When We Break

by Piper Lennox

  So I never picked a happy place. As far as I was concerned, happy places couldn’t exist, in real life or imagination, because problems follow you wherever you go.

  But right now, as Orion wraps his fingers around my elbow and helps me stand, not waiting for an answer as he says, “We’ll get you some tea or something, you can lie down...” I wonder if I was wrong. Maybe “happy place” can just be somewhere you feel safe. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a place at all.

  Orion

  She’s still crying when we get to my hotel room. It’s a weird, robotic kind of cry: her face doesn’t contort at all. The tears just fall.

  “That must have been really hard for you.” I dump the first run-through of water in the coffee pot down the drain, then set it to fill again. This time, the water runs clear. “Seeing the, uh...that woman.”

  Colby nods with her hands pressed together between her knees. For some reason, she chose to sit on the bed, not the couch. I try not to read into it.

  “I fucking hate this,” she says, after a moment. I almost don’t hear her over the final spew of water into the pot. “Every time I think I’m okay again, another panic attack pops up and....” Her breath hitches in her chest, then starts to come in short, shallow bursts.

  “Hey, you’ll be all right.” I abandon the mug with her tea and stand in front of her, motioning with my hands like conducting an orchestra. “Breathe like this. In...out. In...yeah, see? Okay, keep doing that. Count to three during each inhale and exhale.” I watch her do the sequence herself a couple times before finishing the tea.

  “Can you....” She takes another hiccuping breath when I look at her, then catches herself and measures it out, wiping away the fresh tears. “Can you just, like...keep talking to me? I think if I lie down and—and just listen to you talk, I’ll be okay.”

  “Sure,” I falter. The mug of tea in my hand feels like a bomb I don’t know how to detonate; she’s already lying back across my bed, eyes shut, clearly uninterested in drinking it. I set it on the nightstand and take a seat on the couch. “What should I talk about? Do you want to talk about your cousin, or—”

  “No.” Her voice splits the air between us. She rests her arm across her eyes with another deep breath. “Not her.”

  “Okay.” I look around the room. The letter London wrote me to read on the plane, slipped into my luggage at the last second without my knowledge and now stuck inside the mirror frame on the closet, catches my attention.

  “My daughter,” I begin, “is completely obsessed with Disney princesses. Which, yeah, most little girls are—but I mean weirdly into them. She doesn’t just want all the branded toys and the glittery dresses. She gets library books about the actual fairy tales, because she’s fascinated by the real stories the movies don’t show.”

  “Whoa.” Colby laughs breathlessly and peeks at me from underneath her arm. “You know the real fairy tales are usually super fucked-up, right?”

  “Hey, I don’t get them for her! They’re right there in the library at school. What am I supposed to do, when she’s reading them all through recess?”

  This time, Colby slides her arm over her head and lets it fall onto the mattress. When she looks at me, her eyes are reddened but shimmering, the sunlight catching the color just right. I notice the way her hair spills across the comforter behind her. “She doesn’t play with her friends?”

  My knuckles crack too loudly in the silence. “London doesn’t really have friends.”

  “At all?”

  Something in her voice—maybe the fact she still hasn’t totally caught her breath yet—softens what would otherwise be a judgmental question. I’m used to it: people assume something must be wrong with my kid, as cute and sweet as she is, for her to have so much trouble befriending other kids.

  But Colby, in a weird way, seems to understand.

  “At all. Maybe two or three I’d say are anything close to the definition, but…yeah.” My teeth pull across my lip. Even though I brought up the topic, I’m eager for it to change. “I’ve got a good story about her, if you want to hear it. Unless you’re sick of hearing about my kid.”

  “I’m not. Tell me.”

  “When she was about...three, I think, I had just started my new job, working from home. So I’m at my desk in my bedroom, on a video call, while she’s playing with paperclips and stuff at my feet.”

  Her head turns slightly. She smiles again, waiting.

  “And I’m not really paying attention to her, because I’m talking to a client. About thirty minutes into the call, the client asks for some paper I didn’t have on me—it was in my kitchen. So I tell them to hang on while I go get it.” The memory blooms in full-color in my head: London’s tiny hands, still chubby with baby fat, clutching the cylinder of paper clips like I’d handed her the greatest gift ever. Her tiny giggle of “thank oo, Daddy,” like the squeak of a hinge under my desk. I find myself mirroring Colby’s smile. “What I didn’t know was that London had tangled up this huge ball of paperclips with my shoelaces, basically tying them together. The second I stood up, I tripped and fell over my desk chair. Like, completely wiped out, right in front of the client.”

  Colby’s laughter is sturdier now. “No way. Three-year-olds can’t be that devious.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I move to the corner of the bed, to hand her the tea when she seems ready. “I don’t think she did it on purpose, obviously, but it was hard to think otherwise at the time. Especially since she was laughing her ass off.”

  “What did the client say?”

  “Oh, he laughed his ass off, too.”

  Colby hits my leg as she dissolves again. When we both get our composure, her eyes slip to mine. I catch a flush melting from her neck, down to the freckled skin of her sternum.

  She catches me staring. I turn away.

  “So,” I manage, as I clear my throat. “Ready for the tea?”

  “Sure.” She sits up and takes a careful sip from the mug. “Thank you. This really helped.”

  “No problem. Plenty of complimentary tea to go around.”

  “I meant for talking me down.” Her wink makes me forget to inhale, just a second too long. “But it is good tea.”

  The silence doesn’t seem to bother her like it does me. I’m always conscious of my chewing, sipping, breathing in moments like these; Colby just drinks the tea like she normally would, or the way I assume she normally would, both hands around the mug as she watches the sunset through the window, lost in thought.

  My eyes trace the bow of her bottom lip. Suddenly, I catch how close my hand is to her leg.

  I almost move it.

  “This,” she whispers, her voice choking the tiniest amount, “has been a way harder day than I expected.”

  With a mind of its own, my hand slides to her knee. We both stare at the spread of my fingers on her skin before our eyes meet, at the exact same millisecond, like mind readers.

  “You made it easier, though,” she adds softly. This time, her honesty amazes me in a good way. The best.

  I want to tell her she made today easier on me, too. Actually, what I really want to do is kiss her. And I can tell, from the easy tilt of her chin, that’s what she wants, too.

  But as I lean in and my pulse stutters, despite everything in me, in this one moment, wanting nothing but one night with someone...I catch sight of London’s letter again. The corner is bent and fluttering in the push of the ceiling fan.

  Colby doesn’t look upset or confused when I pull back. She just waits. Maybe she wasn’t expecting the kiss, after all. Maybe I imagined leaning in, the world seeming to tilt only in my head.

  “I, uh...I’ve got a really early flight,” I say, as soon as the reason, any reason, finds my tongue. My hand drops from her leg onto the comforter. “Not that I’m trying to kick you out or be rude.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve got an early flight, too.” She stares at me a little too long before turning her attention to the tea, nearly gone.

&
nbsp; “Are you good to drive?” I make sure not to stand until she does. My thumb brushes her hand when I take back the mug.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She checks her makeup in the mirror. “God, my mascara looks like shit. No wonder you didn’t want to kiss me.”

  It’s like she punched me in the chest, I falter so badly. “Oh, no, it...it’s not—”

  “Relax. I was joking.” She smirks at my reflection before facing me. “Guess I’ll see you around Santa Barbara sometime.”

  Already, her hand is on the door handle. The mechanical clunk as it opens reminds me that, when it closes, I’ll be alone for the night. Again. One more tally on an endless tab.

  You could still kiss her. The hallway is empty, and the sunset’s filling my room better than a hundred candles. It’d be easy to press my lips to hers right now, when there’s barely six inches between us. Easy to draw her against me, back into the room in a smooth retreat. All too easy to slide my hands down her spine and pull the zipper to her dress. Drag my mouth from those pink lips to her delicate neck. Lick the salt from her skin until I’ve got her sighing my name on repeat.

  But that’s just it. It would be easy. And if there’s one thing my dating life as a single dad has shown me, it’s that no one worth my time—or London’s—will come easily.

  It isn’t you, I want to tell Colby…but it is her. Or rather, what she isn’t: mom material.

  This is vacation brain, getting to me. I decide to blame Kona. It’s the kind of place that amplifies romance, if you’ve got it—and loneliness, if you don’t.

  “Yeah.” Change rattles in my pockets as I ball my fists up inside them, trying to lean on the doorframe faux-casually while she, actually casual, walks backwards to the elevator bank. “Guess so.”

  Five

  Colby

  I’ve been back in Santa Barbara exactly fourteen minutes, and I’m already beyond done.

  “Let me get this straight.” My fists tense at my sides while Katya and Ray, without breaking eye contact from their computer screens set up on opposite sides of their bedroom, mutter into their headsets. In response, I raise my volume. “The toilet overflows, and not only do you use my towels to mop it up—but you don’t even call maintenance?”

  I’m legitimately shouting now, and neither seem to notice or care. Ray shakes the dregs from a Pringles can into his mouth. Katya button mashes furiously in response to an ambush on-screen.

  “Hey!” I clap my hands. Still, they don’t look away from the game. “Did you call anyone? Is the toilet at least working now?”

  “Colby,” Ray chides over his shoulder. Like I’m the one acting childish. Like the stench of raw sewage and a buckling linoleum floor isn’t the most important thing going on in this apartment, right now. “I told you, give us just ten minutes here, all right? We’ll square it up.”

  “Square what up?” Finally, I venture into the room. The floor is one large shelf to them, covered in discarded clothes and trash. In some spots, it’s almost knee-deep.

  I clear what looks like two identical black hoodies away with the toe of my boot and stand in my one-woman oasis, hands on my hips, feeling very much like my mother.

  “The bill.” Ray fires a missile into a wall of enemies in gas masks before spewing orders into his headset. He glances at me again. Or, more specifically, my feet, as though my disruption of his squalor is offensive. “I mean, obviously we’re gonna need a plumber.”

  The headache intensifies. It began during my flight, a seven-hour purgatory I spent alternately skimming news articles about Eden’s organ recipient party, and scanning the seats around me for Orion’s blond head.

  “Once again,” I say, molars locking, “I’m going to ask why neither of you actually called maintenance. They hire the plumber, not us. And do I even want to know where you guys have been going to the bathroom the last few days?”

  “Go left,” Katya says, and it takes me a second to realize she’s talking to another player online, or maybe Ray, and not me.

  Fuck this. Eden was a slob, and her boyfriend was the world’s biggest asshole. The hell if I’m going to put up with the same shit twice.

  Passing the bathroom again almost makes me gag, but rage propels me straight into the living room. I’m shocked it’s somewhat clean, though that’s probably because Katya and Ray stayed in their room the majority of my absence.

  As soon as I unplug the internet router, I feel better.

  “Shit!” There’s a cascade of empty soda cans as Ray’s voice slowly grows closer. “Colby, what’s your fucking problem?”

  I unhook all the cables and hold the box in both hands while I edge to the patio door, poised to toss it. It’s an empty threat: I haven’t been able to go onto the balcony, or even open the vertical blinds, since the night Eden died. Ten months of pretending this door doesn’t even exist. But Ray doesn’t have to know that.

  “My problem is that you’re completely ignoring me, while our one toilet is broken and all my towels are ruined,” I spit. “If you clogged the toilet, why didn’t you just call someone to fix the problem?”

  “You clogged it!” Ray shouts, stepping so close so fast, I hold my breath.

  Relax. This isn’t Gage we’re talking about: Ray’s a prick, but he isn’t dangerous.

  “What?” I’m so confused, I don’t even stop him from taking back the router. While he climbs behind the couch to plug it back in, I look at Katya, who’s trying to sneak into the kitchen. Probably going for an energy drink from their arsenal in the fridge. “How did I clog it when I was 2,000 miles away?”

  “Because the clog was probably because of your tampons.” Ray’s voice echoes in a strange way, pinging at me from underneath the sofa. “We know it wasn’t either one of us that did it. We never had clogs at our old place.”

  “My tampons.” I stare at him, only the top of his head visible. “You’re telling me that my tampons, which I’ve been flushing for years here without any problem, clogged the toilet when I wasn’t even here? How do you know they weren’t Katya’s?”

  “I don’t use tampons,” she pipes through the pass-through of the kitchen. “So that’s why we didn’t call maintenance. We didn’t want to pay a plumber all that money for something we didn’t even do.”

  My head is going to explode.

  Truth is, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In the ten months they’ve lived here, Katya and Ray have been late with rent and utility payments, eaten so much of my food I took to putting a mini-fridge in my bedroom, and broken more major appliances than I ever thought possible. Just last month, the dishwasher started spitting old food back onto dishes at the end of every rinse cycle. They tried to pin that on me, too. Right. Because I eat nothing but Lucky Charms and Kraft macaroni.

  And as beyond pissed as I feel right now, even this wouldn’t necessarily be the last straw for me. I need roommates bad. And there are two of them, paying two-thirds for half the space, a deal I can’t afford to pass up. Or, rather, that my parents refuse to let me pass up, unless I want to move back to Kona.

  The toilet enrages me. Everything they do enrages me.

  But right now, it’s not the toilet, or their filth, or the fact they blame me for every bit of carnage they cause, that’s making me feel so done.

  It’s the balcony.

  After Eden died, I had people telling me left and right to move out. “It’ll be too hard to cope, living in the same place she died.”

  They were right. Just not in the way they thought. Because the hardest thing about living here isn’t being so close to the site of her death. It’s because I’m so close, surrounded, fully inside the place she lived.

  Hearing Katya’s nasal, mousy voice through the pass-through reminds me of Eden’s flawless soprano belting show tunes at me while she cooked. Ray fumbling behind the couch reminds me of the time Eden brought home a stray cat and demanded I fix up the gash on its hip; the cat scratched me to hell and back before hiding behind our sofa
for a solid forty-eight hours.

  Even when they’re in their bedroom, their shouts during intense gameplay keeping me awake, I’m reminded of all the arguments between Eden and Gage. “You fucking bitch.” “You lying asshole.” The pictures that rattled off my walls. Every time I told myself to call the police, but didn’t. I was too afraid of him.

  So maybe it isn’t Katya and Ray at all, making my skin itch, the walls close in, or that bubble of panic swell in my chest.

  Maybe it’s just this apartment.

  “I’m not paying for a plumber.” My voice is quiet, but strong: the only silver lining I can find. “Let the fucking toilet explode, for all I care. I’m moving out.”

  I can still hear them yelling when I drag my luggage into my bedroom, shut the door, lock it, and prop the doorknob jammer in place.

  Orion

  “I’m deeply disappointed.”

  My sigh echoes the clatter of my luggage in our entryway as Walt gives me a once-over, dishtowel in one hand, London’s cereal bowl in the other. “What?”

  “You didn’t tan at all.”

  “I guess you’d like me to add skin cancer to my repertoire? Nice to see you too, by the way.”

  He laughs and elbows me. I give, elbowing him back.

  “Seriously—how was Hawaii?”

  I hate that the first image in my head isn’t the bluer-than-blue ocean filling most of my camera roll, or the swaying palms I stared at during my shuttle ride to the airport, but Colby’s face, tilting when she recognized me. That half-hearted smile when we said goodbye.

  “Pretty good. Party was okay. Beach was better.”

  “I’m dying of jealousy.” He sounds sarcastic, but I know he means it. Walt has the soul of a world wanderer and the budget of...well, me. “You meet anyone?”