Heartbreaker - Julie Kriss Page 0,32

an EMT? What did my parents do for a living? I answered her as politely and evasively as I could, giving Eric subtle death glares whenever I caught his eye. He pretended not to notice.

When she wasn’t asking about me, Helen told me about herself. She worked at a financial firm downtown. (Shades of Mina, I thought, because I was unable to stop thinking about Mina.) She was in a management job, which she said was quite important. According to Helen, all of her coworkers really liked her, and she was very busy. There were others at her company that were incompetent, but she wasn’t one of them. In fact, to listen to her, she’d never made a mistake in her life.

I nodded as she talked, barely listening. I’d made so many fucking mistakes in my life that I couldn’t relate.

At one point Helen insisted we all take a selfie, and I sat there stiffly as she took a picture of the four of us, sitting at our table as if we were good friends. When Eric and Rachel moved back to their places she quickly took one of just her and me before I could escape.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it,” she said, shrugging.

Finally, pained by the awkwardness and a little bored, I claimed exhaustion and said I had to go home. I didn’t care if Eric was inconvenienced; he was out of luck. I had helped him along on his date as much as I was willing, and he’d have to handle it from here.

“We should go out again sometime,” Helen said as I pushed back my chair. “Just you and me.”

“My schedule is pretty full,” I said. “I work long shifts.”

“Give me your number and we’ll set something up,” she said.

She didn’t take a hint very well. I really did not want to dodge Helen’s calls for the next few weeks until she figured out I wasn’t interested. I glanced at Eric and Rachel, who were talking softly together, ignoring us. “How about you give me your number instead?” I said to her.

She lit up at that, instead of seeing it for the dodge it was. “I’d love to!” she said. She wrote her number on a cocktail napkin and slid it over to me. “I work nine to five, but I’m free any other time. How about next weekend?”

I should have said it: I’m not interested. Or, better yet: I’m interested in someone else. But it seemed like such a callous thing to say right there in public, in front of her cousin. Letting her down easy had to be the better way. And damn Eric for putting me in this position in the first place.

“I’m working night shifts next weekend,” I said, which was actually true.

“Oh, so we can get together during the day, then.” Helen shrugged. “I don’t mind.”

“I sleep during the day.” I took the cocktail napkin and shoved it in my jeans pocket, trying not to sound grumpy. “I’ll call you.”

“Okay, great!” Jesus, she was oblivious. “I look forward to it!”

Giving Eric one last death glare, I made my escape. It felt good to be in the chill air outside, away from the crowd and the music and the need to make stilted conversation. I walked back to the apartment, trying to calm down. There was too much going on in my head. I was tired and riled up and annoyed by the evening, and thoughts of Mina were never far from my mind. Was she having a good time? Was she mad at me? Was she even thinking about me at all?

In my room, I shucked off all my clothes except for my boxers and a tee. I got in bed with an exhausted groan, but I couldn’t sleep just yet.

After a few minutes I got back up and picked up my jeans where I’d dropped them on the floor. I took Helen’s number out of the back pocket and balled it up, throwing it in the garbage in the bathroom. Then I got back in bed.

I felt so much better after that, I fell asleep in seconds.

Fifteen

Mina

Hamilton blew my mind. My feet didn’t touch the ground for three days afterward, and all of my dreams were set to the soundtrack. This—this was what theater was supposed to be, how it was supposed to make you feel. It was the kind of thing that made me believe in theater all over again, because it was proof that it was art, something that