and I’ve unzipped my parka and taken off my scarf by the time I reach the museum. At first, I can’t tell if I like Frank Lloyd Wright’s pairing of unconventional spirals and sharp angles, but the more I walk around the building, the more I appreciate it. Wright was a master of architecture emerging organically and harmoniously from its surroundings. The Guggenheim is a perfect example. The concrete walls flow up from the sidewalk into shapes reminiscent of the modern art the museum was designed to house.
In front, I find a sign advertising a special Kandinsky exhibit. I take a photo for Marisa, who famously detests art museums. She says they’re just excuses for people to pretend they’re cultured.
I pay the eighteen-dollar student rate and enter the museum. While I’m wandering up the curved walkways, my phone buzzes with a text. I assume it’s Fitz, who hasn’t replied to me in an hour. Admittedly, I’m curious about whatever is distracting him. But when I unlock my phone, I find a text from Marisa.
Do you know how much of a dork you are?
I smile, stopping to lean against the railing overlooking the interior.
I’ve never claimed otherwise.
I’m still mad at you for getting me grounded.
She follows up the message with a string of emojis—the frowning cat—and I know her anger is fading.
Be mad at yourself. You know I didn’t have a choice.
She replies immediately with a new row of emojis. Flames and the purple devil face.
I wait. I have a pretty good feeling the conversation’s not over, and I’m not surprised when the typing bubble pops up. It disappears, and I gaze over the railing into the museum while tourists examine the artwork opposite me. The typing bubble reappears, and finally my phone vibrates.
How’s your trip?
The question is whiplash. I’m immediately grateful to my sister for her effortless reconciliation. The very next instant comes the nasty yank of remembering she doesn’t know Matt and I broke up. I can’t tell her, either. I know what would happen if I did. The news would reach my parents, who would definitely try to convince me to come home, and then Tía.
Tía, who would turn my heartache into a tactic. Who would feed my loneliness to the arguments never far from her reach. Who would hint and imply and eventually remind me outright I wouldn’t be hurting on my own if I were home in the comfort of my family. To her, my breakup would just be proof that I’m not mature, that I still need my family.
I won’t give her the chance.
Really amazing. You’d love the campuses.
Don’t worry, I’ll invite you to visit me next year.
I hate the forced cheeriness of my replies. This is the one time I don’t want to talk about college. I want to talk about my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend. Instead, I have to pretend everything is wonderful and I’m enjoying my trip exactly the way I’d planned.
I could really use sisterly commiseration right now, which is unlike me. We’ve never been the type of siblings who braid each other’s hair, who share every secret and every detail of our lives. But this is one time it’d be nice to open up to her. The fact that I can’t doesn’t just frustrate me. It frightens me.
Because I’m beginning to recognize this feeling. I don’t want this to be the rest of my relationship with my family, this dynamic of their constricting tendencies forcing me to push and push until I no longer remember wanting to be close to them. I don’t want to not reach out to my sister when I need her. Or dread coming home from school on holidays because of the lectures and judgment I know will be waiting. And I don’t want to move far from home and never return, not even when I get married, not even when I have kids, not until it’s one of my own parents who is ill or dying.