2
Lillian
As soon as Emelia’s gone, I go downstairs. Quickly, before I have time to consider what just happened. I disinfect a big safety pin. I’m going to give myself another ear piercing just to prove to myself I’m still tough. Fierce, unbeaten. As soon as my hands stop shaking. I focus on my body, waiting a few minutes until my hands are as steady as they’re going to get tonight.
When I leave the bathroom, the pin is through my earlobe, angled and hanging heavy on the new damage.
My mom asks if Emelia’s staying over. I keep the bright red irritation of my ear turned away from her and try to sound casual.
“No, Emelia actually left a few minutes ago.”
It’s Friday night. Emelia stays over every Friday night.
“She has to get up early tomorrow,”
I say.
“for soccer practice.”
I avoid eye contact with my mom as we both silently remember that Emelia quit playing soccer at the start of sophomore year. My mom allows the lie to stand, but I feel her concern follow me up the stairs and through my bedroom door.
Then I call Cyprus, since she always answers. Except this time. It cuts me off early, so I know she declined the call. I’m not sure what I’ll do if she’s angry at me. Having one friend angry at me is already more than I can take tonight. Though I’m not sure Emelia and I have ever been friends. We went from strangers to love to tonight.
That’s not right.
It’s the wrong order.
There shouldn’t be another stop after love.
Then I call Quinn, who I would have called first except he’s not as good at answering his phone. He picks up right away.
I’ve decided not to cry. My bedroom is already awash in tears. Any more and the salt water will start to pool at my feet. It’ll start to drip through the ceiling onto the main floor, into my brother’s room below mine. Any more tears and the people around me will start to drown. And without them, I’ll be the one to drown.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,”
he says.
“Cyprus already texted me.”
Quinn preempts my next question.
“Emelia’s at Cyprus’s place.”
I lie down on my bed facing the wall with my legs tucked up to my stomach.
“That’s good,”
I say. It’s only a few blocks from my house to Cyprus’s.
“Cyprus will look out for her.”
“Exactly,”
says Quinn.
“and I’m here to look out for you. Want me to come over?”
“Emelia was a mess. It scared me how much of a mess she was.”
The fight I had in me has switched off and left me with anxiety and emptiness.
“She shouldn’t have biked in the dark when she’s this upset.”
“She’s safe at Cyprus’s,”
says Quinn.
“What about you, Lillian?”
I rest my forehead against the wall.
“I mean, I’m sad.”
What a cute, useless word. From when I was a kid, lots of emotion words felt too small. Things that could get resolved by the end of picture books.
The weight of what I felt, I found in music.
I press my forehead into the wall a little harder, willing the house to support me.
“Mostly, I’m worried about the band,”
I say.
“If Emelia quits, there’s no bass. And she’s our best singer too.”
“Don’t sell yourself sho —”
“She hits notes I can’t, all the harmonies. It’s like half our set we can’t do. You want to sing?”
“Hell no.”
“I really like your voice,”
I say.
“It’s calming.”
“Not when it keeps breaking,”
says Quinn. He makes it crack on purpose to try to make me laugh.
“Give the testosterone a couple months,”
I say, while the word breaking settles in the center of my chest.
“My dad just got home. I can take the car. I can be there in five.”
Quinn’s making it easy for me. He knows I have trouble asking for help. It’s so goddamn kind. It makes my throat have to clench harder to keep the sadness from hitting my eyes. If Quinn comes over, I’ll fall apart. He’s friends with Emelia too. This isn’t his to carry. This isn’t his fault.
This is Emelia’s fault.
It might be my fault.
Normally she’s in bed with me by now. Her head on my arm and her back pressed up against me. It’s my favorite thing in the world. This summer, we started skipping the performance of setting up a bed for her on my couch. That was for my mom, and she doesn’t care if me and Emelia sleep together. She’s always adored Emelia.
Me too.
“Don’t bother coming,”
I say.
“I’m too tired.”
And I am. I feel like I might be tired from here on out.
“What should we do about the band?”
“Cyprus can program the bass parts,”
says Quinn.
“or play them on her synth. We’ll change some melodies and write some new stuff.”
“Emelia might stay, though.”
“Yeah, or that.”
Quinn tries to sound hopeful. I can hear the effort.
We talk awhile longer about what covers we can insert into the set for our next gig at Initialism. A band of three feels so small, even though that’s what we used to be. Emelia joined early on, after her and I started dating. People break up and get back together, though Emelia and I have never even been close to breaking up. Cyprus and her old boyfriend did a bunch of times. Now they don’t speak to each other. But people do get back together.
Quinn is saying something encouraging and distracting. I think he’s asking if I like a band’s new EP, trying to make me smile by making a ridiculous comparison to another album. My mind is a screaming feedback loop. What if I never hear Emelia’s voice again?
“Lillian?”
“I’m falling asleep here,”
I lie.
“I’ve got to go. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I hang up before he can respond.
Well, that was a nonsensical thing to do. It’s a very Lillian move. As soon as there’s no small voice beside my ear, I want to call him back and say please, please come over. Or can I go and stay at your house? I’m holding my phone tightly, flicking back and forth between numbers. I start writing a message to Cyprus to ask how Emelia’s doing even though I could just text Emelia.
Though Emelia did say.
“Don’t text me.”
Before that, she said.
“I just wanted a break. You made it into this.”
I asked.
“What is ‘this’?”
She said.
“Don’t be naive.”
Emelia was the one being naive. Everyone knows taking a break is the beginning of the end. I was just making sure it didn’t drag on.
“When I’m with you, I can barely breathe,”
she said.
“This turmoil you’re always in doesn’t work for me. I never know what to expect.”
I thought I knew what to expect. We talked about living together after graduating. Getting a tiny apartment with more amplifiers than furniture. Where guitars and posters were hung on the walls before we bought a bed frame. Last week, we talked about it. She brought it up.
Emelia, whose book is still on my nightstand. I bought it for her at a thrift store and pressed it into her hands. She was telling me about it as she went, but I got impatient and read the shattering last page after she fell asleep.
At least I saw that one coming.
I delete the unsent message to Cyprus.
Below me, I hear my brother put on an album by Packing Boxes. I recommended it to him. When I ask him how it is, he’ll tell me, meh, it’s alright. But I can hear him humming along tunelessly. I could go downstairs and see if he wants to watch something. He’d joke.
“You’ve got something on your ear,”
like I hadn’t noticed the safety pin. I’d let him pick and we’d wind up watching some fantasy show. All I have to do is roll over, find some air to breathe and walk down the stairs. I’m going to do it.
I glance at my phone one more time, looking for responses to texts I didn’t send. Then I fumble it and it falls into the gap between my bed and the wall, out of reach. Which is too much. If I don’t move, nothing else will change. There will be nothing to push me to tears. I lie on top of my covers with my forehead against the wall, listening to the soft sound of the music coming up through my floor.
I’ll hold on to that.