Page 61 of Breakout Year
“You’re all still friends?”
Akiva nodded. “They’re my best friends, and they’ve said it’s not a big deal a hundred times over. That was the thing about the money I got from you. I finally had enough to spare that I could pay them back. And maybe they could forgive me once and for all.”
“I don’t know if forgiveness works like that.” Mostly because it sounded like Akiva’s friends knew him and loved him and had put the past where it belonged—behind them.
“Yeah, I know. You can’t buy it. But I wanted to try. Anyway, Mark won’t take the money, so I guess it’s something I’ll always owe.” Akiva ate his last apple slice, then placed his plate on the ground before wiping his hands together with an air of finality.
Eitan looked around at the yard again, at the weeds poking their defiant way up through concrete. “You’ve been living here for six years?”
Akiva’s forehead pinched. “Yeah?”
“The people in your books—don’t make that noise, they’re your books—they’re always going on adventures. Like, everyone’s always on a luxury train or a steamship or escaping in a carriage. Why are there so many names for carriage? That was confusing. Anyway, I thought Akiva must want to go somewhere on a really nice train. I looked at tickets.”
Akiva laughed. “I do like really nice trains.”
“But I figured that’s why you wrote. For stuff like that. Not for stuff like this.”
“Just getting by?”
Eitan shook his head. “You should be proud of this place.”
That got him Akiva’s snort. “You don’t need to pretend—this place is kind of a disaster. Nothing works, and if I could afford any better, I would.”
“No, really,” Eitan pressed. “You’ve worked for everything you have. Most people can’t say that. And nothing can take that away.”
“Just my landlord if he ever decides to raise the rent.”
“I meant more, you know, metaphorically. Is that the one with like or as? Regardless, it’s your place, not your landlord’s. You’re the one who fixes it when stuff gets broken. You’re the one who sits out here and prays with the trees.” A place that Akiva had earned. That he felt like he had to keep earning through cam work or modeling or whatever else. He’d called dating Eitan his job and Eitan took it as an insult, but that’s what it was—a job.
“My parents came over from Russia in the early nineties,” Eitan said. “Even with the community, they didn’t have much when they got here. Our temple used to give us groceries for Passover. My mom would call them gifts, but I knew the difference. I once heard her say that at least the bread you got in the breadlines was free. But they couldn’t be Jewish in Russia, not really, and they were broke here. I don’t think living like that ever really leaves you.”
“No,” Akiva agreed, “it doesn’t.”
“No amount of money I make—that I might make—will ever make them certain that it’s enough. I wish I could fix it.” I wish I could solve the same thing for you. Despite being an optimist, Eitan knew certain things weren’t his to solve. “We probably also should stop, uh, dating. Not dating. You know what I mean.”
“Probably.” Even if Akiva sounded as reluctant about it as Eitan felt.
“If it helps, I had a really good time. You were a great fake boyfriend.”
“You’re going to be a great real boyfriend.”
But Eitan could fill in the rest. He’d be a great real boyfriend to someone else. A drop of honey was still clinging to Akiva’s lower lip. Under any other circumstances, Eitan might lean over and try to drink that from his mouth. For now, he drew his last apple slice through the sticky glob on his plate, and ate it, and told himself that it tasted the same.
22
Akiva
Writing was—
Writing was?—
Writing wasn’t happening.
There were pages that were blank with possibility and pages that were blank with emptiness, and Akiva knew which one he was facing.
He’d ticked all his to-do boxes. Coffee, run, shower, daven, emails, emails, emails, emails. The small, smart, boring decisions that made up his day, that left him with a bad aftertaste no amount of coffee would wash out.
On a video chat, Sue called him glum.
