into it.
“I used to have a complex about my name,” Mom said now. “Katherine.”
“But it’s so . . . basic,” I said.
Mom smiled. “Exactly. I can’t tell you how many girls I went to school with who had the same name. Over the years I was Kate, Katie, Kitkat, Katherine I., and Kathy, all so people could tell us apart. I swore for years that if I ever had a daughter, I’d name her something unique, but not outlandish. Nothing like Tulip or Daffodil.” Mom snorted now. “God, I went to college with a girl named Wisteria.”
“So basically no flower names?” I said, and Mom laughed again, the sound full and warm. It felt like sitting in the sunshine, feeling the rays of light hit my skin.
“Your father and I took so long to decide when we had you. He really wanted Jessica, but I wouldn’t have it. Too common. So we compromised. Went with something simple. Jessi, first of her name, short for nothing.”
“I always thought you . . . that you kind of phoned it in,” I admitted.
She gave me a weird look. “No, not at all.”
We went back to working in silence, and I wondered if I’d angered or hurt her. I was still chiding myself for ruining the moment when she asked, “Who were you with tonight? Melanie?”
“Luke,” I said. Then, feeling brave, I added, “We’re dating.”
Mom turned to me. “Luke? Really?”
“Why are you so surprised?” I sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it.
“I just thought you and Rowan were . . . closer,” she said at last. Even though I shouldn’t have, I thought then how different Mom was from Mel—Mel who had known for years about my crush on Luke and Mom who knew so little about me. I thought too of that night last summer when I’d snuck into her room and confessed about my crush on Luke. I’d secretly hoped for months after that she’d randomly bring it up, that somehow she’d heard me and remembered everything I told her, but she never did.
“Well, you have to tell me about him,” she said as she closed the door of the fridge.
“Okay,” I said. She got us glasses and filled them with milk, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked. It was kind of everything I’d dreamed of, everything our first conversation about Luke hadn’t been. For one thing, it wasn’t one-sided. I told Mom about what Luke was studying in college and how he’d come down last weekend and told me he liked me. She listened and asked questions, and the whole time I was thinking, So this is what it would have been like to have my mother in my life.
When we finally went to bed about an hour later, I couldn’t believe how well this had gone. I was itching to tell someone.
I picked up my phone to send a text, then hesitated. Should I text Ro or Luke? For the past ten years of my life, it would have been a no-brainer. Ro was my person, but in just a few weeks, everything had changed.
It was past midnight, and I wasn’t surprised when Luke didn’t text back.
Still, I went to bed feeling light and floaty, excited, like things were finally changing.
But when I woke up the next morning, my father was alone at the dining table, looking somber.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“Asleep. She had a rough night.”
It felt like an arrow to the heart.
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t get to bed till late, so she’s exhausted,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, and went into the kitchen to get breakfast.
I didn’t tell my father that we’d been up together, talking. I didn’t tell him about the hope I’d felt, that quiet soaring feeling of possibility.
Maybe things were changing. Maybe we were at the start of a million more conversations full of long-held truths and midnight secrets.
I’d connected with Mom last night. Now it felt as if I would never be able to hold on to her for more than just a few seconds.
She’s back in bed.
I feel a physical jolt when I walk past my mother’s slightly open door on Sunday morning and see the familiar mound in her bed. Things have been so different the last few months. I thought I’d set my expectations low in terms of her recovery, but it still feels like a punch when I see her dark room again.
I force myself to cross the threshold, force myself not to run out of the house when I see the ghost of the mother I’ve known all my life.
“Mom,” I say gently, coming to the side of her bed. “Do you need anything?”
“No, sweetheart,” she says, and her face is smushed against the pillow.
“Where’s Dad?”
“I think he stepped out to check on something at the clinic.”
I try to quiet the voice that says it’s all over, that everything is going back to how it was before. I’m alarmed at the way it makes me shaky, the way it makes me want to curl up in a ball and weep.
It was during the worst of everything last fall that Mom started to be more present. On days when I was the one wrapped up in my bed, refusing to budge and unable to stop crying, she’d rubbed my back and brought me water and told me she was so sorry.
Then she’d started meds and started seeing a therapist, and the change in her had been radical. She wasn’t healed. The gaunt, faraway look in her eyes didn’t disappear overnight, but slowly her body seemed less vacant. I could ask her a question and know she’d heard me. She made dinner sometimes. She went for walks without my father.
Even then, I’d been wary. I’d known it was too good to be true. A person doesn’t suddenly come back from the dead—which, at the worst times, is what my mother seemed to be. Dead. Now I want to kick myself.
There were times in the past when I almost believed that things had changed. I’d catch glimpses of my mother, happy and healthy, for an hour or a day or the length of a conversation about boys, but it always went back to the way things were.
Why did I let myself believe this change would last?
“I’m going out for a while then,” I say, desperate to escape this porthole into the past. “Should I get anything for you?”
“No, thank you,” she says.
I’ve almost shut her door when I hear her call me back.
“Jessi . . . I talked to Melanie last night. Is that where you’re going?”
“Yeah,” I admit, surprised. Mel and Mom are talking now? Since when? My mother’s illness meant that Mom and Mel had never gotten to know each other beyond surface-level conversations and platitudes.
“I’ve been checking in on her from time to time over the past few months,” she says, which surprises me even more. But I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about Mom 2.0. I feel sad that I’ll probably never get to know her after all, that it seems like she’s gone already. “She told me you and Luke were seeing each other again.”
My heart drops.
“It’s not that serious,” I say quickly.
“Well, we should still have him over for dinner sometime this week. What do you think?”
“Sure, Mom,” I say, and shut her door, but I already know the chances of her even remembering this in twenty-four hours are slim to none. When the darkness takes her, it returns her to us wiped clean.
For a long time, I used to think that as soon as I graduated from high school, I would pack up and leave Winchester. Leave my parents and this world where I managed to feel both loved and forgotten, at home and adrift. But the past year has turned my world upside down and crushed it. Instead of leaving, I’ve decided to take the next year to catch my breath.
Just like Mom guessed, I drive right to Mel’s house.
It’s like muscle memory being around her again. I push back the thoughts of my parents, forget the fact that Mom 2.0 is gone, and without trying, I am going through the motions, becoming the Jessi Mel knows and loves again. On one hand, I know I will never be that girl again and that this act can only last so long. On the other hand, it feels so familiar to be in the Cohen house again, to be loved by Mel, and to be with Luke, even if it’s all pretend this time.
I’m not sure if Luke is home, but Naomi is there again when I get there.
She’s working at the dining table, probably planning lessons for the coming school year, while Mel sits in the living room, surrounded by her mountain of blankets.
“I’m spending more time out of my room now that I get company much more often,” Mel says, and I feel a twinge of guilt that I haven’t been here for her. That with Luke at school this year, she pretty much had only Naomi.
I can’t even imagine how lonely she must have been.
I sit on the couch beside her, and she peppers me with questions the way she used to when I was a kid. At the time, she was the only grownup that even seemed to care what I thought of anything, what I loved and hated and dreamed of doing.
Now she says, “Did you decide to go to State after all?”
“I’m taking a year off,” I tell her.
“Oh. How come?” she asks.
I shrug, try to think of what to tell her. “I don’t know what I want to do, and I don’t want to waste my money and time.”
“Lots of people don’t know what they want to do,” she insists. “You kind of just bluff your way through it the first couple of years until you figure yourself out.”
“Maybe I’ll bluff in Winchester for a while first,” I say.
She looks concerned, but doesn’t say anything else.
“I’ll go grab you some more water,” I say, reaching for her empty cup and disappearing into the kitchen.
The kitchen is eerily the same. The same appliances in all the same places. I swear, even the pile of undone dishes looks the same as the one I saw on the very last day I spent in the Cohen house before everything happened.
“When I take a break from my planning, I’ll get to the dishes.”
I jump at the sound of Naomi’s voice. “Oh, I can totally do them.”
“No, it’s fine,” she says.
“Seriously, Naomi. That’s why I’m here—to help out. I’ll do it,” I insist.
“Thanks,” she says. From the way she hesitates, I can tell there’s more she wants to say.
I go to the fridge and fill a glass of water for Mel.
“You know, the weird thing is,” Naomi continues like we’re in the middle of a conversation. “I thought I saw Luke drive past me on Friday on my way here. I must have missed you in the front seat.”
It takes me a moment to realize she’s still talking about the whole takeout nonsense from two nights ago.
“You must have,” I repeat lamely.
“The other weird thing—I keep meaning to ask Luke, but maybe you know. Who is Court?”
“Court?”
Naomi nods. “He’s on the phone with her at all hours of the day and night, so I figured you’d know her.”
Anybody listening in on our conversation would be wondering how she made the jump from the first weird thing to the second weird thing, but I know exactly what she’s saying.
She doesn’t believe us.
I swallow.
“Ah well, she’s probably just a friend from school,” Naomi says, helping herself to a mandarin from the fruit bowl. As she starts to peel it, I smile and say, “Probably,” like I’m totally unbothered by what she’s just told me.
My façade is breaking, so I turn my back on her and start on the dishes.
When the hell did Naomi, of all people, become so observant?
I’m still filling the sink with soap and water when I hear footsteps, and then Luke walks into the kitchen. He’s in his famous pajama bottoms, his chest firm and distracting. He yawns as he walks past Naomi, his hair in bed-induced disarray.
“Morning,” he says to both of us.
He’s holding a box of cereal, walking toward me to grab a clean bowl, when I do it—I throw myself in front of him and press my lips against his. He freezes for one second, and then he’s kissing me back, his tongue wreaking all sorts of havoc on my sanity. I loop my arms around his neck as we kiss for one breathless, frenzied second.
We stop when Naomi clears her throat.
I disentangle myself from Luke, but he just keeps looking at me.
“I’ll take Mel’s water to her,” Naomi says, coming around to grab the glass on the counter where I left it and then leaving the kitchen. If what she saw did anything to assuage her suspicions, I can’t tell.
Once she’s gone, Luke cocks his head. “Now who’s ambushing who?”
But he doesn’t look angry or like I made him do something he didn’t want to do. And he definitely did do something.
“She’s suspicious,” I hiss to Luke. “She’s going on about how she didn’t see us at Dynasty when she was there on Friday. Also, who’s Court?”
I fold my arms across my chest.
Luke looks surprised. “Court?” he repeats. “How do you—”
“Apparently you’ve been speaking to her at all hours of the day and night.” I try not to let it show how desperately I’m hoping he’ll refute the claims, that he’ll say Naomi misheard or something. Something.
He just pushes his hand through his hair and reaches around me for a cereal bowl.
I know I should drop it, but I can’t. “How are we supposed to seem like a couple when you’re having phone sex with some girl?”
Luke turns on me. “First of all, we were not having phone sex.” An embarrassing sensation that feels a little like relief washes over me. “Second, I’ll be more careful.” He takes a step toward me, so only I can hear. “And third, you’re welcome to fuck whoever you’d like. This is just for show, remember?”
His words make me feel like I’ve been slapped.
“You know, I liked you better when you weren’t a giant asshole.”
Luke narrows his eyes at me. “Did you?”
I can’t answer him, so I turn away and go back to washing dishes.