Page 66 of August Lane
Jojo:
Don’t call him that. He never wanted to be called that, so let’s not do it here.
Emma:
My apologies.
Jojo:
It’s okay. People are supposed to want their children. It’s a natural assumption to make.
Emma:
I know that’s not always the case.
Jojo:
It’s not. And that’s the real damage, isn’t it? When they know you don’t. When they can look in your eyes and tell?
CHAPTER TWELVE
2009
Pick a story, Luke.” August took a bite of her sandwich. She’d made two that morning and was more attentive to the ratio of meat to mustard this time. Luke’s included lettuce, which August never ate because it had no taste. Adding it to bologna felt performative. But Luke seemed like the type who’d be comforted by familiar sandwich structures.
He took his time crumbling the foil into a tiny ball and stuffing it into the paper sack they were using as a trash bag. He did that a lot, drew out basic movements while gathering his thoughts. “You mean like a topic?”
“No, a story. Something with a beginning, middle, and end. You don’t have to tell the whole thing, but it helps to keep it in mind as you write.”
“Okay.” He nodded, but still looked confused. “Is that my homework assignment?”
He’d been doing that since they started, trying to apply a rigid structure to their lessons as if he were still learning formulas in second-period trigonometry. After three days of meeting during their lunch period and at Delta Blue, the only thing he’d written for her was a playlist of his favorite R&B songs titled “Slow Jams for Augustina” with a rose doodle attached.
She needed to shake him loose somehow if this was going to work.
“It shouldn’t feel like an assignment,” August said. “It should feel like pulling something out of yourself that’s already there. Excavating an emotion.”
