Page 15 of Problematic Summer Romance

“What doyoucare? Why did you even call me back?”

“Because you are Eli’s family. And you are crying.” He sounds accusing. Likeheis being personally victimized by the worst week of my life.

“Can we please just hang up? You have a Mayers to talk to, and I would love tonotgo through this shitty moment with someone I barely know.”

“Why shitty? What’s wrong?”

The question is…whatever the opposite ofsolicitousis. “Why would I tellyou?”

“Because your brother is unreachable, and I’m a fucking adult, and you aren’t. It is my civic responsibility to make sure children aren’t being abducted, or some similar horseshit.”

“Children?Are you for real? Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“Aren’t you Eli’s baby sister?”

“Babysister? How old do you think I am?”

“You’re thirteen, or thereabout.”

I exhale, shocked. “Iwasthirteen. Seven years ago.”

“What? You’re not twenty.”

“I sure am.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Christ.” He mutters something sweary about the passage of time, and I roll my eyes.

“Now that I’ve caught you up with the rotations of Earth around the sun, goodbye.” I make to hang up, but—

“No, notgoodbye.” His speech is short. Authoritarian. It’s painfully obvious that he’s used to people doing as he says, no questions asked. “Tell me why the hell you’re crying, so we can establish that it’s just a load of inconsequential shite, and I can hang up the call with a clean soul.”

What a piece of shit. “Okay, first of all, your soul has never been anything but coal smeared. I bet you burned ants with magnifying lenses when you were a toddler, back during the Protestant Reformation.”

“That ispatentlylibelous, and I do not deserve—”

“Secondly, I do not see why I should be wasting my time on you, an absoluteno onein my life who clearly thinks I still play with Polly Pockets despite the fact that I’ve been registered to vote for two dozen fucking moons. Dude, Ibarelyknow you, and what I’m discovering isnotflattering. So forgive me if I don’t share my life story and tell you that my boyfriend of over a year dumped me last week for agirl who not only happens to be my best friend’s cousin, but also my roommate. And yesterday, when I came back from the gym, the three of them were waiting to give me some kind of makeshift intervention and tell me that it would be infinitely selfish and evil of me to stand between their whirlwind, star-crossed romance. And since they were ganging up on me, I got so angry that I forgot to do my stupid breathing exercises, I forgot the counting, too, and then I yelled that they could go at it on every surface of our apartment for all I cared, and that I wishedthem a life full of painful, pus-infected STDs. And this m-morning when I woke up they were there, in the kitchen, watching a panel show, making out undermycupboard, where I put my emotional-support Tunnock’s wafers, and they t-told me that I should be ashamed of my behavior last n-night, that they are afraid of my anger and of my d-disproportionate reactions, thatIam the one at fault for being aggressive, and I couldn’t s-stand it anymore soI ran out of the d-door and now I never ever want to fucking g-go back.” The last part comes out as a weepy, babbling, maniacal screech. I can tell from the way passersby turn my way, and from the fact that Conor Harkness, clearly not one to ever shut up, has fallen quiet.

I bury my face into my legs again, wishing to become one with the roots of the cherry tree under which I sit.Now, I tell myself,would be a good time to end this call.

I’ll do that. Then maybe find a pub where I can get wasted, and—

“Well,” Conor says. “Fuck.”

Something about the word—the slight accent, maybe, or the hushed quality of it, has me snorting. “Indeed.”

“I don’t know what the hell to do with this information.”

“That’s the exact point I was trying to make, you prickhead.” I’m too emotionally exhausted to charge the insult with any heat, but it still reverberates between us—until I hear a deep, rich chuckle.

Unlike everything else about this conversation, it’s warm and it feels a little like…not a hug, no, but a hand rubbing soothingly up and down my spine.

So I laugh, too. Even as he says, “I am willing to concede that ‘load of inconsequential shite’ might not be the most accurate description of your predicament.”

“Yeah?” I tilt my chin up. Smile at the blackening sky. “How magnanimous.”

---