Free 34 Pieces of You by Carmen Rodrigues Page A

much, and I feel that all-too-familiar pain in my chest. That pain thatsometimes feels like it could tear me apart. “Just go. There’s nothing you know about this.”
    There is a long silence, and then she is beside me, reaching for me. I take a step back and another and another until I am where she began. The cold glass presses against my skin. She’s breaths away. “Jake . . .” She touches the side of my face, but I push her hand off. “What were the chances of us meeting that night, of me being here when she called? It seems so improbable. So unlikely, and ever since I found out, I keep thinking . . .” Her voice cracks. Her eyes fill with tears. “What were the chances?”
    “What difference does it make?” I ask, but I know what she knows: I know it made all the difference in the world. And I finally understand the reason for her visit. Why she just gave me her little speech. She needs what we all need: forgiveness.
    “Jake . . .” She strokes my chest. It feels strange to have another person’s hand on me, to hear another person’s voice beside me. “If we had never met . . .” Her eyes search mine. “If I had let you go . . .” She presses against me.
    “Amber, please .” I push against the window, but there’s nowhere else to go. For months my head has pounded with all the could have s and should have s, Ellie’s words constantly ringing in my ears: If I need you, you’ll come back for me?
    Amber’s lips slide across my neck. She whispers, “I just needyou to know how incredibly terrible I feel. . . . I’ll never forgive myself.” She lays her head on my chest, her guilt soaking my T-shirt, as she says over and over again, “I’m so sorry.”
    When she kisses me, I don’t stop her. I let her lead me to the bed. I let her turn out the lights. And when she runs her hands down my back, I tell myself not to think about what comes next. That what we’re doing is okay. That this is what I need to feel better—the darkness of this night. The illusion that love is near.

12.
     
    I miss sixth grade and that time y o u c o nvinced me t o play B ar b ies in y o ur b edr oo m. We drew the shades tightly, afraid that s o me o ne might use a ladder t o scale y o ur walls and find us there, still b eing children.
     

Jessie
    BEFORE. JULY.
     
    We crouched in the bushes outside Tommy’s bedroom. Lola heaved loudly, like we had just walked a mile instead of a hundred feet. She looked like she might cry, but as far as I knew, Lola hadn’t cried all year.
    “What’s going on?” I finally asked.
    She stared at the grass like she was counting the number of blades. A butterfly darted by, and I watched its wings flutter, a smear of yellow and black fighting hard against a sudden current of wind.
    “Lola,” I said gently, “can you at least tell me why we’re here?”
    She started to cry then, and I couldn’t help but think that her cry was like some sort of a miracle, like seeing Jesus in a grilledcheese sandwich or something. Eventually, she wiped her hand across her nose, snot clinging to the edge of her wrist. She pushed her hair into her face and shook her head, like she wanted to keep whatever it was to herself. But then she said, “A few months ago I was leaving your house and Tommy was there and he asked if he could walk with me a bit . . .”
    She took a deep breath before continuing, her voice nearly mechanical, as if she had gone over this story a hundred times in her head. “We were just walking and joking around about nothing, really, but then he grabbed my hand and said I was pretty.”
    The music stopped, leaving us with the light sound of Sarah’s laughter. Lola cringed. When the music started up again, she continued, her voice harder than before. “My mom was out on a date with some new loser, and Tommy had some . . .” She halted; her expression made it clear she didn’t want to tell me.
    “What, Lola? What did he have?”
    She cleared her throat.