Way hotter than my house. Hot enough to reach critical mass. I twisted my sweaty hair into a knot on the top of my head, and Mika took off her T-shirt, revealing a white tank top underneath. The air in the room had gone thick and boozy. Caroline was quietly singing some schmaltzy, romantic song, and David kept making ridiculous moon eyes at her, kissing her forehead and the side of her neck as she sang. Then came the moment I’d been dreading. The moment when Caroline and David began to completely and unapologetically make out.
“Aaaaaaghhhh! Nooooooo!” Mika groaned. “Get a room!”
“Technically this is a room,” Jamie said. He reached across the table and dragged over the basket of takoyaki David had been eating from.
Caroline straddled David’s lap, and he ran his hands up and down her back, grasping at the fabric of her shirt. My stomach wadded itself into a tight ball, and the inside of my head ballooned with pressure. Critical mass achieved.
“Making out at karaoke is so raunchy,” Mika said, pulling a disgusted face.
“So you’ve never done it?” Jamie teased. He tossed a takoyaki into the air and caught it with his mouth.
Mika hit him on the arm, hard this time. “God. You know way too much about me.”
On the screen, a woman was standing on a bridge, staring forlornly at some boats. The video had nothing to do with the song playing, a synthetic melody pulsing through the room that no one was singing to. This was awful. To my right, the boy I liked was slobbering all over a girl I definitely didn’t like. To my left, Jamie and Mika were talking and giggling and flirting.
Majorly flirting.
Maybe Caroline was right. Maybe they liked each other. Maybe they’d made out in a karaoke room before—or would do so in the near future.
I held on to the seat and felt dizzy. Like gravity was threatening to loosen its grip on me and send me hurtling out of orbit.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I said, pushing myself off the couch. I was so desperate to get out of there that I tripped over Jamie’s feet on my way to the door. He reached out to grasp my arm, and the heat of his hand made me even woozier. It was like time traveling back to three years ago and the last time I’d been close enough to touch him. Except now, when he looked at me, his face was blank. I’d expected to see something—hatred maybe—but what if even that was gone? What if I’d become nothing? Just the girl who tripped over his feet while he was talking to Mika.
I tugged my arm away and stumbled outside. The sounds from the surrounding karaoke rooms were muffled as I made my way down the compressed hallways, past rooms and rooms of other people in the middle of other songs. In the middle of other nights.
I didn’t go to the bathroom. I stopped at a window, pressed my forehead to the cool glass, and gazed down. It was like tipping into a sea of people and night and all these neon signs growing brighter and brighter.
All I wanted was to go home.
CHAPTER 5
MONDAY
MIKA AND JAMIE LIVED in the same apartment building. They had for basically their entire lives. Mika was born in Tokyo, but Jamie had moved there from North Carolina when he was only two years old. I’d seen pictures of them when they were really little kids, wearing yukata at Children’s Day festivals, dressed up like Power Rangers on Halloween.
After karaoke, we stood in the crush of people in Shibuya Station. I was waiting to watch Mika and Jamie skip home merrily together.
“Well, kids. This is where we part.” David saluted us. Caroline had her arm around his waist. Her hair fell in disheveled waves in front of her face, and she looked half-asleep. She was probably going to stay over at his place. (“The ambassador never finds out because my apartment is huge, and he’s never home, and also he’s an idiot,” he’d explained to me once.)
It was after midnight, and it seemed like everyone in Shibuya was streaming into the station, trying to catch the last trains. People running and shouting, some of them eating konbini sandwiches, most of them drunk. Electronic boards above us blinked a red warning sign: four minutes till the final trains started leaving the station. If we missed them, we’d be screwed. We’d have to walk or take a cab or stay out all night until the first train came at five AM. David and Caroline disappeared down a set of stairs, and Jamie went to a bank of machines to buy a ticket for himself.
“I guess I should go to my platform.” I fished through my tote for my Suica card.
Mika squinted at me. “I’m soooooo drunk. Im’ma barf.”
“Really? You seem all right. You’re just loopy.”
“Oh yeah. Im’ma barf and Im’ma pass out. I can feel it. I had, like, six beers and three of those ginger whiskey thingys. And I know they’re karaoke drinks, and I know they’re watered down, but it’s simple math.” She smiled a vacant smile. “Too many drinkys make me sicky.”
“Okay,” I said. “So you’re drunk.”
“Sophia?” She clung to my arm.
“Uh-huh.”
She lost her balance and collapsed against my chest. I immediately grabbed her around the shoulders and pulled her upright. Jamie appeared beside me and tried to help. “It’s fine,” I said tersely. “We’re fine.”
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll take her home.”
“She can’t go home like this. What if her parents see her?”
“It’s okay,” he said, his tone obnoxiously reassuring. “Her parents are away for a couple of nights.”
“How did you know that?” I snapped. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true,” Mika mumbled. “Anniversary trip. The bastards.”
I glared at Jamie. “Can’t you take her home by yourself?”
“I could,” he said, “but she probably wants you to come with her.”
“And what makes you think that?”
“Well.” He swallowed, and I watched his throat muscles contract. “You’re her best friend.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
It was so bright in the station after the shadowy karaoke room. There were dark bruises under Jamie’s eyes, and we were sweaty and our clothes were wrinkled. I could smell stale cigarette smoke and thin, sweet beer. Mika’s head rolled against my shoulder. She opened her eyes and smiled up at me. A huge, beautiful Mika smile. Mika didn’t genuinely smile all that often, but when she did, it made you want to do anything for her.
“I’m soooooo happy,” she cooed. “It’s the two of you. My two favorite people. Don’t ever leave each other. Promise me. Promise Mika.”
Jamie and I were holding her between us. He shrugged and I sighed.
We were officially going home together.
Mika and Jamie’s apartment building was near the Imperial Palace, as in the actual palace where the actual emperor of Japan lives. Obviously he didn’t go walking around the neighborhood or anything, but Mika said when she was a kid, she and Jamie used to ask the doorman why he never came to visit.
Standing in their lobby, waiting for the elevator to come, I really did feel like I was in some kind of royal residence. Like this was the palace itself. The lobby had a fountain, and a lot of potted ferns, and an enormous window overlooking an enclosed garden space. The floor was marble, and the walls were lacquered with wood panels so dark and glossy, they were almost reflective.
Jamie seemed uncomfortable. He kept adjusting his ridiculous hat and asking Mika how she felt.
“My internal organs want out,” she said matter-of-factly. And then, “Do I have my keys?”
“I have them.” I pulled her keys out of my tote and caught Jamie examining the side of it, where there was a picture of the Degas sculpture Small Dancer Aged 14. My dad had given me the bag for my fourteenth birthday.
“When did you take her keys?” Jamie asked.
“I didn’t take them,” I said. “She gave them to me earlier. She always gives me her stuff.”
“I lose everything,” Mika said. She drew out the word everything. She had reached her Exaggerated Drunk phase.
We got on the elevator, an
d Mika decided to sit down. Jamie and I pulled her up when we reached the eleventh floor. Jamie lived on the twelfth.
“Okay,” I said to Jamie. “Good night.”
“Noooo,” Mika moaned, opening her eyes in horror. “Jamie can’t go. He has to come with us. He has to.”
“I’ll help you take her in,” Jamie said. He sounded so tentative and considerate, it was seriously grating my nerves.
I glared at Mika, but she just widened her eyes at me. Like a confused owl.
Even though I knew Mika’s parents weren’t home, I still had the urge to be as quiet as possible when we pushed open the door to 11A. The glow from the surrounding buildings poured in through the windows, illuminating the meticulously clean genkan. Mika bumped into a bulky umbrella stand with polished wooden handles sticking out of it. I cringed. Those umbrellas were probably expensive.
Jamie and I took off our shoes and picked out two pairs of slippers from a stack by the door. Mika kept her shoes on.
Beyond the genkan, her apartment opened up into a spacious living room with sleek black leather couches and a glass coffee table. There were glass-topped pedestals arranged by the windows displaying antique vases and a Buddha statue. We hauled sleepy Mika through the living room, past a framed white scroll covered in long, vertical lines of painted black kanji.
The last time I’d come over for dinner, Mika’s dad had explained to me that it was Japanese calligraphy. Mika sat next to him slurping her shiitake mushroom pasta as loudly as possible while I nodded vigorously with my hands squeezed together in my lap, hoping my brightly colored hair didn’t offend her parents as much as I knew Mika’s did.
We took Mika into her room and lowered her onto the bed. She crawled under her covers, kicking her scruffy black clogs to the floor.
“Are you going to put pajamas on?” I asked.
“Why?” Mika asked into her pillow. “I have to wear new clothes tomorrow. Why change now if I have to change again later? Pointless.”
So she’d moved on to Philosophical Drunk.
Mika’s room was less chaotic than mine. The desk was neat with a huge flat-screen computer on it. A pastel pink-and-yellow plaid comforter lay over the bed with matching throw pillows clustered at the headboard. There was a vase of flowers on her dresser that Mika’s mom arranged in her weekly ikebana class at the American Club, and the whole room smelled of lavender and lemon.
Of course, there were little Mika touches as well. A chunky serial-killer novel on her nightstand, a pair of running shorts draped over her desk chair, and all the ’90s stuff: a Daria doll on her dresser, a poster of The Craft hanging on her wall, and DVDs of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer stacked by the foot of her bed.
I dug through Mika’s pajama drawer until I found the red ones with an M monogrammed on the pocket, the ones Mika had always refused to wear. I glanced at the doorway. Jamie was still standing there. The confident veneer he’d had all night was definitely wearing off. He was chewing his lip.
“I think you can go now,” I said.
“Aren’t you going to call your mom and tell her you’re staying over?” he asked.
“I texted her.” I folded my arms. “Did you call yours?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been at boarding school for three years. They don’t care what I do.”
“Whatever.” I shoved past him and went into the kitchen to fill three glasses with tap water.
“Here.” I gave one to Jamie. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Only a beer,” he said. He took the water, though, and leaned against the refrigerator. He was smiling but with only half his mouth. I thought about the way he used to smile at me. With his teeth showing. With his whole face.
“Hey,” he said. “You want a mint?” He reached into his pocket and took out a slim, credit-card-sized box of tiny Japanese mints. “This is going to sound dumb, but I really missed these. Mika bought me some as a welcome-back present. Take one.” He held out the box and rattled it a little, but I didn’t move a muscle. He fidgeted with the tab on the box’s side.
In the light coming through the window, I noticed the slight bump on Jamie’s nose. He’d broken it when he was a kid, falling face-first off a slide, and it had never set properly. The memory of him telling me this made me physically recoil. I was being assaulted by things I’d spent a long time trying to forget.
“I really can’t get over this,” he said.
“What?”
“Tokyo. Karaoke. All of this.” His eyes met mine, and I winced again, knocking my elbow against the counter behind me. “You know, I kept wanting come back and visit, but my parents always flew to North Carolina for Christmas and summer. Being here doesn’t feel real yet.”
I shrugged. “It is real.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you’re right.” His hat had shifted, and I could see more of his hair now, the messy, unraveled curls. I stared down at my feet—my toenails were painted a bright purple.
“So,” he said after a moment. “David, huh?”
Every defense mechanism inside me switched on. Hearing Jamie say David’s name made me feel like we were still standing in that deserted cemetery, rain spitting down on us, that text message glowing in my hand. “What about David?” I asked.
“Nothing in particular,” he said, sounding lighter. Confident Jamie was back. “He’s the same, I guess. Good ol’ passive-aggressive David.”
“You don’t talk to David anymore. You have no idea what he’s—”
He interrupted me. “Caroline seems cool, though.”
“Caroline?”
“Yeah. I mean, she seems like his type.”
“And what type is that?” I asked through nearly gritted teeth.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. She’s—outgoing. She’s pretty.”
I gripped the glass in my hand.
His words spilled out, like he was trying to say them before he lost his nerve. “Which I guess means the you-and-David thing never worked out.”
My cheeks were burning. He was doing this again. We were picking up exactly where we’d left off. I squeezed the glass hard enough to make my hand hurt. “Even if it did,” I said quietly, “you’re the last person I would tell.”
Jamie didn’t back down. “So that means it didn’t.”
“Shut up!” I snapped, embarrassment ripping through me. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to see you, Jamie. Not you or your ridiculous hat or anything. You should have stayed in the States another fucking week.”
Jamie looked up at me. His eyes were exactly the same, as green, as gold, as telling as they used to be. Meeting his gaze was like holding my hand over an open flame. I hated him. I officially hated him. For coming back, for making me feel this way, for turning me into this person.
“You need to leave,” I said. “Now.”
Something that might have been guilt flickered across his face, but was quickly replaced with a cool, blank expression. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll go.”
He walked to the kitchen door. And then turned right back around. He washed out his water glass in the sink and put it on the drying rack. I stood awkwardly to the side, waiting for him to get out. My throat felt so tight, I could hardly believe there was air moving through it.
And then he was gone.
When I heard the front door click shut, I ran to lock it. I even stood there for a minute, staring out the peephole, just to make sure he wasn’t coming back. The paranoia passed, and I went into Mika’s colossal bathroom to change and brush my teeth with the spare toothbrush I kept there. I placed Mika’s glass of water on her nightstand before crawling into bed.
When I flicked off the light, the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling burned slowly to green. Mika must have put on music because Alanis Morissette Unplugged was playing from her computer.
“Mika?” I whispered.
“Hmmm.”
“Are you awake?”
“Mmmhmm.”
&nb
sp; “Are you actually awake?”
“Hm.”
“I really don’t want this to end,” I said. “I really, really don’t want everything to change.”
Mika snored. She’d reached the final stage: Dead-Asleep Drunk.
I rolled onto my stomach and parted the curtains behind the bed. There were blinking lights everywhere—on the antennae on top of buildings, on an airplane passing across the sky, on the streets below in moving headlights. So many lights floating in front of me, a universe of infinite stars.
I really, really, really don’t want this to end.
The music stopped as I closed the curtains and lay down. In the quiet darkness, I thought about stars. The ones that aren’t stars at all, but memories of ones that burned out millions of years ago. I thought about the stars that had already collapsed and turned into black holes, places where even light can’t escape. Places where, from a distance, time seems to stop.
I held my wrist above my head and clicked the button on the side of my watch. The screen turned a bright blue—1:07 AM. I clicked the button again and the display changed to a countdown: 06:10:42:10, 06:10:42:09, 06:10:42:08…
I lay awake for hours, wishing I could grab the seconds and hold them between my fingers—but only watching as they fell away, and disappeared forever.
“It’s awesome!” I say to Dad.
“It’s pink,” Alison says. She’s ten years old and wearing her new Pokémon pajamas. “Mom does not let us wear pink.”
“It’s not pink.” I run my hands over the embroidered flowers on the wristband of my new watch. “It’s purple.”
“It’s purple and the flowers are pink,” Dad chimes in. “And it’s not just a watch.” He smiles and raises both his eyebrows. When Dad makes that face, he looks like a zany science teacher, which is exactly what he is. “Behold!” Dad takes the watch from me. “You press this button on the side two times and—ta-da! You have a countdown!”
“I love it!” I scrunch up my nose. “What’s it for?”
Dad jumps up and goes into his bedroom, which is also his study.
Seven Days of You Page 4