Twenty-Five
Summer
I haven’t moved in about three days and it’s becoming a real problem.
I don’t think I’ve ever not moved this much in my life.
My parents have always laughed that I’m the type of person who always needs to be on the go.
I get antsy otherwise, but it’s like years of constantly moving around have caught up to me and now my body is crashing.
Everything feels heavy and all I want to do is stare up at the ceiling.
I don’t even want to be entertained by my phone or the television.
Bethany seems to be in the same boat.
We’re both sitting on the couch in our pajamas, and although it’s cliché, we have our own tubs of ice cream. I’d like some credit because it’s a tub of Halo Top. I don’t care what River says, it tastes just as good as regular ice cream. Not exactly the same but close enough.
Bethany and I have decided against watching a romcom after we went all teary-eyed from the first one.
Now we’re watching a really bad western.
I’ve never watched a western in my life and neither has Bethany, but I don’t think either of us are really paying attention.
It’s almost ridiculous how just one ping from one of our phones riles us up enough to quickly reach for the devices.
I almost want to fight Bethany when it’s her phone that goes off and not mine, but then she sighs.
“Not Moose?” I ask.
“No.” Bethany shoves an entire spoonful of chocolate chip ice cream into her mouth. “Denise just wanted to make sure I didn’t trash her place in my period of mourning.”
I look around the living room and it’s not in awful shape. I mean, we’ll have to do some cleaning up before Denise gets back from her summer vacation, but I don’t want to worry about that right now. I just want to shove my face full of ice cream and wallow in my sorrows.
Bethany’s fingers move quickly against her phone screen before she sets it back down on the couch. She drops her head back, looking up at the ceiling.
“It’s not even like we broke up.” She sighs.
“All he said was he wanted to really think about what a long-distance relationship could look like for us.” Bethany recites this as if she hasn’t told me ten times in the past twelve hours.
But I don’t break that news to her because I’ve been doing the same thing.
“And it’s not like River and I were even together, so technically we didn’t even break up either,” I mumble over my spoon.
We turn our heads and look at each other.
Sad, tired, and heartbroken, and we shove more ice cream into our mouths.
Instead of a ping this time, one of our phones begins to ring, but I don’t even bother to reach for mine because I’m sure it’s just Denise calling in response to whatever Bethany had said.
Then my heart does a little flip when she looks up from her phone and shakes her head. I immediately perk up and clutch my phone but unfortunately, the usual picture of River and me at our high school prom doesn’t light up my screen. Instead, it’s a picture of Papi and me when I was a baby.
I watch the phone ring, frozen in place for some reason. It’s almost as if my body is preparing for the absolute worst. My screen goes black and I’m staring at my own reflection. Then I get a text message.
Papi: Mija please call me when you get a chance. It’s an emergency.