Page 111 of Oh, Flutz!

“What do you mean, honey?”

“I didn’t move out,” I croak—oh, yeah,thereit is—tears threatening to spill. “Moving out implies I had a choice. You fucking kicked me out.”

“What?” Mom says, looking so surprised it makes me want to die.

“Apologize to your mother,” Dad demands, but I just shake my head aggressively, my vision getting blurry.

“Both of you are insane. You didn’t give me achoice!”

Dad has an unfamiliar look on his face, almost cracked down the middle, but then the anger slides back into place. “Enough,” he snarls. “That’s enough.”

I have to get the words out before my throat closes up for good. “No.I’vehad enough.”Breathe. In. Out. I can’t seem to breathe in and out. “What is wrong with you guys? Where do you get off?”Breathe! Damn it, breathe!They’re swimming in front of me. “Why do you never fucking stop, huh? Why did you do this?Why?”

Mom looks like she’s trying to figure out a way she can pretend this never happened. Dad’s gone white. Like I’ve slapped him.

Alexandra tries to take my arm. “Bry—"

I move it away before she can touch me. “It’sfine. Alex, it’s fine, I don’t know why I was expecting anything different,” I say, staring at both of them for a second, before I finally turn around, trying not to run.

I run.

Once I get tothe bathroom, I slump on the floor with my back against the door, arms over my head and my head between my knees.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop doing this. I tear at my hair like it’ll tell me what to do. My chest is thumping like a goddamn bongo drum.Stop being so desperate. Stop it. Stop It. STOP IT! You don’t need to do this!I need to bang my head into a wall. Why am I so desperate? What am I even desperatefor?

I need to get hit in the head. I need to be strung upside down and shaken out like a purse until all the shit falls out.Stop trying to prove yourself. You don’t need to do this. Or just get it over with, for god’s sake, just do it and get it done and you don’t need to do it anymore. You don’t need to do it. Just get it over with. Man up, Bryan. Man up!I keep gasping for air, but nothing’s getting in.

My phone vibrates, and I answer blindly. “Yeah?” I croak.

“Where are you? Katya’s freaking out, said you ran off. You’re on in ninety seconds, you need to—”

It slips out of my hands, clattering against the shiny bathroom tile, Juliet’s voice coming out muffled from the speaker. I bury my head back in my hands, one hand to my chest, trying to ease out the feeling that someone’s tightening a noose around my lungs. I force myself to raise my head, ruffling my hair furiously, trying to yank myself back to normal, letting out a hysterical laugh. God, I need to get it together—right now all I can do is go back out there.

It’s almost over. You’re almost done.Soon enough, it’ll all be over.

I can’t tell whether that makes me feel better or not.

When I finally makeit downstairs, I have to run to the ice, and I make it just as they’re announcing us over the loudspeakers.

“There you are! I’m going to kill you! Where—” Katya stops, forehead creasing as she takes me in, which, if I look anything like how I feel, isnotgood. “Bryan, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I start taking off my guards, handing them to Juliet, who looks like she’s trying not to ask me how I’m feeling too. She takes them and steps back to talk to Lian.

Katya’s not that easily convinced, and not for the first time, I wish she didn’t know me so goddamn well. “You’re clearly—"

“I said I’m fine,” I snap, and she narrows her eyes at me.

“Do not raise your voice at me. Whatever you’re feeling is not my fault.” But then she softens, reaching her hand out. “Yasha, you can tell me.”

I move away from her touch. It might actually make me combust. Everything in me is aching. “Katya, I can’t—the last thing I need is for you to yell at me right now. Let’s just skate, alright?”

She moves to stand in my way, blocking the entrance to the ice. “Not until you tell me.”

“I could pick you up and carry you out there, you know.”

“You can try.”

Something about the look on her face tells me neither of us will be going anywhere unless I spill, so I do.

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