“Hey, look,” I say, nodding my head across the street. My voice is still cheerful, but nothing inside of me is. “There’s the None of Your Business Store. And right beside it, the boutique called Things You Have No Right to Ask.”
I don’t look at him, but I know—Iknowwhat he’s doing. He’s looking across the street, too. He knows those aren’t real signs, but he’s looking anyway.
“I only meant that health care costs are at a premium, and many people in creative industries—”
“Reid.” I turn to face him, crossing my arms over my chest and feeling a fresh mist of rain blow against my whole right side—my clothes, my face, my hair. I never really knew what people meant before when they said someone was “pushing their buttons.” Right now, I ammadeof buttons.
I take a deep breath, wait for him to look at me. I feelelectric.
“Let’s get something straight between us. I don’t feel sorry for you, and you have no reason to feel sorry for me, either. I’m not some manic pixie dream girl who needs your stabilizing influence. I’m good at my job. I built a business in one of the toughest cities in the world that now people are coming tometo expand. I only thought it’d be nice to have a—”
I break off, startled, my face heating. I was going to sayfriend. Jesus, what am Idoing? Why am I saying all these things to him?
“A what?” he asks.
“Company,” I finish, limply. “Like I said before.”
“You do have a company.”
“No—” Oh, my God. This is so . . . it’s sofrustrating, how it is between us. How he presses me on every single thing, how he baits me into saying what I shouldn’t say. How he doesn’tletme keep it light.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say.
The whole world seems to quiet around us, the rain suddenly slowing, barely a drizzle now. Fat globes of it drop from the edge of the awning we stand under, and within seconds there’s twice the number of people on the street, emerging from whatever shelter they took during the downpour. Reid watches them, looking tense and handsome and sad, and even in spite of the frustration, I still feel that thing—that sympathy, that connection.
But I’m wrong, clearly.
I step out from underneath the awning. A big drop of rain falls from the edge of it and hits me on the forehead, right where the pimples are. No umbrella, no dignity. What a freakingday.
“Meg,” he says softly, and for a second, I think his eyes might be—pleading? But his mouth closes again. He’s got nothing at all to add. This whole thing has been painful for him, from start to finish.
He tries to hand me his umbrella, but I wave it off.
“This was a mistake,” I say, and this time he doesn’t cough when he hears me say the word.Thatword.
He only looks at me, holding that stupid forty-percent-chance umbrella, and I guess it’s as good as an agreement.
I turn and walk away, and I feel as if I’m trailing the letters of that fateful word behind me.
By the time I get home, I’m a wet, straggly-haired, angry mess. I am basically a feral cat, if feral cats got harassed two times on the subway, once by a man who kept insisting I take his seat and then called me a “rude bitch” when I finally told him I really preferred to stand, and once by his friend, who said he always liked a “gal” with a temper and then stared meaningfully—disgustingly—at my crotch. On my way off I discreetly stuck my gum to the strap of his backpack, but unless it has the power to expand and seal him and his douchebag friend into a suffocating, chewed-up cocoon of my feminist rage, it’s a pretty hollow victory.
“Hey, you’re home!”
It’s a sign of how angry, how not myself I am that I don’t even feel a spark of gratitude or relief or hope to find Sibby here, greeting me as though it’s a welcome part of her day to have me home. She’s sitting at the small, two-seat table we have off the kitchen, a takeout box of noodles in front of her, and all I feel is annoyed. Her hair is not only dry but also not at all straggly. Her winged eyeliner is back in top form, whereas I’m well aware that half my mascara is half down my face. Don’t get me started on the fact that her skin is clear. Plus those noodles are from my favorite place.
“I need a shower,” I say, and she looks slightly startled. For the last couple of months, I’ve been a lot of things with Sibby—questioning, polite, probably even desperate. But never angry or curt.
“Oh, sure,” she says, waving her plastic chopsticks. Actually, they aremyplastic chopsticks, which is obviously not as bad as getting harassed on the subway, but even so I wish I had a piece of gum in my mouth.
“Do you think you’ll be out in twenty? I’m headed to Elijah’s, but wanted to go over something with you first.”
I want to heave the world’s biggest sigh. Whatever she’s about to say isn’t going to make this day any better, but even though that shower is calling my name, I’d rather get this over with. Then I can cry about my shitty fight with Reidandthis conversation, all at the same time. Take that, Reid! Who’s efficient now?
I lift my bag from across my chest and let it thunk to the floor unceremoniously, which earns me another look of surprise. I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but early on in our shared living situation, I learned to keep my messes contained, to keep them mostly out of Sibby’s sight. She’s always preferred tidiness, so I’ve always—ugh—gone along.
“Just tell me now. I’m sure it won’t take long.”Nothing takes long with you lately. I am being so passive-aggressive that I almost wish I was recording this. I could send it to my mom later. I think she’d be proud.
“Okay,” Sibby says slowly. “Well, I know I said the end of the summer.” She ends it there.
