My instinct is to dry my hands and get out of here as fast as I can.
But.
I wait for a second. Just to make sure.
The stall door opens and I recognize the girl who steps out. She was in my Art History class, the one who gave me her Diet Coke. Penny. Her name is Penny.
She’s still crying, head down, hair covering her face, but then she glances up.
“Hey,” I say. “You OK?”
“I’m fine,” she says, voice clogged.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep.” She’s still facing away from me.
I hesitate. I know what it feels like when you don’t want anyone to know you are hurting. I want to do something. I dig around in my bag for my hydrating cream that I use when my skin gets puffy from not getting enough sleep. “Penny?”
She glances over her shoulder. “Yeah?” I can see how red her eyes are now.
“Here.” I hold out the cream to her. “Put this on under your eyes. It’ll help.”
“Thanks,” she says.
I smile at her.
Before I go to sleep that night, I tell Mika what happened.
“I thought about what you would do,” I say, shrugging my shoulders a bit, suddenly feeling strangely bashful about my unexpected act of altruism. I want her to be proud of me.
Mika shakes her head and laughs softly. “Reiko, that’s nice and all, but it’s not that nice.”
“It’s not?” I shrink into my pillows.
Mika climbs up next to me. “I mean, of course it’s nice, but it isn’t like you deserve a medal or something.”
I cringe. She’s right. I want a shiny gold star for being a good person. I want the credit.
“I could have just walked away.” My tone is more defensive than I mean for it to be.
Mika laughs again and nudges me with her shoulder. “Oh, Reiko.” For the first time in a long, long while, I feel like she’s the big sister again. Like everything is the way it is supposed to be. “You know what you should do?”
“What?”
“You should go out to lunch with her tomorrow.”
“What? She wouldn’t even talk to me in the bathroom. She won’t want to go to lunch with me.”
“Of course she will. Aren’t you Reiko Smith-Mori?” She puts my name in air quotes.
“Maybe that is how it used to be, but not anymore,” I mutter darkly.
“Reiko! This isn’t like you at all. Just because you aren’t with that Seth guy and because Libby is being a bitch…”
I inhale sharply, shocked at the swear word.
Mika rolls her eyes. “Yes, I said bitch. I’m fourteen, remember?”
Like I ever need reminding.
“Anyway,” Mika goes on. “You’re still you. They didn’t take anything away from you. They can’t. And I guarantee this girl won’t care that you aren’t with stupid Seth Rogers or are fighting with Libby. And plus, it’s more than that. She’ll appreciate that you are being nice.” Mika leans in close. “If someone heard you crying in the bathroom, I’d want them to be nice to you too.”
The next day Dre asks if I want to go and get burgers for lunch.
“I’m actually going to try to find Penny Collins,” I say.
Dre scrunches her face up. “Who is that?”
“You know, blondish hair, kind of short?” I realize I don’t know anything else about her except that she was in my Art History class, likes Diet Coke, and was crying yesterday.
“Reiko, that’s, like, half the female population of Palm High. Why do you have to find her?”
I shrug. “I found her crying in the bathroom yesterday and … I want to see if she’s OK.”
Dre’s scrunched expression gets even scrunchier. “By taking her to lunch? That’s weird.” Then she full-on frowns. “This isn’t like some sort of friend version of whatever the hell happened with Seth Rogers, right?” Then her eyes widen. “Or not friend version. Are you into this chick? Because you know I’d be totally OK with that and be supportive. Just as long as you weren’t doing a repeat of what happened with Seth—”
I laugh. “Dre, if I was gay, you’d be the first to know. And no, it isn’t like with Seth. I’m not … trying to use her to make myself feel better,” I say slowly, trying to articulate what it was I did with Seth. I’m still not sure if I even understand it. “I just thought it would be a nice thing to do.”
“Still sounds weird, but, hey, I’ll take this over you rocking up in a sexy schoolgirl outfit.”
“Dre!” I swat her on the arm.
She steps back and laughs. “Go have lunch with your new friend, you weirdo.”
I find Penny by herself in the parking lot.
“Hey,” I say. “How are you?”
She tilts her head to the side. “Hi… I’m fine, I guess?”
“Cool,” I say, voice overbright. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Oh, do you want your lotion back? Thanks, by the way, it really helped with…” She gestures to her face.
I shake my head. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You can keep it. That’s not why I came over.”
“Well … then what do you want?”
I try to channel Mika. “I was thinking … maybe we could go to lunch?”
“To lunch?”
“Yeah!” I say, words tumbling out. “Just because, you know, you seemed upset yesterday, and I thought maybe that would help?”
“Why are you doing this?” she says, looking wary. “It’s fine, I’m not some charity case.”
“I know that!” I say. “I just… I don’t know. I thought I’d ask.” I feel dumb.
“I mean, that’s really nice of you, but it isn’t like we’re friends.”
“I know,” I say, starting to feel my neck get warm. “Listen, don’t worry about it. It was a silly suggestion.”
She exhales, long and loud. “No, I appreciate it. You might actually understand too.” Her eyes are piercing.
Warning bells go off in my brain. This isn’t what I was expecting. This isn’t what I was prepared for. I wonder if she knows about Mika.
“My mom’s sick,” she says. “Like really sick. It’s really scary. I haven’t told anyone. I don’t know…” Her voice trails off.
“… how to talk about it,” I say. “Yeah. I get that.” I pause. “Well, do you … want to?”
“Not really. But I do actually kind of want to go to lunch.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
We go to a burrito place near campus. Penny doesn’t say anything else about her mom, and I don’t say anything about Mika. We talk about random stuff, like what our favorite time period was last year in Art History. She tells me she wants to major in Art History and maybe study abroad in Paris.
“Do you want to study abroad?” she asks.
“I used to want to go to Japan.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve thought them through.
“But not anymore?” It’s a gentle prying, but still a prying. Like when the dentist is checking for cavities.
I think about the applications I sent to schools in Japan. And I’m filled with a quiet and familiar longing that feels something like being homesick.
“I don’t know.” My honesty makes my words heavy.
“Japan has a really cool modern art scene,” she says, and I nod.
She’s right. I’d forgotten that.
I wonder what else I’ve forgotten about Japan.
When we get back to campus, we exchange numbers. “We should hang out again,” I say. And I mean it.
“Yeah,” Penny says, grinning. “We should.”
That night at home, I realize I don’t want to tell Mika about lunch, because that would seem like I wanted credit for spending time with Penny. And yesterday, I did. But after actually hanging out with her … that seems ridiculous.
And the next morning, when I’m alone in my room, I get out my “Japan” scrapbook. As I gently flip the pages, loo
king at the pictures, reading mine and Mika’s captions, I get that same twinge of strange homesickness. And something else. A tiny spark of wanting.
CHAPTER 53
As January turns into February, I find myself making new routines.
I go to the care home on Wednesdays.
I start studying again, really studying, to bring my grades up.
I ask my mom to take me, Dre, and Penny to an art gallery opening.
I start rock climbing again.
And I barely think about Seth at all.
As I’m heading through the house to my room one night, I hear a guitar playing in the garage. I pause, because it sounds good. Really good. So good that I’m sure it can’t be Koji.
But it is. When I go into the garage, he’s strumming his heart out and belting out a Radiohead song with his eyes closed. I let him finish the song and then wolf-whistle and applaud.
He looks up, startled.
“Koji, you sound amazing!”
He puts down the guitar and runs his hand through his hair. His chubby cheeks that I thought he’d always have are gone – all his baby fat has melted away. He’s somehow gone from my adorable, albeit pesky, little brother, to a confident, handsome teenager. When did he get so grown up?
“Thanks,” he says. “I’ve been practicing a lot.”
“It shows. I’m really impressed.”
His words come out all in a rush. “Actually … I’m auditioning for this thing, this band thing? It is kind of like ‘American Idol’? But, like, a new show. And I was wondering if you could come? To support me?” He’s tugging on his shirt and not looking at me.
“Me?”
“Yeah. You’re allowed to bring two people, so I chose you and Ivan.” Koji has known Ivan almost his whole life − they are close the way Andrea and I are close.
“Are you sure you don’t want Mom or Dad to go with you?”
He shakes his head. “I want you to be there. Like you were for … you know, when you used to go to her recitals…”
I don’t know what to say. I want to support Koji, but I wish Mika was here too. She loved music so much.
I’m quiet too long and Koji’s face falls. “I mean, you don’t have to. It isn’t a big deal.”
But it is.
And I want to be there for Koji. Especially since Mika can’t. She’d want me to be a good sister to Koji. Like she always was to me. I have to push aside my own feelings and do the right thing for my brother.
“I’d love to be there,” I say. “When is it?”
“Not till March. So I’ve still got plenty of time to practice.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
SPRING
CHAPTER 54
One night in early March, I’m almost asleep when my phone buzzes with a text message. And keeps buzzing. And then it rings. It’s Dre. I pick up, worried that something’s wrong.
“Reiko! UC admissions emails just went out! I got in! I got into UCLA! We’re going to go to UCLA together!” She’s shouting and out of breath.
I can hear Tori in the background. “My baby sister is going to be a Bruin!”
“Dre! That’s amazing!” But I must have waited a second too long to respond, or maybe my excitement isn’t quite what she was hoping for because her voice wilts.
“You got in, right?”
“I mean, I haven’t checked, but…” I hesitate. Old Reiko would have been sure she’d got in. But then Old Reiko was sure that Seth would never break up with her, and look how that turned out? I’m not sure about anything anymore. I’m not who I thought I was. No, I’m not who I wanted everyone else to think I was.
“I’m sure you got in,” Dre says, but just like me, she waited a second too long to say it.
“But … what if I didn’t?” I whisper.
“You did, you definitely did.”
“But we’re celebrating you!” I say. This is about Dre. I shouldn’t be making it about me. “I’m so proud of you, Dre,” I say, and I mean it.
“Thanks, babe. Do you want to come over to celebrate? My mom’s making the tamales she only makes for Christmas.”
“Dre, it’s almost midnight and your mom is making tamales?”
Dre laughs. “She’s excited.”
“Ah, it’s pretty late,” I say. I can’t face it and I don’t want to think about why. “I’m already in bed. But I’ll come pick you up for breakfast tomorrow? My treat! To celebrate you!”
“To celebrate us,” Dre says. “My mama is already cheering for you.”
“Go celebrate with your family. We’ll have plenty of time to celebrate together.”
After I hang up, I check my email, my fingers trembling as I log in.
I didn’t get in.
Since the break-up, Seth has taken up so much space in my brain that there hasn’t been room for anything else. For the first time I start to wonder what else I’ve given up by letting him have so much space in my brain, in my heart, in my life. It’s like I’ve been wearing tunnel-vision glasses, and all I could see was him.
Getting Seth back won’t fix my not getting into UCLA.
I can’t fix that.
Was he worth all this?
“So I didn’t get into UCLA,” I say at breakfast the next day, trying to keep my voice breezy and light. Part of me hopes my parents don’t hear me, that my words are so breezy and light they just blow right out of the window.
They hear me.
“Oh, honey,” my mom says, coming over and folding me into a hug. I expect her to tell me that she knew this would happen when she saw my fall grades, but she doesn’t.
“They are idiots!” my dad declares, banging his coffee mug on the table for emphasis. Coffee sloshes over the side of the mug. “Absolute idiots!” He’s so genuinely surprised that I realize my mom must have not told him about my slipping grades.
“And you,” my mom says to him, letting me go and grabbing a dish towel, “are getting coffee all over the table.”
“Sorry, Rei,” says Koji, looking up for a brief moment from his phone. “That sucks.”
“I just … can’t believe it,” I say.
“Holy shit!” Koji says, as something pings on his phone.
“Koji, as much as I appreciate your empathy for your sister, watch your language, please,” my mom says lightly.
“No, not that.” He looks up at me. “I mean no offense, Rei. But they’ve just announced the final date and time for the ‘Show Us the Talent’ auditions! It’s next Sunday! I’m scheduled for ten a.m.! It’s actually happening!”
“That’s wonderful, Koji.” My mom beams. It’s like I haven’t just told them I didn’t get into my dream school.
“Are you sure we can’t go with you?” my dad adds.
“I’ve already put Reiko and Ivan down,” says Koji. “You still want to come, right, Reiko?”
“Of course,” I say. And I do. But I also kind of wish we were still talking about UCLA. But we spend the rest of the morning talking about Koji’s audition. And I tell myself that it is because my parents don’t want me to get upset. As I’ve got a history of bottling things up, they probably think that’s how I want to deal with everything bad that happens to me.
CHAPTER 55
Even though Seth is a part of our regular crew now, I haven’t spoken directly to him in months. Libby either. So I’m shocked when I get a text from him the following Saturday morning asking me if I want to go climbing.
It’s been a crappy week. Koji was right. Not getting into UCLA does suck. A lot. It sucks having to tell everyone that I didn’t get in and having to act like it’s fine. But I hear the whispers slithering through the halls.
Did you hear that Reiko Smith-Mori didn’t get into UCLA?
What I hear instead is Did you hear that Reiko Smith-Mori isn’t that great?
And then I hear something that makes everything worse.
Seth got into UCLA.
“At least you won’t have to worry about seeing
him there,” says Dre.
I can’t help but feel like it is because I told him to apply.
I feel like he took my spot.
But getting Seth’s text makes me feel better. I grin at my phone, because it feels like everything is finally going back to how it used to be. How it should be.
We decide to go on a night climb. Like when we first properly met out under the stars. As I drive to his trailer, I’m giddy with anticipation. And then he gets in the front seat like he has so many times before and it feels so normal. It feels right.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back. And then, because I have to know: “What prompted this?”
He shrugs. “Wanted to see you.” A pause. “I got into UCLA. And I wouldn’t have even applied if you hadn’t encouraged me.”
“I know, I heard. Congratulations,” I say. And I mostly mean it. Especially if he’s giving me the credit I deserve.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling his Seth smile at me.
I smile back.
“And … it made me realize that I miss you,” he goes on.
“Thanks, I guess?” I say. I feel like I should be more pleased than I actually am.
“I should be thanking you. I guess some of your good luck really did rub off on me.”
This time my smile is more forced. “So … you and Libby. How is that?”
“Ah, she’s been kind of a bitch recently. We’re not really together anymore.”
“Oh, cool,” I say.
I knew it. I knew he’d realize that he missed me.
Feeling confident, I drive toward one of our regular climbing spots, or what used to be one of our regular spots, but as we’re going down a dark road, Seth asks me to stop the car. “Just pull over here.”
I’m perplexed, but I do it. Then I try to remember if Seth ever used to talk to me like this, in this casually bossy way.
Like he just expects me to do his bidding.
The way I used to talk to him.
“Is there something here?” I say, parking on the side of the road.
“You’re here,” he says, and then leans across and kisses me. Hard.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 20