Page 16 of Promise Me Sunshine

He throws one hand up. “It wasn’t a background check! You were yelling at strangers and sleeping in public! I just wanted to make sure…You said you didn’t want to go home…” He tosses his empty coffee cup in the trash can and his hands are suddenly smashed into his pockets. “Is there a specific reason, or…”

When I look up at him again, I see it for a split second. Genuine concern.

I’m worried.

Ugh. It’s my weak spot. I hate making other people worry about me. It’s why I’ve avoided my parents. Because then they’d see how I’m actually doing and everything would get so much worse.

I sigh and toss my empty coffee cup away as well. It hits the rim of the trash can and ricochets. Miles lunges forward and snags it out of midair, dunking it for me.

“I’m not in a dangerous situation, I promise. It’s safe,” I reassure him. “Seriously. I just can’t be there because—” My voice breaks and I clear my throat. “It’s just so fuckingempty.”

“Oh.” The sky is gray dawn now with a few splashes of orange. The Hudson is velvet-black and choppy, lapping up the light and tossing it back to us.

I mirror his pose and jam my own hands away. “Look, I’ll spare you the suspense. It seems like you’ve probably guessed some version of this anyways…I used to live with my best friend in that apartment. And a couple months ago…she died.” The words make my adrenaline start coursing through me. They don’t feel real. I feel like I’m doing a play. A really shitty play. “And saying ‘my friend died’ doesn’t convey what really—she was my sister. No. My A-team. My other half. And I’m so fucking stupid because I didn’t realize she was my whole life until she was gone.” The words are a waterfall and there’s no stopping it. I can’t look at him. “And I’m not…I’m not doing so well.” A sob sneaks out. “And I can’t be at home because all her stuff is in the same place it was since—”

I stop walking and sit on my heels with my knees pressed to my eyes. I tremble and attempt to squeeze myself down into nothing. When I crack my eyes I see the toes of two running shoes next to my sneakers. And then there’s one knee on the ground. I feel my ponytail slide out from my face where it’s gotten caught. He arranges it down my back.

“What was her name?” he asks quietly.

I roll my head to one side and look at the river. “Lou,” I whisper. “Lou Merritt.”

“Lenny and Lou,” he muses. “Like two old men.”

I laugh involuntarily. “She was the one who gave me that nickname. She said if she had an old man name, I had to have one too. My real name is Helen, believe it or not. But I’ve been Lenny since kindergarten, when we met.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out a creased napkin, mopping at my face. I wish this napkin were the size of a Buick. I want to pull it over my entire body and sleep for a year. Right here in the middle of the park.

“What’s that?” he asks. The laminated slip of paper rode along with the napkin and peeks up at us from between my fingers.

“Oh.” I’m clutching it so hard I’m surprised it hasn’t started smoldering. “It’s something that Lou and I…I’m trying to follow it…But I haven’t…” I give up on words and just hand it over to him. It’s strange to see it in someone else’s hand.

Live Again,he mouths as he reads the heading. Squinting, he surveys the bullet points and if he’s judging them, it doesn’t show on his face. But one of them makes him chuff a laugh.

“How many have you done?” he asks over the top of thelist.

“None.”

His eyebrows flick up.

It would be great if the tears corked themselves right about now. But I’ve been grieving long enough to know that that is definitely not how this works.

I put my head down and cry until my legs start to tingle from crouching and I get thirsty.

“We have to go soon or else we’re going to be late for Ainsley,” he says eventually.

I laugh involuntarily again. “Aren’t you supposed to be murmuring meaningless platitudes to me?”

“Oh.” He frowns and scratches at his knee. “Sorry.”

But it’s okay because he’s inadvertently said the magic word.Ainsley.She’s waiting uptown for me to take her toschool and even if I can’t take care of myself right now, I won’t let Ainsley twist in the wind.

I stand up and scrub my face with my sleeve, heading back toward the café. Miles keeps pace and doesn’t say anything when I wordlessly disappear into the bathroom and reemerge five minutes later with a washed face and a clean T-shirt and leggings on. He’s got an egg sandwich in either hand and he wraps my fingers around one of them when I don’t make a move to take mine.

“You look like you’re about to dissolve,” he informs me, demolishing half of his sandwich in one bite.

I eat as much of my sandwich as I can manage and move to toss the rest into the trash as we jog down the stairs to the train, but he rescues it at the last minute and polishes mine off as well.

We don’t say anything as we sit next to each other on the ride uptown. At 42nd Street, he stands up to give his seat to a pregnant lady, and at Columbus Circle, I stand up to give mine to a woman with a cane. We stand shoulder to shoulder, swaying and listless until we make it to our stop.

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