in a paper bag. “Is that you?” her mom called from her office.
“No!” Grace yelled back. “It’s a serial killer!”
“Can you ask him to check to make sure I turned off the coffeemaker, please?”
“How do you know it’s a him?”
“Odds are!”
Grace checked the coffeemaker. “You’re good!”
She tried to sneak past her mom’s door, but her mom stopped her. “Wait,” she said, and Grace took half a step backward. “Have you been crying?”
“Oh, no, no,” Grace said as she headed for the stairs. “Contact lenses. The worst, am I right?”
MAYA
It wasn’t that Maya meant to break up with Claire.
It just sort of . . . happened.
Maya couldn’t stop being mad at her for not answering her texts the night that Maya’s dad moved out. She knew that it was stupid, of course, but still, it hung around her like a jacket she couldn’t shrug off.
It didn’t help that Claire didn’t seem to get why Maya was so upset.
“I told you,” Claire said the next day at lunch. Maya didn’t have her head in Claire’s lap this time; instead, she was sitting across from her, their lunches spread out between them like a wall, a barrier made up of bread crusts and orange peels. “I was camping, I didn’t have my phone, I—”
“Who doesn’t have their phone?” Maya asked, exasperated. “I’m fairly sure that mine is pretty much grafted to my hand! How do you not have your phone?”
“Okay, so let’s say I had it,” Claire said, sitting up a little. “And I’m camping with my family, and there’s basically zero reception, and you text me that your dad just moved out. What am I supposed to do?”
Maya thought that the sun was exploding behind her eyes.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, aware of how much she sounded like Lauren right then, high-pitched and obvious. “Maybe text me back? I’m just spitballing here, though.”
“But then what? I couldn’t talk to you, I couldn’t come over. I mean, Maya, your dad didn’t die, he just moved ten minutes away.”
Maya started to gather up her bag.
“No, wait, My, no.” Claire reached out for her, grabbing her by the wrist. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“You so meant that,” Maya said, but she stopped moving, her bag dangling from her hand.
“I just meant—” Claire sighed, took a deep breath. “Look, you know my dad’s not around. At least yours is, okay? You can still see him every day if you want. You could text him right now and he’d probably text you back in less than thirty seconds.”
This was all true. Maya was always slightly pleased and slightly embarrassed by how fast her dad responded to her texts. (Her life got considerably more difficult when he discovered the emoji keyboard.) Maya knew that she didn’t have a lot of room to complain, that she still had it way better than most kids. Look at Joaquin! He didn’t even have parents.
But that didn’t make her feel any better.
“It’s all just because this is new,” Claire continued, still holding on to Maya’s wrist, anchoring her in the grass. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there that day, okay? If I could have been, I would have been there in a second. I swear. Okay? Okay?” she repeated when Maya didn’t respond. “I hate fighting with you. I’d rather make out with you. It’s so much more fun.”
Maya’s mouth perked up at the corners. “It is way more fun,” she said. “But I’m still mad.”
Claire started to pull her back down to the grass, and Maya fell to her knees, her bag thudding down heavily next to her. “You wanna make-up make out?” Claire said, smiling against Maya’s mouth. “I’ve heard it’s pretty hot.”
Maya smiled again, her teeth bumping against Claire’s mouth. “Because nothing’s more hot than making out behind the gym at school,” she said, winding her arms around Claire’s neck.
“Let’s find out,” Claire replied, and they tumbled into the grass.
The breakup happened five days later.
Looking back, Maya realized that it wasn’t really either of their faults. It was a Saturday, and they should have been hanging out, but Claire had to watch her little brother and Maya was up to her neck in physics homework. Their make-out session in the grass at school had been pretty great, but it didn’t solve anything. Maya couldn’t help but think of it as like the Hello Kitty Band-Aids she and Lauren had had when they were little: super cute, but not so great when it came to fixing major wounds.