31. Mia
THIRTY-ONE
Mia
“I love Elias,” I whisper to him on my third day in his apartment.
“What the fuck? Still?” my brother answers. “How? When? Why?”
I snuggle back into the Mourning Nest I’ve made out of his giant new couch and every extra comforter and blanket and pillow he has in his giant fancy apartment. I’ve been nested here since Friday, going home once with Leo to grab some clothes. Untangled them from piles on Elias’s bedroom floor.
I close my eyes.
“Hello?!” he yells. “I can still see you,” he reminds me.
“I love him,” I tell him again.
“Stop fucking saying that and start from the beginning, please?”
“Long ago, twenty-nine years to be exact, a little girl was born to Molly and Joe Roberts, in a faraway land known as Princeton, New Jersey. In the neighboring castle, a prince?—”
“Meems,” Leo says impatiently. “How did it start?”
I blow out a breath. “I don’t know exactly. Probably at the beginning of the school year. When we went to the conference.”
“When you said he was helping you get laid?”
“Yeah,” I say, not loving having this conversation with my brother. “It… escalated quickly from there.”
Leo looks pissed. “I told him to back off then. Sounds like he did the opposite.”
“It’s not his fault. I pushed him into it.”
“He could’ve said no.”
“Well, he didn’t. And that’s part of the reason why I love him.”
Leo frowns.
“I’ve been dismissed my entire life, Leo. By everyone. Mom, dad. You, to a certain extent. Strangers. He’s the first person… well, at least outside of work, who’s ever seen me as an adult with legitimate wants and needs and opinions. I’ve always been second best.”
“I told you that I was sorry, Mia?—”
“Especially with Mom and Dad and you. I’ve lived in your shadow forever,” I inform him. “God, you even listened to your fucking girlfriend of two seconds before listening to me for twenty-nine whole fucking years. No one ever recognized my accomplishments. No one except for Elias.”
Leo picks at the edge of one of the blankets.
“That’s not all he did. He’s… given me confidence. I don’t feel like an insecure wallflower anymore.” I pause. “That’s not true. I still do, but less so. I’m getting better. I can stand up for myself. I take up space in a room. I can get people to see me.
Leo’s still picking.
“This isn’t a new phenomenon, either,” I inform my older brother.
He looks up at me.
“He’s done this our entire fucking lives for me. He saw me. He sees me. He listened to what I had to say. He forces me to be better, stronger. He wouldn’t just… dismiss me.” I tear up again. “Well, at least until this weekend.”
He’s silent for a while. “Was it really that bad for you?” he finally asks.
I eye him. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be a little introspective right now.”
Leo is silent for longer. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I guess I was kind of aware of it, but I’ve always just kind of… ignored it. Which is horrible. And a horrible big brother thing to do. Elias has done a much better job than I have.”
“One of the few times you actually didn’t ignore it was at dinner the other night.”
“With Mom and Dad?”
“And Elias.”
He nods curtly. “And Elias encouraged it.”
“There you go.”
“So what happened this weekend?”
I bury myself further into my nest. “I don’t know… that whole week…” For the nine hundredth time, I go over that week in my head. When it started going downhill. “I think something happened after you came over and…” I flush red.
Leo gives a full body cringe. “Did I almost catch you two together?”
I gargle nonsensically.
“Yuck,” he whispers.
“There were other things, too,” I say, quickly moving on. “He caught me having a weird conversation with Andrea. She said something about fuckboys not having a real job. And I know you and your dumbass friends are always giving him shit for that.”
He hums.
“And you wouldn’t get off him about sleeping his way across Manhattan. He wasn’t doing that. At least when he was with me.”
“Why are you still defending him?” Leo says suddenly. “After last weekend?”
“Even if it doesn’t work out between me and him… I don’t want you to lose your best friend. Elias is… he’s… if anything, he’s a really good friend,” I finish lamely.
Leo leans back on the couch, resting his head on the back. “I’m still glad I hit him.”
I think about it. “I am, too.”
“What are you going to do about your apartment?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Stay here for a while and not deal with it?”
He sighs.
“I’ve used up all my Hot Girl energy. I’m all out. I just need a few days to recharge it. Maybe weeks. Can I do that from here?”
He mashes his palms into his face. “Fine.”
“But don’t bring your new girlfriend back here. I don’t want to hear you.”
“What the fuck?”
“You owe me for twenty-nine years of brotherly neglect.” I snuggle back into my Mourning Nest and try to rebuild.
I’m losing my kids.
Some are asleep. Some are acting out. All are unengaged.
Amaya raises her hand during a particular dull moment of my lecture.
“Yes, Amaya?” I cringe at the sound of my voice. Even I sound bored.
“Can you repeat what you just said?” she asks impatiently.
I blink. I don’t even know what I just said. I look back into my teacher guide. “Uh…” I drag my finger across the lines of text. “Oh. Here. Remind children that when authors write—no wait, sorry. When authors write, they usually write for a specific reason. Knowing the author’s purpose for writing can help them… can help you understand more about what you’re reading.”
Amaya’s eyes scan the workbook in front of her. “And there are only three reasons why authors write? To persuade, to inform, and to entertain?”
“No, there are definitely more reasons than that,” I tell her. “What are some other reasons an author may want to—” I start to ask the class. “Actually, never mind. I can’t go off script. Just think about those three for now, Amaya.”
“But how about poetry?” Kyle calls out. “I don’t think poets write to do any of those things.”
“I—” want to claw my eyes out.
Emmanuel takes that moment to storm into my room. “Good morning, Class 301.”
“Good morning, Mr. Jean-Baptiste,” my emotionless robot children chime.
He waves an anchor chart around. “I just wanted to come in here and share something with you. We were just doing the same lesson, and my students had a really great conversation. We came up with an entire list of reasons of why authors write. With examples. We’re still teaching the three in the book ,” Emmanuel tells me pointedly, “so I think it’s safe to add our own.”
“I think poets write to share their feelings,” Kyle calls out.
Emmanuel claps his hands. “Go off, sis,” he tells him. “My students came up with that one, too.”
“Okay,” I breathe. “Let’s do that for today,” I tell everyone. But this still isn’t sustainable.