Unbreak My Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  But as I imagine my first full day, something is missing, and it’s the woman I just left. My instinct lately has been to go it alone, but if I’m here to figure out how the hell to be happy again, I ought to push past that gut impulse to fly solo. Kate wanted me to talk more; Jeremy encouraged me to hang out with friends.

  I draw a steadying breath and send Holland a text.

  Andrew: I’m already hungry for sushi. Fish market tomorrow?

  I set my phone in my pocket as I reach the sixth floor and turn the key in the door of our—my, I need to get used to saying my, especially since I’m the one who has to decide what to do with it—apartment.

  I pause as I wrap my hand around the knob, bracing to be clobbered by memories.

  But when I open the door and step inside, it’s like a deep inhale of fresh mountain air. This place is small—it is Tokyo real estate after all—but it feels big compared to my house in Los Angeles somehow.

  More than that, it feels alive.

  I drop my backpack by the door and turn into the kitchen, running my hand across the outside of the fridge, over the bright white sliver of the countertop, then along the panes of the window that look out to the busy street below.

  I return to the living room, breathing in the familiar surroundings—the blond hardwood floors, the light-green couch, the bookshelves with the framed photos our parents left behind—all of us as kids, then the two of us, then a shot of Laini at her wedding. Should I have told her I’d left the country?

  Nah. I’ll mention it the next time she emails me.

  I head into the second bedroom. There’s only room for a low futon with a white mattress on hardwood slats and a slim three-drawer bureau. I hesitate again before I enter the room Ian used, unsure whether the ghosts from his life here will swallow me whole.

  But for some reason, seeing the bed neatly made, like he did it at home, doesn’t hurt. It feels strangely comforting, maybe even calming, to see he was the same here as he was there. That’s the brother I know.

  I close the door, and I’m about to head to the bathroom to inspect the medicine cabinet when I notice the entryway table tucked in the corner of the living room.

  There’s the World Series cap Kana mentioned in her note, the crossword puzzle books, a John Legend ticket stub from last fall, and a magnet from a bowling alley back home—Silverspinner Lanes. I pick it up, flip it over, but there’s no secret code on it, no key to tell me why it’s here. There’s only a simple answer—he probably tossed it on the desk when emptying his pockets. But why was this in his pocket, especially while on an international flight?

  I set it down and grab the stack of cards.

  The first card is a picture of a black-and-white cat. I know instantly it’s from Laini. She always loved tuxedo cats.

  Dear Ian,

  So glad we did that!! xoxo

  Love, Laini

  Did what? What did she do with Ian? She never mentioned the visit in her emails to me, and I hardly talked to her at the memorial service. I hardly talked to anyone at the service.

  Under that card is another one, with a photo of a serene tropical beach on the front. Inside it is a sheet of stationery.

  I unfold the paper and read.

  Ian—you’re probably too old for this, but we left you money anyway. Don’t ONLY order pizza when we’re gone in Hawaii! Get salads and veggies too! And look out for Andrew. Summer before college and all that—make sure he throws ZERO parties at the house! Also, we love you both so very much.

  P.S. Did I mention to look out for Andrew? That boy is our troublemaker.

  Love,

  Anna and John

  better known as . . .

  Mom and Dad

  I lean back in the chair and laugh at the word troublemaker. I was their second straight A student, and I threw zero parties in high school. I smile widely, picturing my mom writing this note to her twenty-two-year-old son, telling him to look after her eighteen-year-old.

  Maybe this letter should make me sad, but it doesn’t. I like the humor, and the unsuccessful directive to eat veggies.

  I didn’t eat a single stalk of broccoli when they were gone, and I have no regrets over the lack of greens that week.

  I set down the note, wondering briefly why Ian brought these bits and pieces of his life to Tokyo.

  My eyes drift to a framed photo on the corner of the table. It’s Ian and Kana posing in front of a temple, his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Hers is tight around his waist. He wears the World Series cap—it’s the photo mentioned in the letter. He still looks well. Or, well enough.

  When I pick up the Lucite frame to peer at it more closely, I feel more photos behind it. Sliding them out, I flick through the shots of Ian and Kana around the city, then I freeze.

  Holland gazes back at me, walking away from the camera, her hair blowing in the breeze, but she looks over her shoulder at the lens. A smile has started on her face, as if the photographer captured her unexpectedly—unexpectedly laughing, smiling. She’s in a park near a cherry blossom tree.

  I turn to the next shot. It’s Holland too, in a different outfit, shrugging happily as if to say, “Fine, take my picture outside this pachinko parlor.”

  The last shot of her mocks me too. It’s a close-up of her face. She’s holding a mic, singing at a karaoke bar.

  My fingers shake, and my stomach churns.

  Why the hell does my brother have these shots of my ex-fucking-girlfriend hidden behind the pictures of his girlfriend? He never told me he spent so much time with Holland here.

  She neglected to mention that little fact too.

  Even when I asked her the night we kissed at my house.

  I jam my hand through my hair, remembering the words she’d said before we tumbled onto my couch, grinding against each other.

  He wasn’t there to see me—he was there to see her.

  But he did see her.

  He saw her often, it seems. I remember, too, the tears in Holland’s eyes after she read Kana’s letter. Other memories pop up like in a Whac-a-Mole game. Holland reading a book to Ian. Holland at the house for hospice care.

  I try to whack them away. But they mock me.

  Seething, I stare at the snapshots, burning holes in them with my eyes.

  I drop the photos and walk away. I can’t believe this. I refuse to believe what my mind is trying to make of these things.

  No, just fucking no.

  There’s no fucking way.

  I pace, shoveling my hand through my hair as I try to apply all my skills to this evidence like a good lawyer would.

  There is no evidence of contact. There is no evidence of love. There is no evidence of anything more than friendship.

  These are only snapshots, and the best-case scenario is she hung out with Kana and Ian.

  The worst case is . . .

  I curse, grab my phone, and call Holland. It goes straight to voicemail. She must be down for the count.

  I sink onto the couch so I can talk myself off the ledge, and a yawn seems to overtake me out of nowhere. I rub my eyes, and I turn, looking for the familiar face—black fur, curious brown eyes, a soft snout. Sandy always knows how to talk me down with her silence.

  But my shrink isn’t here.

  Closing my eyes, I try to imagine she’s here, and I present calm, logical, rational answers to her.

  But even as I voice them—just friends, just hanging out, just a group thing—another voice gnaws away at my gut.

  Is this why she stopped us from going further the other night? Is my brother’s death hitting her more than she let on because they were a thing? Is that why she was out here working then came back to Los Angeles? Is Kana a fucking cover-up? Has it all been one massive secret between the two of them?

  “No,” I mutter, trying to calm my tired and racing brain. “Just fucking no. Don’t go there.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, hard, to push the dangerous thoughts away.

  But it’s too late. They�
��re boring into me, drilling their awfulness into my skull with cruel jackhammers.

  I need to focus on what matters—why I’m here.

  I stand, roll my shoulders, exhale.

  Shake it off.

  I stalk to the bathroom and yank open the medicine cabinet. Jet lag is kicking in quickly, threatening to smother me in sleep. Bleary-eyed, I reach for a prescription bottle. It’s a cancer drug, and it’s barely been touched. There’s another kind next to it. This one was marked “open” on Kana’s list, but it looks like nearly all the pills are still in the bottle, like Ian hardly took any. I know these drugs by heart, know their side effects and their benefits.

  What I don’t know is why they’re full. Is it door one, two, or three? I imagine a logic problem, and I try to puzzle it out, but the answer is still blurry because there are pieces of my brother I don’t know.

  I grab another bottle. It’s Percocet, and it was filled by a pharmacy here several months ago. But even in my sleepy state, I can tell that none have been taken either.

  My pulse spikes. My mouth waters.

  My brain begs me—please turn me off.

  I don’t want to go there, but I don’t want to stay in this threadbare state. Logic has flown the coop and left only a dark wasteland in its place.

  Besides, perhaps this is a gift from beyond, a beautiful parting gift indeed, because these work wonders on the living. I open the cap and free one of the beauties. I put the pill on my tongue and it feels like blasphemy—taking my brother’s painkillers when he was in real pain. But I do it anyway, swallowing it dry. Once it’s down, I take another. Two will work faster.

  I return to the living room, flop down on the couch, and let sleep pull me under.

  When I rise, I check my phone, and a message from Holland tells me she’d love to meet me at the fish market.

  I don’t reply. I don’t know how.

  I don’t know if I really want to anymore.

  16

  Andrew

  The doctor is in.

  Or the doctor isn’t in.

  Or the doctor isn’t in yet.

  See, I don’t know, because there isn’t any sign on his door. There isn’t an open or closed sign. Or a back soon sign. Or a Post-it note letting the next-of-kin of his former patient know where to find Dr. Takahashi, the doctor who gave orders to drink tea.

  I tracked down his number and called his office before I flew here. I left a message and asked for an appointment three days ago.

  It’s past nine, so I knock harder, as if the answers will come when it hurts enough. My knuckles are red and worn now, and still, no one opens the door.

  Once again, I find myself without a decoder ring, same as last night with the letters, and the mementos, and the photos.

  Ian left a few clues behind, like at a dinner-party murder mystery game. But without the official answer key, I’m jumping to conclusions.

  I wince, remembering last night and the terrible ones I jumped to.

  I lower my fist, sigh, and leave the doctor’s building with no more information than I had when I started.

  This is getting to be a pattern with me.

  I catch the subway and walk along the edge of the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest fish market in the world. I can hear the merchants inside, sloshing around in their knee-high boots in the fishy water that puddles on the concrete floor as they peddle everything from mackerel to eel to shrimp to salmon to tuna.

  In the light of day, the things I thought last night so clearly can’t be true. I feel ashamed and disloyal for even going there.

  I reach the block of food stalls on the outskirts of the market and easily find the one my brother and I went to. I grab a stool and order a bowl of tuna and rice.

  As I wait, I realize this much. My brother took me here—this very place—for fun.

  He flew me across the sea to hang out with him for the weekend. There’s no way those photos of Holland mean there was anything between them.

  I grab my phone and finally reply to her, telling her I’m at the food stalls.

  Then I let last night’s nightmare go, as a hunched-over Japanese woman slides a bowl in front of me. She returns to stirring a vat of miso soup.

  I eat, savoring the food. My chopsticks dive into the bowl again, scooping up another heaping spoonful of rice and soy sauce and raw fish.

  “Hey.”

  I look up and see a guy I know. “Hey, Mike.”

  He smiles and reaches over the counter to smack my arm.

  He’s my age, and he worked here the last time I visited. He was into music, always playing some cool Japanese tunes on low on his little stereo while he served up fish. We’d sometimes trade song recommendations. His English is perfect, and I remember that from being here—most people our age know English well.

  “How’s it going, man? I remember you. Ian’s brother, right? Andrew?”

  I’m glad he remembers me and that I don’t have to dive into a lengthy explanation or reminder. “Yeah, I’m just here for—” I stop for a second. To see if I can ever be happy, or even remotely human, again. Would you happen to have the magic cure? “To see Tokyo again.”

  “How’s Ian doing?”

  There it is. That all-too-familiar moment when I have to tell someone, and we all become uncomfortable.

  “Actually, he died last month,” I say, clunky and awkward. Maybe it always will be.

  Then the look. The tilt of the head, the heavy oh, like he’s said the wrong thing. “Oh, man. I’m really sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Damn, I’ll miss him. He was here every day when he was in town.”

  “Yeah, he dug this place.”

  “He did.” He pauses, a thoughtful look in his eyes. “How are you doing?” he asks.

  The question startles me. Strangers rarely ask. “I’m okay,” I say, and it feels true. I decide to test out more honesty—the simple kind. “I was supposed to take the bar next month, but I’m not. I pushed it off, and I’m glad I did.”

  Mike grabs a ceramic mug of tea from behind the counter and raises it high. “That deserves a toast.”

  I lift my tea mug and clink. “It does?”

  He nods intensely. “You’re taking a stand against the tyranny of tests.”

  I laugh. “I’m not entirely sure that’s what it means, since I won’t be able to practice law without it.”

  Mike wiggles his fingers. “Work with me here, man. You’re an anarchist.”

  I laugh some more and take a gulp of the hot beverage. “To anarchy.”

  He puts down his cup, grabs a blade, and pulls some fish onto a cutting board. “Speaking of anarchy, did you hear this new band, the Anarchist Sages?”

  Before I know it, I have a list of new bands to check out, and he has the same from me.

  “Thanks, Mike. It’s good to have new tunes as I rebel against the tyranny of tests.”

  He points his knife at me in a you know it gesture. “And you’ll need a playlist for the ladies too. Don’t forget the ladies.”

  “I could never forget the girl.” Singular, not plural.

  He slices a piece of tuna. “Your brother was like that too. He was here with his girl a lot. I told him it was radically unfair that he snagged the prettiest Japanese girl around and didn’t give the local men a shot.”

  I laugh, and it feels damn good because I can picture Ian’s reaction to that comment. A what-can-you-do shrug, paired with a slightly cocky smile.

  “She’s a nice gal,” Mike adds as he works the blade through another fish. “So was your sister.”

  My chopsticks clatter to the wood counter, as I stumble across the dossier to one of the murder mystery clues—the connection to the postcard on the desk. The trouble is, a searing pang of jealousy pounds into me, thinking Laini might have known why Ian was here, why he wasn’t taking his meds, maybe even why he sought alternative treatments.

  “When was my sister here?” The words feel bitter.


  Mike looks up for a second. “A few months back? Maybe January, maybe February?”

  “That’s great,” I say to Mike, but it’s a lie. It’s not great that I thought I knew my brother better than anyone. Now I feel like he’s slipping further away from me.

  Mike turns to take an order from another customer, and I glance down at the remains of my rice and fish.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  I look up to see Holland.

  17

  Holland

  His eyes are edged with hurt, but not the kind I saw in Los Angeles. This is different. Not as painful. More like a surprised kind of hurt, and I’m not sure how to read him, or what’s gone into this new emotional cocktail.

  But then he says, “You found me,” and his tone seems even, so I keep mine even too, so I can try to figure out where he’s at.

  “I’m a huntress.” I take the seat next to him and say hello to the guy behind the counter. “Also, I thought you’d be at this food stall when you said the food stalls.”

  “It’s the best one here,” he says, but his response is far too one-note for my liking. Something is amiss.

  I ease into the conversation. “Did you win the fight against jet lag last night, or did it take you down too?”

  “It definitely pulled me under.” He takes a bite of his food, then tips his chin at me. “You crashed hard last night.”

  Maybe he’s just adjusting to the time zone. “Jet lag, one. Holland, zero. I was down for the count as soon as I reached my apartment. Sorry I wasn’t around.”

  “It’s no biggie. I get it.”

  “What did you do last night? Pachinko parlor? Karaoke? Late-night clubbing?” I ask, tossing out ridiculous options.

  He winces and looks away, muttering, “Stayed at the apartment. Looked through some stuff.”

  “What did you find, oh treasure hunter?” I ask curiously, wondering if he unearthed some memento of Ian’s that pierced his heart. It can’t have been easy being alone in that place for the first time. I would have offered to stay with him, but I’m not sure that would have truly helped either one of us. Close quarters would be far too tempting for me.