Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak by Adi Alsaid

Author:Adi Alsaid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2019-02-14T13:43:45+00:00

16

PROBABLY SWITCH GAMES

On the train back to the city, I took a window seat. My laptop was open, but any sentences I attempted sputtered halfway through, like cars breaking down and dying along the side of the road.

Cal was sitting next to me, his head lolling as the train rocked. Jase sat across the aisle, staring at his phone, every now and then casting strange looks my way. My face had healed surprisingly well, considering it hadn’t even been a full day. Much better than I thought it would. All hail Neosporin.

Dad had wanted to rush me to the ER first thing in the morning, but I’d managed to calm him down, insisting that at the current rate, my face would look better than new in a matter of hours. My story had been that I had slipped on ice on the sidewalk. It was an awful excuse, because summer. But I spun a masterful tale about a careless restaurant and a very narrow cold front caused by an AC unit pointed in the wrong direction, and my dad had ended up calming down. Instead of going to the emergency room I had spent the rest of the day thinking about stuff other than my face.

Namely, Cal. His touch. The fact that he got my sense of humor perfectly. That damn doughy laugh. How I hadn’t been able to stop watching his fingers or his eyes as he took care of me.

How much of last night had been shared, I wondered, and how much had I made up?

For the life of me, I tried to remember what I had been like with Leo, but it was as if the memories had been wiped out. Or not the memories themselves, since those were still popping up when I didn’t want them to, the good and the bad alike, but who I was during those memories. What I’d actually felt. Had there been this much doubt, this much uncertainty? Had the joy always been tinged by something else, or was that just in the beginning?

Every now and then Cal’s screen would light up with a notification, bringing to life the picture of him and Iris cheek-to-cheek that served as his background. I watched time tick away in the corner of my computer screen. I didn’t need to read Leo’s email again, its entire stupid contents were probably graffitied somewhere in the folds of my brain.

Do you know that I still love you?

What was I supposed to do with that? Return to a boy who’d fled?

On the train, back at home, at the coffee shop, at home again, I tried to write. Nothing. It was like some force field had been set up on my keyboard, or around my brain.

PETE

Dare I ask?

LU

Please for the love of god don’t. I’m broken. Will you spare change when I’m homeless?

PETE

You’re not going to be homeless, Lu.

LU

I certainly won’t be homefull.

PETE

That doesn’t make sense.

LU

SEE?!? I’m broken.

PETE

Want me to come over for a pep talk?

I sighed and told

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