knob of her knee through her jeans, and August wants to touch it, hold her closer, make it better, but she doesn’t know how.
“If it helps…” August says finally. Jane’s hair is sleek and thick between her fingers, and she shivers when August scratches her scalp. “I’ve never found anywhere I wanted to stay either, until now. And I still feel trapped sometimes, in my head. Like, even when I’m with my friends, and I’m having fun, and I’m doing all the dumb, small life things, sometimes it still feels like something’s wrong. Like something’s wrong with me. Even people who aren’t stuck on a train feel that way. Which I realize sounds … bleak. But what I’ve figured out is, I’m never as alone as I think I am.”
Jane’s quiet, considering. “That does help,” she says.
“Cool,” August says. She bumps her knee gently, nudging Jane’s head. “You said you missed going to the movies, right?”
Jane opens her eyes finally, looking up into August’s. “Yeah.”
“Okay, so, my favorite movie of all time,” August says, fishing her phone out. “It’s from the ’80s. It’s called Say Anything. How ’bout this—we listen to the soundtrack, and I’ll tell you about it, and it’ll be almost as good.”
August extends an earbud to her. She eyes it.
“Myla did say you should be teaching me this stuff.”
“She’s a smart woman,” August says. “Come on.”
Jane takes it, and August cues up the music. August tells her about Lloyd and Diane and the party and the keys, the dinner, the diatribes about capitalism and the back seat of the car. She talks about the boom box and the pen and the payphone. She talks about the plane at the end, about how Diane says nobody believes it’ll work out, how Lloyd says that every success story starts out that way too.
Jane hums and taps the toe of her sneaker, and August keeps touching her hair, and she tries to make her feelings small and quiet enough to focus on getting it right, the quote about not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing or who you’re supposed to be when everyone else around you seems so sure: I don’t know, but I know that I don’t know. That one feels important.
It’s embarrassing to the August who likes to play tough, for this stupid movie to mean so much to her, but “In Your Eyes” comes on, and Jane breathes out like she’s been punched in the gut. She gets it.
August doesn’t want to think about kissing Jane when the music fades out or when the doors slide open at Parkside Ave. or when she tucks her apron under her arm and waves good night. But she does, and she does, and she does.
When she gets home, Myla’s sprawled out on the couch and Niko is puttering around the kitchen, finishing up the last few days’ worth of dishes.
“We decided to finish a season of Lost,” Niko says as he towels off a cereal bowl. “I can’t believe they moved the island. I am, as Isaiah would say, gooped.”
“Yeah, wait until you get to the part with Claire’s creepy Blair Witch baby.”
“Don’t spoil him!” Myla says. She’s cradling an enormous bag of jelly beans like it’s a baby. August thinks she might be stoned.
“He’s literally a psychic.”
“Still.”
August holds up her hands in surrender.
“How’s our girl tonight?” Niko asks.
“She’s all right,” August tells him. “Kinda sad. It’s hard on her, being stuck down there.”
“I didn’t mean Jane,” he says. “I meant you.”
“Oh,” August says. “I’m … I’m okay.”
Niko narrows his eyes. “You’re not. But you don’t have to talk about it.”
“I just…” August paces over to one of the Eames chairs and drops into it bonelessly. “Ugh.”
“What’s wrong, little swamp frog?” Myla says, shoving a handful of jelly beans into her mouth.
August buries her face in her hands. “How do you know if a girl likes you?”
“Oh, this again,” Myla says. “I already told you.”
August groans. “It’s just … it’s all gotten so complicated, and I never know what’s real and what’s not and what’s because she needs somebody and what’s because I need somebody, and it’s—ugh. It’s just ugh.”
“You have to actually say something to her, August.”
“But what if she doesn’t feel the same? We’re stuck with each other. I’m the only one who can help her. I’ll make the whole thing weird, and she’ll end up hating me because it’s always awkward, and I can’t do that to either of us.”