Then I type:I saw a YouTube video of u
But I erase that too.
I throw off the sheets and leave my phone on the bed. Within minutes, I’m out the door, jogging across the street to the path around the lake. Zoya playing Bach’s prelude with its haunting notes spurs me to run faster and faster, like I’m chasing something. Then I see her above me, our bodies tangled in the bedsheets. Her hair tickles my face as she grins before we kiss. Fingernails digging into my back. Tiny moans vibrating between us.
My whole life flashes before me. The abandonment. The abuse. The tiny breaths of reprieve, filled with laughter and glimmers of hope. The crack of a judge’s gavel after sentencing me to time in prison.
The first day of freedom after my last day served.
The first touch of a woman’s hands on my body.
Freedom and no clue what to do with it.
My lungs burn, but I continue to pump my arms, passing people with reckless abandon. I just want to silence the voice in my head reminding me of all the things I’ve never been or will ever be.
I veer to the side and onto the grass, collapsing onto my knees, then rolling onto my back.
Breathless.
Angry.
Lost.
And then … the music stops.
The voices quiet.
It’s me and my heart beating.
Clouds swirling.
Birds soaring.
I’m no more alive than dead.
Chapter Thirty
June
“It’s too much,”Mom says.
My parents talk in hushed voices, but with my ear pressed to their bedroom door, I can hear everything.
“She’s twenty-six. I think she’s old enough to know if it’s too much. We have to stop coddling her,” he says.
“Bodhi, she’s experienced more than most people experience in a lifetime. I don’t care how old she is; it’s all too much. She’s still dealing with a broken heart. She’s back in LA. And my mom has basically blackmailed her into performing again. Who’s going to take responsibility when she cracks? It’stoomuch. She didn’t get to bed until nearly two in the morning.”
“It was her idea,” he says.
“That’s not fair. You know she’s all or nothing. There is no in-between with her.”
“Babe,” he sighs, “what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t lose my momandmy daughter.”
“You’re not going to lose her.”
“We lost her, Bodhi! She left everything, including us, and found a new life halfway across the country. That felt like losing her.”
