Seven Days of You

by Cecilia Vinesse

  “Sophia?”

  It took a minute for everything to come into focus. Jamie was floating above me, holding a huge white paper cup.

  “Issit morning?” I asked.

  “Yeah, technically,” he said, with more energy than I could have dreamed of mustering. “Get up. There is a couch to sit on.”

  I closed my eyes. Bright green spots popped behind my eyelids. “I can’t. Someone’s there.”

  “He left.”

  I propped myself up on my elbows. Jamie was right. There was no one there anymore. No man in skinny jeans. “Did he leave because of me?” I asked. “Did I scare him off?” And more importantly, had I been snoring? Or drooling? I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand just to make sure. It came away with a final, faded smear of red.

  “No,” Jamie said. “He left because I gave him a green tea latte. By the way, I’ve only got one left. We’ll have to share.” He reached down to help me up. Jamie’s hand was warm. And he must have shaken out his hair because it wasn’t pushed off his face anymore. It fell in a rumpled mess of curls around his ears, making him look cozy and tumble-dried.

  I collapsed onto the soft maroon cushions. All the bones and muscles in my body ached, and sitting down was miraculous. I was about to say that to Jamie when I realized my hand was still tangled with his. Neither of us had tried to let go.

  My heart pounded. I quickly checked my reflection in the window and—yikes. Orange hair escaping from my ponytail, shirt dank and crumpled, and blobs of mascara beneath my eyes. Not to mention the fact that I probably smelled like a sticky floor.

  But when my gaze found Jamie’s, none of that mattered. The distant hiss of the coffee machine and the sleepy conversations at surrounding tables faded. All I could see were the lights of the crossing below and Jamie sitting next to me. I wanted to keep touching him. Maybe the exhaustion was finally taking over, but I didn’t care. I imagined touching the spot where the hollow of his neck met the collar of his T-shirt. Tracing the line that led from his jaw to his ear with my fingertips.

  “Jamie—” I said.

  I’m falling for you.

  My watch emitted one quick chirp. I jumped in my seat.

  “Everything okay?” Jamie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It just does this sometimes. When the hour changes.” I let go of his hand and fumbled with the buttons on the side of my watch. The display blinked. It was four in the morning.

  Three days.

  I had three days left—and then I was gone. Just like that, all the awful feelings, the ones I’d tried so hard to ignore for the past few hours, came rushing back.

  “God,” I whispered. “This is so pointless.”

  “What is?” Jamie sounded worried. He put the latte on the ground and inched toward me.

  I focused on the crossing below. It reminded me of a living tide, all these people moving over it in waves. The trains hadn’t started yet, but there were some early-morning commuters mixed in with the remains of the night crowd. The same ebb and flow that would go on week after week after week. Without me.

  “It’s almost over,” I said. “This night, this week. All of it.”

  “It’s not over yet,” he said softly.

  I sat forward, agitated. “But it will be. And I keep telling myself to deal with it. I should be able to deal with it, right? I’ve left places before. I’ve left people.”

  He shook his head. “It still sucks, though. It always does.”

  “And the worst part is there’s nothing I can do about it. I want so badly to stay, but I can’t. And I know this is going to sound dumb, but I keep thinking about—about black holes. About how I’m stuck on this trajectory, being pulled toward something I can’t stop and eventually I’m going to get—” I squeezed my hands into fists; the words caught in my throat.

  “Crushed,” Jamie said.

  “Yeah.” I slumped back. “Crushed.”

  We both watched the crossing for a minute. Jamie had his hands on his knees and was twisting the leather band on his wrist around his index finger. He twisted it and let go, twisted and let go. It was the longest we’d gone without talking all night. But I was still so aware of him. His knee rested against mine. And his hair smelled like rain—like our whole night together.

  But the night was almost over.

  “In three days, I’ll be gone, and it’ll be like the last four years never happened,” I said. “Every time I feel like I belong somewhere, it goes away.”

  “Not always.” He pushed his leg against mine.

  I shrugged and rubbed my eyes—they were undoubtedly bright red.

  “And at least you know you belong somewhere,” Jamie said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pushing the heels of my hands into my forehead. “I shouldn’t have brought all this up. I’m just making us both miserable.”

  “No.” His tone was insistent. He turned to me and didn’t try to look away. “What I was going to say is, I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. I always felt like I was half in one place and half somewhere else. Like I was never exactly where I should be. Except—now. Except being here, with you.”

  I closed my eyes, and a few tears spilled down my cheeks.

  “I think you choose,” he whispered. “I think you choose where you belong, and those places will always be there to remind you of who you are. You just have to choose them.”

  I opened my eyes again, and I saw green taxicabs washing over the crossing and a city that burned like a glowworm cave and Jamie’s reflection laid over it all. I reached out for his warm hand at the exact moment he reached for mine. “I think I already have.”

  CHAPTER 19

  THURSDAY

  A LITTLE OVER AN HOUR LATER, the sun was up.

  No more insomniacs at the counters next to us. Just businesspeople in snappy outfits, sipping lattes and reading the newspaper. Jamie stretched. His eyes were barely open. He was a puffy, confused kitten.

  “Why does it sun?” I asked, rubbing my face.

  “Don’t ask me,” Jamie croaked. “I didn’t do it.”

  The trains were up and running again. Jamie bought a ticket, and I dug out my Suica card, and we idled in front of the barriers. I was headed for the Fukutoshin line; Jamie was taking the Hanzomon.

  “I’ll probably spend the next three days sleeping,” I joked.

  Jamie laughed, but he seemed distracted. He pushed his hand though the front of his hair and shook it out.

  “You won’t miss your flight,” he said. “You’ve got an alarm.”

  “Ha. Yeah.”

  We stood for another second or so, swaying on our feet. The electronic board above me flashed one minute until my train arrived, and I checked my watch to make sure it had the same time. “Well, guess I’ll see you later.”

  “Later,” he agreed.

  I went through the barrier and down to the train platform. I tried to smile, but the corners of my mouth were way too tired for that.

  I unlocked the front door as quietly as I could and stood in the genkan, peeling off my shoes. They were still damp from walking through puddles all night. Guilty shoes, I thought, and dropped them on the ground.

  The genkan was a dark, peaceful cave, and I was still so tired. I sat on the floor, on top of a pile of pizza and sushi delivery flyers someone must have shoved through the mail slot. I closed my eyes and came dangerously close to falling asleep.

  Wake up, I told myself. Go upstairs.

  Upstairs. To my room. Where I could put on my favorite pajamas and sleep all day and dream about last night. That was all I wanted to do. Hold on to last night for a little bit longer, keep it from becoming morning and afternoon and evening.

  I thought about Jamie, pushing the hair off his forehead. About the warmth radiating off his skin, like the steam that evaporates from sidewalks after the rain. I missed him. Even though I’d seen him less than an hour ago. Even though I would probably see him again soon. If I
missed him now, how would I feel when I actually left? But I couldn’t care about that yet. The memory of him was better and stronger than the fear of anything else.

  I stood up and pushed open the door to the rest of the house. Mom was sitting at the dining room table talking on the phone. When she saw me, she said, “I’ll call you back.” She set the phone on the table, and then she was standing up, and then she was hugging me, pulling me to her stomach. Her grip was tighter than I’d anticipated.

  “Sophia,” she said. “What have you been doing all night?”

  “I was—” I was a mess. Rain-encrusted and makeup-smudged and Starbucks-scented. “I was with Mika. We stayed up all night, but it’s okay. I’m not drunk or anything.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”

  I squirmed out of her grasp. The paper screens were pulled back from the windows, making everything in the house look garish and overexposed. “I don’t know which ‘what’ you’re referring to.”

  “Your sister said the two of you had a fight. She said you stormed off and disappeared somewhere all day.”

  “Technically, she’s the one who stormed off. I just stormed to the bathroom. And when did she tell you all this?”

  The worry lines on Mom’s face were more pronounced than usual. “She woke me up a couple of hours ago. She was frantic because she hadn’t heard you come home. She told me you were really upset earlier.”

  “I was with Mika,” I repeated. “I texted you and you texted me back. We do this all the time. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  In the apartment buildings around us, doors were opening and closing. People were waking up. Mom smoothed the hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ears. She really did seem concerned. There were dark circles under her eyes and a tea stain on her shirt. She picked up her phone from the table. “I have to get ready for work, but we still need to talk. Do you want any breakfast?”

  I shook my head numbly and followed Mom to her bedroom. It was much bigger than my room or Alison’s. She had her own bathroom and enough space for a queen-size bed. It seemed even bigger now because she’d cleared out so much stuff. There was nothing left on the nightstand, nothing hanging in the closet.

  I collapsed onto the bed while Mom shoved her laptop into a leather satchel. She stood in the bathroom and brushed her teeth and pinned her hair back with a tortoise-shell clip. It was warm in the room, but I wrapped myself up in my grandmother’s quilt and lay down on a pile of dark green throw pillows. The quilt smelled like my mom’s almond-scented moisturizer and reminded me of being a kid. From the window, I could just make out the purple peak of Mount Fuji.

  Mom sat at the end of the bed.

  “Are you mad at me?” I asked.

  “No,” Mom said, fiddling with the ends of her scarf.

  I propped myself up but kept the blanket bundled around my shoulders. “I’m not drunk. Or on drugs.”

  “That was your dad on the phone.”

  “What?” I scooted down the bed. “Why did he call so early? Did something happen?”

  “I called him,” she explained. “I couldn’t sleep after Alison woke me up. We were talking about you. About how hard all of this has been for you.”

  “Duh, it’s hard. Going back to New Jersey isn’t exactly a dream come true.”

  Mom placed one hand on my knee. “I meant this whole arrangement, all this living between places. You haven’t had much time with your father, and that hasn’t been fair.”

  I worked my fingers through the knitted loops in the blanket. I hated this. When Mom talked about Dad, it made her sad. I’d once seen a picture of Mom and Dad walking around Kamakura when they were first married. She was laughing at something Dad said, her head thrown back, swatting playfully at his arm. I’d never seen Mom laugh that way.

  “Mom,” I said. “I almost lived there, remember?”

  She looked pained. “The timing wasn’t right then.”

  “I know,” I said. But the truth was, I didn’t know. Not really. I knew that I’d been happy in Tokyo and that I loved my mom and that it would have sucked leaving her behind. But I’d never forgotten the feeling of thinking I could go to Paris and stay there and then having it swept away.

  “Besides,” Mom said, “no other arrangement made sense. The two of you living with him half the time and with me the other half of the time? That would have been a disaster. Especially when he had that apartment.”

  “I liked his apartment.”

  Mom squeezed my knee. “When you were over there, I could barely sleep at night. He was so young, he barely had his life together. But it’s different now. He’s got a good job and a family and a house.”

  “You have a good job and a family and a house.”

  Mom adjusted the clip in her hair and took a steadying breath. “If you want to move to Paris this year, you can.”

  I let go of the blanket. “Mom. Is this a joke?”

  “The Paris American School doesn’t start for another three weeks,” she said. “Your dad said he could register you. You’d live in his house, and there’s a bus nearby that would take you straight to the school.”

  I tried to process what I was hearing. To my surprise, a thousand objections sprung to mind.

  “I don’t speak French,” I sputtered.

  “You’d learn fast enough. And you’d be at the American school.”

  “The babies don’t speak English,” I said. “Am I just supposed to live in their house and gesture at them all year? Or talk to them about pieces of fruit?”

  “Pieces of fruit?”

  “Some of the only French words I remember are the ones for pieces of fruit. I don’t know why.”

  Mom laughed.

  “Mom,” I said firmly. “Did you seriously decide to send me to Paris at six o’clock in the morning? Over the phone?”

  “No one’s sending you anywhere,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “All your stuff will go to New Jersey, and the plane tickets are already booked. We’ll go back together, and if you decide you want to be in Paris, we’ll pack you a couple of suitcases.”

  “Suitcases?”

  “You’ve got some stuff over there,” Mom said. “And a room.”

  That was true. Sylvie had decorated it with pink lacy lamp shades and floral curtains that Alison said made her feel like a young Miss Havisham (whatever that meant).

  “You don’t have to decide anything now,” Mom said. “It’s up to you, and whatever you decide is okay.” She touched the back of my hand. “I have to go. We can talk more about this later.”

  She stood up and put her satchel over her shoulder. I went to my room. Dorothea Brooke was asleep on my pillow, shedding gray fur all over it. I lay down beside her and turned on the fan on my bedside table. It whirred to life, sending my pile of postcards and pictures flying to the floor.

  I closed my eyes and thought about Paris, trying to pull up an image of it with as many details filled in as I could.

  It had always been a fairy-tale city to me. A city of rain-drenched boulevards and bakeries full of almond croissants and parks with hidden nooks where I could curl up and stare at the centuries-old buildings looming above. It was my anchor, the place that stayed constant even when the rest of my life was racked with seismic shifts.

  Mom said Dad wanted me there. In Paris.

  And I’d get to go to the American School. Maybe the type of friends I’d have there were the type I wanted. The T-Cad type, with Mika’s biting sarcasm and better fashion sense. And I’d have a stepmom and a little brother and sister. That could be cool. I could be the big sister. The big sister who knew a lot about fruit.

  But, I don’t know—I hadn’t thought (seriously thought) about living in Paris for years. The possibility seemed sudden and strange and impossible. I mean, my siblings were toddlers who spoke French. And screamed. Could I seriously keep up my GPA living with French-speaking toddlers who screamed? Would Dad invite me on family outings? Would people thi
nk Sylvie was my mom?

  I’d miss my mom. She loved me. She cooked cheese-and-onion pierogi on Thanksgiving because it was my favorite, and she always remembered to make my dental appointments.

  What if Dad doesn’t know how to make dental appointments?!

  I sat up and held my hands in front of the fan, the breeze moving between my fingers.

  I guess Paris still trumped New Jersey.

  It trumped Edenside High and the same kids who’d ignored me in middle school and weekend parties I’d never be invited to. Paris could be somewhere I fit—somewhere I belonged. That’s how I’d always thought of it, anyway, ever since I was a little kid.

  Alison sits on my bed with me, her hand fiercely clutching the sleeve of my pajamas. “I’m gonna Skype Dad. Give me Mom’s tablet. I’m Skyping him right now.”

  “Don’t,” I whisper and sob at the same time. Alison pulls the sleeve of her sweatshirt over her hand and wipes at my face.

  Between my curtains, I see the curled and beckoning finger of an oak tree. And even though it’s one in the morning, I hear a group of people walking down the street, their laughter cracking through the night.

  It’s June. A few months from now, we’ll be leaving New Jersey for Tokyo. But I wasn’t supposed to go there. I was supposed to go to Paris.

  “He’s such an ass,” Alison hisses. “He said you could live there.”

  I rub my face into the fabric on my shoulder. “It’s because of the babies. Mom said they’d drive me nuts.”

  “She’s looking out for you.” Alison scoffs.

  I pick up the small Eiffel Tower key chain perched on my windowsill and grip it till it bites into my palm. “But Paris is home,” I whisper. “I really thought it was supposed to be home.”

  Alison tips her chin up. “Mom is our home.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.” I sniffle. “Home has to be, like, a place.”