Seven Days of You

by Cecilia Vinesse

  Yes! Jumping! Jumping is great!

  David was super cute with his spiky hair flapping all over his forehead. Since he was tall and I was short, I had an excellent view of his stomach and chest. He was long and thin and, from all the times I’d hugged him, I knew how he felt, too. Flexible and strong.

  I thrust both hands into the air and started singing some lyrics I’d just made up for this song I didn’t know. Something about badgers wearing top hats. David broke out laughing and grabbed my hand, knotting his fingers with mine.

  Holding hands! Yes! This is great!

  David was my friend. He was my friend because we were both bastards and we could be bastards together. Remove all sexual desire from the equation, and we were just two bastards. Two bastards enjoying each other’s company.

  David let go of my hand and looped his arms around my waist. He lifted one eyebrow and smirked. I imitated him, which made him laugh again and lean into me. He had a really cute laugh.

  I spun out of his grip, and that’s when I spotted her. Bald head and black shirt ripped at the collar. Mika was standing at the top of the stairs, scanning the crowd. Jamie and Caroline weren’t with her, which made me feel panic under all my other feelings. My happy, swimmy feelings. She homed in on me, and then she was waving like crazy.

  I bounced up to David’s ear and pointed at Mika. “WE ARE SUMMONED!”

  David stopped jumping. He squeezed my hand and pulled me back down the stairs to follow her.

  “It’s cold!” I said as soon as the bar door closed behind us.

  “No, it’s not!” David said.

  I rolled my eyes. “I meant relatively speaking.”

  Jamie and Caroline were standing by the brick exterior of the bar, talking to each other. They had serious looks on their faces. Serious, boring looks.

  The bar was right in the middle of Roppongi-dori. The street stretched away from me on either side, a long, straight blur of neon. The people going up and down it were zombies. Vacant-eyed, shuffling zombies. The whole street… a blur of neon. Really blurry…

  I fell into David’s shoulder, and it was like falling into a warm, solid pillow. I felt his muscles react as he steadied me. “Whoa,” he said.

  “Everyone in there is a moron,” Mika declared. “Austin Cormack just tried to rub my head for good luck, and that was the last fucking straw, as far as I’m concerned. We’re going.”

  I kept my head resting against David’s shoulder. “I kind of like it in there. It grows on you.”

  “Like a foot fungus,” David said, and we both started giggling. I was still holding his hand, or maybe he was holding mine. I let go.

  When Caroline saw me, she walked over and linked her arm through mine, steering me away from David. Her hair was in a bun on top of her head, and her neck and cheeks were flushed. “Where were you?” she whispered. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’m great,” I said. “Edge-free.”

  The door of the bar opened again, expelling a gush of loud music. A group of kids staggered out. More zombies, so blurry.

  Caroline scrunched up her nose. “Oh my God,” she said, still whispering for some strange reason. “Are you drunk?”

  “Duh,” I said. “Isn’t everyone?”

  David made us stop by a konbini so he could buy those little bottled drinks that prevent hangovers. He was right; it wasn’t cold out. Walking around Roppongi was like walking around in a giant steam bath. Everyone’s clothes were clinging to their skin.

  Mika said she couldn’t stomach another club, so we went to karaoke instead. We got a room with a window and red plastic couches. David sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

  “You better not mean this in a romantic way,” I said.

  Jamie and Mika and Caroline stayed on the other side of the room. They weren’t talking to me anymore, not even Caroline. Jamie’s face was so sad—stupid, sad-faced Jamie. Just because he was in a movie once didn’t mean he could act sad whenever he felt like it. I glared at him. But he wasn’t paying attention to me. He kept tracing the lip of his beer glass with his thumb. Stupid, sad Jamie and his stupid, sad thumb.

  Mika was singing something. Shouting it, actually.

  I had no idea how many songs we’d sung or how long we’d been there. Every second careened into the next; they all crushed together until they became one monstrous, unending thing. Not a second or a minute or an hour anymore. This night wasn’t something I could measure. It was bigger and much more terrifying, as unimaginable as infinity.

  Jamie was singing a Radiohead song—his voice low and mumbly—and David whispered, “What a downer.”

  I’d been drinking another toxic melon soda, but it was watered-down and tasteless. I needed to go to the bathroom.

  “Bathroom,” I said.

  I climbed over David’s legs on my way to the door, and he wrapped his fingers briefly around my wrist.

  In the bathroom, I washed my face with cold water. My reflection was confusing. It was someone else entirely.

  What time is it? Why am I even here?

  I opened the door, and he was leaning against the wall across from me.

  “What’s up?” I asked, fanning my neck.

  David didn’t answer. Just took my face in his hands, pressed me against the door to another karaoke room, and kissed me to the sound of someone singing “Manic Monday.”

  I didn’t kiss him back. But I didn’t stop him, either.

  CHAPTER 29

  SATURDAY

  “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

  Someone was shouting at us.

  I put my hands on David’s chest and managed to shift him away from me, to give myself some breathing room. He had a dazed look on his face. His eyelids were heavy, and his mouth was still sort of open. I turned my head to the side. Mika was standing in the door of our karaoke room. With Jamie.

  “What. The. Fuck!” Mika said again. Her new haircut brought out the intensity in her face. The stern set of her jaw, the fury in her eyes.

  “What’s up, Miks?” David said placidly. “We’re just hanging. Everything’s fine here.”

  “What are you even doing?” Mika yelled.

  “Mika,” Jamie said. He sounded distant, like the real him was shuttered and closed off. Like he was somebody else. “Don’t.”

  Caroline came to the door. “Is someone hurt?”

  “Out!” Mika said. She was pointing at David. “I want you out. This is my birthday, and I’m pulling the birthday-girl card, and you can get the hell out. Now!”

  My knees buckled. I steadied myself against the door, which was shaking from the music. Not “Manic Monday” anymore. “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

  “It’s not his fault,” I managed to say.

  “Damn straight it’s his fault!” Mika stormed over and shoved David. “Do you think it’s funny to do this to her?”

  David reached into his pocket for a cigarette. His nervous tic. “Calm down, kiddo. We’re all having fun here.”

  Fun. Was it fun? Was it even good? My lips felt cold and wet. My chin felt wet, too.

  “Sophia?” Caroline asked. “What just happened?”

  I took a deep breath. Jamie was standing next to her, only a few feet away.

  “Jamie…” I said.

  He turned around and punched the door to our karaoke room so hard it blew back on its hinges. “Fuck,” he said. And then louder. “Fuck.”

  Caroline flattened herself against the wall in surprise. Piercing music hovered in the hallway.

  “Jamie…” And now I was crying, really crying. Sliding down the wall and dissolving completely. I couldn’t fix this. There was no way on earth I could ever make this right.

  “Don’t.” Jamie turned around. “Don’t talk to me.”

  I swiped the back of my hand over my eyes and tried to think of something I could do. Something other than cry and feel numb.

  But he was already going, head down. Disappearing down a stairwell, and disappearing in general
. I pulled my legs into my chest. Mika and David were still yelling.

  “You can’t decide who I kiss,” David said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “Oh, screw you!” she shouted. “Just because I won’t date you doesn’t mean you can mess around with Sophia. Because you can’t! Not on my fucking watch!”

  David said nothing.

  “This isn’t a joke,” Mika said, spitting out every word. “I want you gone. I want you out, now!”

  I put my face on my knees. The tears were sliding out easily, a few of them running down my calves. Caroline crouched down beside me, studying my face with obvious concern. She was holding a glass of water. “You need to drink this.”

  “Fine,” David said. “You want me gone? No problem. Happy friggin’ birthday to you.”

  He didn’t say anything to me as he walked away. And I didn’t watch him go.

  “Hey? Sophia?” Mika and Caroline were lifting me up. “Sophia,” Mika said again, pushing some sticky hair out of my eyes. “We have to get you home. Or to your hotel, or whatever.”

  I hugged her tightly, my face pressed to her shoulder. She hugged me even tighter than that.

  Before we left karaoke, Mika and Caroline made me drink three whole glasses of water. Mika ordered them from the bar downstairs. I drank and I cried, curled up in a corner of one of the couches. I cried until my sinuses went raw and scratchy, until my tear ducts actually burned. Mika got out her phone and started texting.

  “Are you texting David?” I asked, lifting my cheek from the plastic seat.

  “Hell no,” she said. “I’m telling Jamie to leave.”

  I rubbed my nose on my shirt, which was so disgusting I’d have to throw it out. “I think he left already,” I said, miserably. Wretchedly.

  “No,” she said. “He was waiting downstairs in case I needed someone to take me home.”

  That made me cry all over again. Which made Caroline hug me and cry as well.

  “You two are fucking ridiculous,” Mika said.

  Caroline and Mika came to the hotel with me. When we walked through the door to my room, Alison said, “Good. God. It’s worse than an MTV reality show in here.”

  Mika laughed and smirked approvingly.

  It was late, and we were all tired, so they decided to stay over. I lent them T-shirts, and Alison lent them leggings. There was Advil in my toiletry bag, so I took some of that.

  “I didn’t drink that much,” I said when we were all crowded in the blindingly white hotel bathroom. Caroline was sitting on the edge of the bathtub while Mika and I washed our faces.

  “You drank enough,” Mika said, scrubbing her face with a towel. I gaped at drops of water near her shorn hairline, still mesmerized by her new haircut.

  “I could never have a shaved head,” I said.

  “Nope,” Mika agreed. “I’m more punk rock than all you chumps combined.”

  I laughed, and then hiccuped.

  Caroline drew one leg up and rested her chin thoughtfully on her knee. “I don’t get why everyone drinks so much here. It makes you do such stupid stuff.”

  “Meh,” Mika said. “Being stupid is what we do best. But for the record”—she turned off the sink in one dramatic motion—“I drank exactly nothing tonight. Nothing but soda.”

  I dropped my washcloth on the marble countertop. It landed with a wet, slopping noise. “Well, I feel pretty damn awful.”

  “How awful?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know. I think I’m still tipsy.”

  “Tipsy,” Mika snorted.

  “My head feels like someone’s pushing it. And I mean, look at my face—I look like Jigglypuff from Pokémon. Oh, and my mouth’s all grunky.”

  “Brush your teeth,” Mika said, flicking some water at me.

  I flicked some water back at her. “Jamie was drinking,” I said, picking up the washcloth again and folding it over in my hands. “Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Yeah,” Mika said. “I think he just holds beers. He doesn’t really drink them.”

  Talking about Jamie made me feel peeled open; it made everything awful that had happened that night come rushing to the surface—what Alison had said, what Dad had said, what Jamie had said. And what I’d done. I tried to push it aside, but I must have looked worse for wear because Mika was watching me in the mirror. She met my eye and hitched up a single eyebrow, like she was trying to answer my unasked question. How much does she know about me and Jamie? I thought about how Jamie trusted her, how they’d been talking to each other all night. If Mika knew what he thought of me now—I didn’t want her to tell me.

  “Anyway, Tipsy.” Mika grabbed one of the hotel glasses from the side of the sink and filled it up for me. “Time for bed.”

  I slept in Alison’s bed, and Mika and Caroline shared the other one. In the middle of the night, I woke up. Alison was sitting bolt upright, staring at me. My head felt like it was trying to crack itself open, and my mouth was grunkier than ever. So this is sobering up.

  “What is it?” I rasped.

  Alison sighed. “If you choked on your own vomit and died tonight, I would never, ever forgive myself.”

  “I had three drinks,” I said. “They were mixed drinks! There wasn’t that much alcohol involved.”

  “You’ve never drunk before, baby sister. That’s practically a bottle of tequila.”

  I turned over. “God, Alison. Stop being so overdramatic.”

  “Good,” she whispered. “Stay there. That way if you vomit, it’ll come out the side and you won’t die.”

  CHAPTER 30

  SATURDAY

  I WOKE UP.

  With a hangover.

  Oh. Dear. God. So much of a hangover. It took a minute for the various sensations to settle over me—headache, nausea, putrid taste in my mouth. I pulled the comforter over my head and gagged. The bed smelled like booze. No, I smelled like booze. The smell made me queasy, but I already felt queasy, so then I just felt like throwing up.

  Which was so the opposite of awesome.

  I burrowed under the covers. Alison wasn’t next to me, and it didn’t sound like anyone else was in the room. I couldn’t even hear anything outside. No morning news broadcasts, no creaky doors being thrown open. The morning was silent and dull. I lay there for a while and felt sorry for myself. Sorry I wasn’t home anymore. Sorry this was my last full day in Tokyo. Sorry that my head was trying to detach itself from my body.

  But mostly, I felt sorry about Jamie.

  “Hey,” a voice said from the other side of the room.

  I threw the comforter back and sat up. The bed spun; it was like I was on one of those horrible fairground rides Alison and I rode whenever we went to the Jersey Shore. Mika was there, sitting in the chair by the window and reading a room-service menu.

  “Hey,” I squawked.

  “You awake?” She licked her finger and calmly turned a page. She was very clearly not hungover, and I got the feeling she was savoring the role reversal.

  “Maybe. I feel—not good.”

  “Yeah, I figured. This entire room smells like an old towel soaked in sour milk.”

  I grabbed my stomach and doubled over. “Less. Vivid. Descriptions. Please.”

  “Baptism by fire, dude.” She closed the menu. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

  Caroline had left a note for me, scribbled on the pad of hotel stationery on the nightstand. Had to lifeguard! Have fun in America! E-mail when you get there? XO

  “You are so going to e-mail her.” Mika was reading over my shoulder. “Aren’t you?”

  I tucked the letter into the front pocket of my suitcase. “Shut up. You like her, too.”

  When I moved, my body screamed at me. There was a stale, syrupy taste in my mouth that wouldn’t go away. I sat on the edge of the bed and drew my legs up to my chest. The feeling-sorry-for-myself had not abated.

  Mika grabbed me some clothes from my suitcase. My T-shirt that says SCIENCE IS AWESOME. THA
T IS ALL. My pink cotton shorts. “You own pink clothing?” Mika said, tossing me the shorts.

  I picked them up, slowly. “Don’t judge. Anyway, you’re forgetting that my watch is sort of pink.”

  Mika glanced at my bare wrist but didn’t comment on it. She told me it was a miracle I hadn’t puked and that Alison had gone out for a walk with my mom. “To keep her off the scent,” she said. “Like, the literal scent.”

  I threw one of my socks at her, and she laughed.

  Outside, it was hot but not punishing. The sky was clear, and there was an actual breeze. I couldn’t decide if the world was mocking me or trying to cheer me up. We walked to a konbini and I ambled down the aisles, contemplating how this was the last time I’d be in one of these. The last time I’d browse shelves upon shelves of green tea jellies and individually wrapped kare pan. Mika grabbed some onigiri and two bottles of iced coffee from one of the fridges.

  “I want to eat everything,” I joked as she handed them to me. “Everything in Japan.”

  “Huh?” she said.

  Regret twisted my insides. “Never mind.”

  We sat at a stone picnic table in Kitanomaru-koen, which, it seemed, was where everyone in Tokyo had decided to go. Families and joggers and cyclists and couples holding hands. It was so lively, almost like being at an outdoor festival—a matsuri full of food stalls and game stalls and people dressed in yukata. I put on my sunglasses—Jamie’s sunglasses, actually—and started unwrapping my onigiri.

  “Happy birthday, by the way,” I said. “I didn’t tell you that yesterday.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Mika said. “I am officially adult-ish.”

  “High school senior–ish.”

  “A legitimate high school senior in two days.”

  “Oh, yeah. You’re right.”

  Mika beat an impatient tattoo against the tabletop. “Sophia, I’m going to ask you a question.”

  I managed to wrangle the onigiri from its packaging without separating the seaweed from the triangle-shaped mound of rice. “Okay.”