“You’re not bad luck,” Joaquin snapped, and both girls looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t say things like that. Shitty things are just happening around you. It’s not your fault.”
Maya suddenly looked very woebegone. (Joaquin had read that word in a book once and had never forgotten it. It made him think of Dickensian orphans, old widows, puppies abandoned in the rain.) “No, I’m pretty sure it’s me,” she said, wiping at her eyes again. “In fact, I’m one hundred percent sure that the breakup with Claire was my fault. I pushed her away.”
“Well, is it permanent?” Joaquin asked. “Can you apologize?”
“Nope,” Maya said.
“That’s not true,” Grace told her.
Maya started to cry again.
Joaquin and Grace looked at each other once more; then Joaquin moved over until he could put his arm around Maya’s waist. He knew what it felt like to cry alone. It felt terrible, like you were the only person alive in the world. He didn’t want that for Maya.
“What if she doesn’t stay in rehab?” Maya sobbed. “What if she thinks she’s okay and signs herself out and then hits her head again?”
“She’s going to stay,” Grace soothed. “Your dad will make her stay.”
“She might not,” Joaquin said, and ignored the angry glance that Grace shot him. “I mean, it’s true, right? She might not.”
“The rain cloud to Grace’s sunshine,” Maya sniffled. “You’re a good team.”
Joaquin hadn’t thought of anyone being on his team before, not since Birdie. He wondered if Maya was right. “Look,” he said. “You can’t control what your mom does. But you can control what you do.”
Maya wiped her eyes on the back of her arm before looking at him. “Do you . . . go to therapy, Joaq?”
Joaquin startled a little. “I . . . Yeah, I do. Mark and Linda pay for it, but yeah.”
“I’ve been trying to keep her sober—well, less drunk,” Maya said. “She has wine hidden all over the house. Lauren and I were trying to keep track of that.”
“Does your dad know about that part?” Grace asked. “Maybe you should tell him.”
“How could he not know?” Maya said. “And if he does, he obviously doesn’t care. I mean, he just left us here with her. He found a place and moved out last week. He’s going to move back in now while my mom’s gone, but . . . yeah.” She tossed the joint into the pool, where it quickly burned out and then floated on the blue water. “Everything is so fucking fucked up. My mom’s a drunk and my ex-girlfriend hates me.”
“Well, my ex-girlfriend hates me, too,” Joaquin admitted, and both of his sisters’ heads swiveled toward him, their eyes wide. “If it’s any consolation.”
“You had a girlfriend?” Grace asked.
“Why’d you break up?” Maya asked.
“How long were you together?”
“What was her name?”
“Did you break up with her or did she break up with you?”
“I broke up with her,” Joaquin said. “And her name was Elizabeth but everybody calls her Birdie.”
“Birdie.” Maya looked unimpressed. “Is she twee? Does she buy things on Etsy?”
Joaquin had no idea what Etsy was. “It was her grandmother’s name,” he explained. “What does twee mean?”
“Nothing,” Grace said. “Why’d you break up with her?”
Joaquin laughed a little, then watched as the joint started to sink to the bottom of the pool. “It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not,” Maya said. It was the softest Joaquin had ever heard her sound. “You obviously still like her.”
“How do you know that?” he asked her.
“You’re blushing,” both girls said, and Joaquin realized that they were right.
Goddamnit.
“Fine,” he said. “Since we’re all doing deep confessions right now, I broke up with her because I wasn’t good enough for her.”
“She said that?” Grace gasped.
“I’ll punch her right in her stupid bird face,” Maya growled.
“No, no, she didn’t . . . oh God.” Joaquin raised up his hands. “I figured that out on my own. She has a lot of dreams and goals and stuff. She should get to have them.”
Joaquin watched as the girls’ faces went from furious to perplexed. “Wait,” Maya said after a few seconds of silence. “Did you think that you weren’t good enough for her?”
“Oh, Joaquin,” Grace sighed.
Joaquin was getting used to the way people seemed to be disappointed in him all the time. “You don’t understand,” he said. “You two, you grew up with families. You’ve probably lived in this house since you were born, right? Right?” he said again when Maya didn’t respond, and she reluctantly nodded. “Okay, the same