When You Were Everything Read online

  “It’s okay. In his defense, I think he was right. After Ma died, I wasn’t as emotionally available to him as maybe I should have been.”

  As if to illustrate her point, her work phone rings and she reaches for it. I move it away from her neat red nails and shake my head.

  When we finish eating and I go back to my room to finally change out of my uniform, I’m feeling a hundred times better than I did when I first got home. It’s funny how a dose of honesty and Chinese food does that for a girl.

  I pick up my phone from where I set it before I fell asleep, and I have a bunch of missed texts from Daddy. I don’t think I can answer them right now. I finally read the texts from Sydney and Willa. I even have a few from Jase.

  There’s just one from Dom: Just text me back if you’re okay.

  I get the sudden urge to right all the wrongs I’ve committed today. To show up for the people who have shown up for me. I text Jase back and say that I’m sorry for being rude to him in the hall. I text Sydney and Willa, thanking them for coming over. Then I check the time. It’s still early enough that if I head to the diner I can help Miss Dolly and Pop close up, so instead of changing into pajamas, I pull on a pair of jeans and the tight white sweater I had on earlier today. I’m hoping I’ll have a chance to apologize to Dom in person like I planned to all along.

  then: December, week 4

  ALL ABOUT ME

  Cleo Imani Baker

  I got this text from Jase almost as soon as I walked out of my apartment building on the first Monday of winter break. It was windy and cold. I couldn’t stand to stay inside with all of Daddy’s stuff gone, and yet I wasn’t ready to visit his new place either. My mom and I had established a delicate kind of peace, me admitting that decisions like marital separations aren’t made alone, her apologizing for trivializing my feelings on the day Daddy moved out. We weren’t completely healed, but we were getting there, moving a little closer inch by inch. Even though we were back on speaking terms, Mom was still working almost constantly. I was getting used to being alone.

  My last conversation with Layla had been on repeat in my head for days, and I wished I could move into the stacks at the library and be rid of everything and everyone else. It was still a few days until Christmas—a Christmas I was confident would suck—which meant I had dozens of waking hours ahead of me without school, plans, or anything else to look forward to.

  I stared at Jase’s text, wondering what he might want. I was a little afraid to speak to him after what happened the night of the musical. I didn’t know whose side he’d be on since Mason was dating Layla now, and he was Jase’s best friend. I didn’t know if I could handle losing Jase too.

  I chanced it. I texted Jase back as I pushed through the turnstile and stepped onto the platform. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t really care. When I felt lost, I liked to get lost, and in New York City it’s easy to lose yourself.

  Yes, Jase Lin?

  I usually did all of my Christmas shopping online, but since I’d waited until the last minute and didn’t have anything better to do, I decided moments after boarding the train to brave Fifth Avenue. Even if I didn’t find anything, I’d at least be able to take in all the lavish decorations and lights. I thought it would be pretty enough to momentarily distract me from everything. And once I was in Manhattan walking down the bright, crowded city streets, I realized I was right.

  New York City in December is pure eye candy. There are old men and women in Santa hats ringing bells as they collect donations in red pails, and even the street performers change their selections to seasonal carols. As I admired the window display at Tiffany’s, daydreaming about sparkly jewelry that would probably never be mine, Jase texted back.

  Just found out both my parents are on call tonight.

  So I’m obviously having a party.

  My place. 9 o’clock. You better be there.

  I smiled. I hadn’t been to a party since Halloween, but I was perfectly okay with keeping that streak going. Maybe I would go ice skating instead. Maybe I would get some hot chocolate at a holiday market. The day was already looking up, so why would I ruin it with something as messy and unpredictable as a party?

  Oh, idk, Jase. Can I let you know?

  I walked farther down the block, thinking about getting my dad a bow tie or my mom a pair of earrings. She’d slipped me her credit card before she left for work that morning, and though she gave it to me for food, I didn’t think she’d object to a few gifts. I texted her just to be sure.

  No you may NOT lmk, Jase texted back as I walked into a huge department store. A clerk squirted a cloud of perfume right in front of me. I glanced up from my phone just in time to dodge it.

  YOU’RE COMING. Even if I have to come pick you up myself.

  I rolled my eyes, but his was a kindness I’d missed. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to his party, and I felt like I needed to figure out how to be alone without being lonely. Today seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that—to spend some quality time with myself. I mean, Sartre wrote Hell is other people for a reason.

  If you want to hang out tomorrow we can, I sent. But I’m skipping your party. Today is only and all about me.

  * * *

  —

  The first department store I walked into had a full wall of snow globes on display, and as soon as I saw them, it felt like a sign. I stepped forward, shaking each one to send its contents spinning, and held tight to one with a miniature of the very store I was standing in at its center. The thing about snow globes, I suddenly remembered Gigi saying, is that they’re pretty to look at, but they’d be awful to inhabit. People are like that. Lives too.

  I’d never realized what she meant until that moment, in that department store. How people can look so perfect from the outside, their lives can seem so easy, but really, everything’s a swirling mess.

  I left with only the snow globe of the store, which I bought for my own collection, and I headed to a holiday market with Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Song” playing on repeat through my earbuds.

  In the park, there were stands with handknit mittens and tiny wooden toys, gourmet spices and organic lotions. I picked out a pair of delicate freshwater pearl earrings for Mom, and a pink-and-blue knit bow tie for my dad.

  I grabbed a hot chocolate with a giant gourmet marshmallow on top, and while it was still too hot to sip, I found a seat on the stairs at the entrance to the park. There were skateboarders, and moms with bundled-up toddlers, and people my age kissing and laughing and goofing off. I sipped my chocolate and it was rich and warm, and a little later, when I found a necklace with a silver snowflake charm, I bought that for myself too. The hours passed quickly in the hustle and bustle of people shopping and laughing and singing, and it was a relief to lose myself in the white noise of the city.

  I was starting to get a little too cold to stay outside for much longer. So I lifted my snow globe and shook it, peering through it at the rest of the park, as a kind of goodbye. But I lowered it slowly when, only a few feet away, I spotted a pale girl with flushed cheeks standing next to a brown-skinned girl with long black hair.

  LONDON

  Sloane was standing there just in front of me, staring at her phone. She hadn’t seen me yet where I was perched on the stairs behind her, but the second I started gathering my bags she looked in my direction. I stood up quickly, still planning to turn and run away from them, but she rolled her eyes, tapped Layla’s shoulder, and pointed at me before I could make my escape.

  “Oh God, L,” she said, sounding bored. “Look who it is.”

  If I hadn’t been having a lovely day all on my own, maybe I could have let the dismissal go. But I’d found gifts and had delicious hot chocolate and people-watched, and here she was ruining the happiest few hours I’d had in months. So I didn’t. I settled my bags back on the steps and looked right at her.

&
nbsp; “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “Ugh, nothing. It’s just that you’re everywhere. Like a cockroach.”

  Oh no, she did not.

  “Jesus, Sloane. What is your problem with me?” I asked, and my voice sounded annoyed and pleading all at once. Her vitriol couldn’t all be because of the Halloween party. The more I thought about how awful she’d been to me, the less I understood.

  Sloane crossed her arms. “You still don’t get it, do you? I don’t have a problem. I just don’t like you. And frankly speaking, Layla doesn’t either.”

  I was shaken even though I shouldn’t have been. I felt a pain in my stomach, quick and sharp like a blade of truth. Layla looked guilty for a split second, before her face contorted into an expression I’d never seen her make before. It almost looked like pride, but it was a twinge darker than that. Layla looked self-satisfied. Layla looked almost smug.

  “It’s true,” Layla said. She jutted out a hip and twirled a piece of her hair. “I don’t.”

  Sloane laughed. “Tell her about London, L,” she said. I swallowed hard and my eyes slid from Sloane’s face to Layla’s and back again.

  “London?” I asked. What could she have to tell me about London? But then Layla started talking.

  “Ms. Novak wrote me a recommendation for the Shakespeare summer p-p-program t-too, you know. The one at the G-Globe in London?”

  This was a turn in the conversation I hadn’t expected. My eyes traced Layla’s face, slowly. I felt my hands start to shake, so I squeezed them into the tightest fists I could make and shoved them hard into the pockets of my coat.

  “Why would you even apply to it?” I asked.

  “There’s a Young Actors Summer School, j-j-j-ust like there’s a Young Scholars one. I applied when you d-did, b-but I wanted it to be a surprise that I’d b-be coming with you if, by sssome miracle, I got in.”

  I knew exactly where this was going, and even though everything in me was screaming run, I was rooted to the spot in front of her. I had to hear it out loud to believe it could be true.

  “After y-you ssssaid what you said, I asked Novak if I could w-w-withdraw my application. I d-didn’t want to chance it—getting in and b-b-b-being stuck there with you. But she said it was t-too late.”

  Sloane was loving every second of this. So were Sage, and Melody and Cadence, who were suddenly there too. They were surrounding me, like we were a fistfight waiting to happen. But Layla and I had only ever been a war of words.

  “I wasn’t g-g-going to t-tell you,” she said. “Because Novak t-t-told me you d-didn’t get in and that you were really d-d-disappointed. But I g-guess the head of the program was really moved by my statement of interest.”

  Sage crossed her arms. And Melody and Cadence looked at each other, grinning, like the words Layla was saying were lyrics to their favorite song. I could feel it getting harder and harder for me to breathe, harder and harder for me to listen—to keep my mind where my body seemed to be stuck. The girls, they turned into monsters around me, and the park turned into my own personal hell. I was surrounded by flames, hot and burning, and there was no way out.

  “In my statement, I t-t-t-told them that I st-st-stuttered, but that I’d gotten a lead p-part in the school musical; that I knew I’d probably st-st-stutter onstage, but that I was d-d-doing it anyway.”

  They weren’t moving, but it felt like everything was closing in on me. And my heart was breaking all over again. I knew what Layla would say next, but I still wasn’t ready to hear the words.

  “I g-got in, Cleo,” she said. “I’m going to London this summer.”

  As she’d been talking, my eyes had filled with tears, and at the sound of those words, I blinked and it all spilled over.

  Layla started crying too. I knew it was because she cried when she was angry, but I convinced myself, just for a second, it was because she felt as awful as I did. She swiped the tears away hard and fast.

  Sloane put her arm around her shoulder. But Layla didn’t stop glaring at me. Her dark eyes were the same ones I’d looked into for years. Even with the makeup she was wearing, and with the super-straight hair, her eyes still looked the same. When she spoke, though, she was New Layla—a complete stranger.

  “I’m so damn glad you won’t be there,” she hissed.

  Then I was completely broken.

  Then I was gone.

  now

  STORMY SKYE

  Right before I get to my stop, it starts to pour. Raindrops pummel the top of the train, so that it sounds like pennies being shaken in a tin can above our heads. Other passengers dig around in their bags for umbrellas, but all I can do is tuck my braids into the collar of my coat, and my phone into the front pocket of my jeans. I wrap my scarf around my head, hoping my hair won’t get too wet.

  I run up the stairs at the stop closest to Dom’s house and Dolly’s, and burst through the diner doors wet and laughing.

  “What are you doing here, Sweet Pea?” Dolly asks.

  “I thought you weren’t feeling well,” Pop says.

  I pull my scarf from my head and shake my braids loose from my collar. “I know, but I wanted to help you close up if you needed me.”

  “Well, ain’t you the sweetest?” Dolly intones. She grabs a clean bar towel and pats my braids dry.

  “Is Dom here?” I ask, tossing the bar rag into a bucket with other used ones. Pop shakes his head. “I told him to head home and close the windows since I knew it was supposed to rain. Dolly likes to sleep with them open these days. That woman loves the cold.” He glances over at her and smiles.

  I help lift the café chairs, stacking them on top of the tables, and then I sweep and mop the dining room floor. I turn on a song I know Pop likes and he nods as he wipes down the counter, humming to himself. When I head for the stacks of cloth napkins and clean silverware to start rolling them, Dolly comes over. She places one of her warm, soft hands on mine to still them and leans a little closer to me. “Dom has seemed pretty down these last few days. Have you two made up yet?”

  I lift my eyes to meet hers. They’re brown, but I don’t think I noticed until now that there’s a cloudy circle of blue around her irises. “Not yet,” I say. “To be honest, I was hoping he’d close the windows at the house and then come back here,” I admit.

  Dolly grins. “Oh, Sweet Pea. Why don’t you just go talk to him now?”

  “I’m not done here yet,” I say, wanting to put it off, wanting to stay here, where I know I’m wanted.

  “I think I can manage rolling the rest of these,” Miss Dolly says, seeing right through me. “We still have to count out the register and make the deposit at the bank. That should give you two plenty of time to talk.”

  I nod and look down at her wrinkled hands—the only part of her that seems at all old. I reach out and give her a hug, and she smells like lavender and home. We’re almost exactly the same height, and for a second I forget that there are so many years between us. “Thank you,” I tell her. I throw my jacket and scarf back on, and I’m out the door before I remember to grab the umbrella Pop told me to take from the break room.

  * * *

  —

  The rain is still falling in cold, thick sheets, but Dom’s house is only a few blocks away. I sprint past brownstones and wide apartment buildings, a small park, and a guy walking a dog in a bright yellow raincoat. There are a few kids in galoshes splashing in puddles on a fenced-in driveway and a woman pushing a stroller covered in plastic, and I marvel at how, even in the rain, the streets here are never empty.

  At the end of Dom’s block, I spot Stormy crouched beneath a black sedan. I bend low and reach out, trying to get her to come to me so we can both get out of the rain, but she only backs farther into the inky shadows under the car.

  I knock on Dom’s door loudly, and he answers so quickly that for a
second I wonder if he saw me coming.

  “Hey,” I say. “Your cat is under that car! I tried to get her out, but she wouldn’t come to me.”

  He blinks at me, and I notice his eyelashes are wet. He must have gotten caught in the downpour too. “Yeah,” he says softly. His eyes travel from my combat boots all the way to the scarf wrapped around my head. He smiles. “She likes the rain. That’s why we named her Stormy Skye.”

  He moves backward so I can step into his foyer. He reaches up and pulls the dripping scarf off my hair. “Why are you out in this mess?” he asks.

  He’s wearing what look like the softest pair of sweatpants, a clean white T-shirt, and thick gray socks, and I want to snuggle up to him. To bury my face in his cotton-covered chest.

  “I went to the diner to help your grandparents close.” He grins and shakes his head a little. “But also,” I continue, “I wanted to apologize. For earlier today when I yelled at you. And also for suggesting the fundraiser thing. You told me about the restaurant in confidence, and the first thing I suggested was to tell a bunch of other people about it.” I look up at him and he bats his pretty, wet eyelashes.

  “It’s been a rough couple of months,” I say. “And getting to know you better has really been one of the best things in my life lately. Talking to you and Jase, Sydney, and now Willa has kind of saved me. The last time I messed things up with someone, I waited too long to apologize. So here I am.”

  I take a deep breath. I reach out and squeeze his hand once before letting go. “I’m really so, so sorry.”

  He bites his bottom lip. “I’m sorry too,” he says. “For being pissed about your suggestion about the diner. You were only trying to help, and the truth is my dad had just offered my grandparents money earlier that day. He’s always doing that shit—sending money instead of coming around. But yeah. It was a dick move to take it out on you.”