Chapter Twenty
I pushed the hood of my brother’s oversized sweatshirt off my head and walked into Dalia’s Dry Cleaning, hoping it would make me look less pathetic.
I’d spent the week since I got back to Chicago wallowing in self-pity.
Mostly, I’d managed to keep from crying in front of my family and at school, but all bets were off when I was alone, making the drive to and from places, being in the shower, or being in my room potential cry-fest hot spots.
“Remind me again of the phone number, sweetheart,” Dalia said, her fingers hovering above the black keyboard.
She hadn’t asked me anything unusual. I literally gave Mom’s phone number every time I picked up her and Dad’s starched shirts, but something about the question made me feel like the floor was going to fall out from under me.
“Seven, seven, three—” I stopped as my throat tightened. It wasn’t that long ago that Ethan had asked me for my phone number—
Nope. I shook my head. I wasn’t going to think about him in public. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I started again. “Eight, six, seven—”
Unsummoned, tears started leaking out of my eyes. Of all the things that could have made me start to cry in public, this was the one that broke me? A phone number?
“Are you okay, Jamie?” Dalia looked alarmed as I sucked in a shuddering breath.
“I’m f-f-fine,” I stammered as my vision clouded over.
The bell above the door dinged to indicate another customer had walked in, and I peered over my shoulder to see who else was about to see me surprise-cry.
An older person in a bright purple jacket and very crisply creased pants was waiting behind me in line, staring at me like I might be contagious.
Great. I’m scaring people on top of being miserable.
Taking another deep breath, I tried to start again, feeling the weight of the person’s eyes on my back. “Five—”
Another big tear rolled down my cheek, and something that felt suspiciously like a hiccup-sob forced its way out of my chest. Swiping at the tear, I turned to my left and saw the small alterations booth in the corner.
Dalia nodded encouragingly, but I couldn’t get the next number out.
I missed Ethan. And no amount of running stupid errands for my parents on a Saturday was going to change that.
Glancing back at Dalia, I choked out, “I need a minute.”
Dashing into the booth, I managed to draw the light-blue velvet curtain behind me before dropping onto the little wooden bench to sob.
I tried to focus on my breathing and push the thoughts of Ethan out of my mind.
I’d broken things off for a good reason.
It was just really hard to feel okay about it right now.
“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m o—”
“Want me to call someone?” Dalia said, her voice delicate from the other side of the curtain as the customer bell rang again.
“No, th-th-thank y-y-you,” I blubbered. Although, calling someone did feel like a good idea.
I fished around my giant front pocket trying to find my phone so I could video call Nittha and Gabby, since they were the only ones who even knew about Ethan in the first place.
Pressing the Call button, I sniffled. Almost immediately, they both came up on-screen.
“Hey, friends!” Nittha bounced, the pink walls of her bedroom flashing at me like silent, happy little trolls.
“Hey. Hey.” Gabby grinned at us. She was sitting outside in the sunshine, one of those typical skinny Florida-subdivision palm trees waving at me from the background as if daring me to keep it together.
“I can’t pull it together.” I wheezed as thoughts of Ethan threatened to send me to the next level of crying-mess, aka the puddle stage. If I hit that, there’d be no calming down anytime soon.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong?” Gabby asked. “Are you sick?”
At the same time Nittha said, “Do we need to cancel next weekend?”
I exhaled, my entire body collapsing as me and my oversized hoodie became one with the little wooden bench.
Part of me wished I had texted them the truth.
But after everything that happened last week, I’d been too busy trying not to snot-cry in front of BamBam to do much of anything other than message them with an excuse that I wasn’t feeling well and therefore wasn’t going to be at the pool party.
I left out the part where I’d waited for BamBam to leave so I could look for breakup playlists to sob to in the shower instead of wrapping up TrendCon with my friends.
In retrospect, admitting that Ethan and I were done, and that I wasn’t going to enter the contest, so there was no reason for them to come all the way to the Chicago area regional event to see my big directorial debut, would have been the less chaotic thing to do.
“Jamie, this long silence is making me nervous,” Gabby said, lifting her sunglasses up and leaning closer to her screen. “And where are you?”
“Wait, don’t say whatever it is yet. I need Cricket.” Nittha dove off of her bed.
“You are really gonna make us wait longer.” Gabby glared at Nittha’s empty square.
“Unlike me, Cricket is very good with emotionally difficult situations,” Nittha hollered from somewhere off camera. “Okay, we’re back. Go ahead, Jamie.” Nittha waved Cricket, who was wearing a pink polka-dot bow and matching collar, at us. “Please tell us you aren’t in Point Nemo or something.”
“Where is Point Nemo?” I sniffed.
“Middle of nowhere. It’s basically inaccessible. We’re learning about it in school,” Gabby said. I was glad they went to the same online school so she could decipher Nittha’s particular brand of random. “Tell us what’s going on. You look like you were attacked by a wild pack of sloths.”
“Do sloths come in packs?” I wrinkled my nose. Nittha giggled, but Gabby wasn’t having it. “Okay, okay. I’m at the dry cleaner’s. In the alterations booth.”
“What?” Gabby asked, looking deeply disturbed.
“Why are you there?’ Nittha’s forehead creased with confusion. “And why are you crying?”
I took a deep breath and stared up at the noise-absorbing tiled ceiling trying to decide where to start.
In the background, the shop’s bell dinged with the entry of another customer who Dalia whispered a greeting to, presumably so as not to disrupt my recovery during a stage-three public meltdown. That was kind of her.
Turning back to the phone, I let the whole story come out, at first in measured, deep breaths and then, as I got closer to actually breaking things off with Ethan, in another round of pathetic, messy sobs.
For maybe the first time in years of friendship, Nittha and Gabby didn’t interrupt me to ask questions.
Instead, they let me blabber with only an occasional break for me to wipe my nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
“So, yeah. There is no video and no Ethan. But that’s okay.” I tried to end the story on a happy note, although my voice sounded like I was dangerously close to wailing again.
Gabby blinked at me for a second, while Nittha rocked Cricket back and forth like a baby, both of them waiting to see if I was done sob-talking or if I was going to break into actual howls now.
“Low-key feels like maybe you could have told us immediately after this happened and not like a week later when you had a breakdown at the dry cleaner’s, so you didn’t have to be sad by yourself.” Gabby nodded; after a beat, she added, “But I’m glad you’re telling us now.”
“Me too.” I sniffed. Telling them hadn’t exactly made me feel better. I did, however, feel like a human ball of emotions crammed into a dirty sweatshirt, so there was that.
“We’re not mad,” Nittha added, more as a warning to Gabby to ease off unless she wanted another Jamie-shaped tear puddle to appear. “Jamie, do you want to talk-talk about this or cry-talk about it? Like, where is your headspace?”
“Good question.” Gabby leaned back in her chair. “Are we all shaking our fists at the sky and saying we hate Ethan? Or are we exploring the root cause of our feelings? Both are valid.”
“I don’t know? Both?” I said, feeling like maybe I wasn’t as done crying as I thought I was. “Like, I want a hug, for Ethan to be miserable without me, and for everything to be okay.”
“Got it.” Nittha nodded and waved Cricket at the screen. “Virtual hug.”
“Yup, big puppy snuggles,” Gabby said flatly. Pushing her sunglasses back over her eyes, she added, “Are you okay with me asking a hard question now?”
“That wasn’t a very long virtual hug,” Nittha chided, laying Cricket down next to her.
“Shh, it’s Jamie’s turn.” Gabby waved playfully. “Jamie, don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t you think a lot of assumptions were baked into this breakup?”
“Okay, yes.” Nittha nodded in agreement. “I thought so, too.”
My nerves tensed up, and I played with the cuff of my sweatshirt, waiting for Gabby to wait for Nittha to finish so the former could ask her question. “I’m not asking this to be mean, but like, how do you know your parents wouldn’t support your career aspirations or that BamBam would hate you?”
I paused, forcing a gulp of air into my lungs as my throat tightened.
My vision blurred as a fresh round of tears threatened to start up again.
“My parents are constantly on me. The only time they aren’t telling me to be better is when I’m asleep, or at mock trial, because parents aren’t allowed to speak in the courtroom. ”
“Do you need a Kleenex?” someone who was decidedly not Dalia called from the other side of the blue curtain, causing my friends and me to jump.
“Shhhh,” Dalia hissed at the customer. “Boy trouble. She’s gonna work it out with her friends.”
“No, thank you.” My voice sounded strained as I answered the customer.
“Been there. Let us know if you need one,” the nosy yet thoughtful customer said.
“I will.” I swiped at my eyes, then turned back to my friends. “Sorry.”