Free How to Break a Heart by Kiera Stewart

her hair, but he can see the rise of her cheeks, and feel the burdensome, overwhelming, helpless wave that sometimes hits him. He wants to keep her smiling. So he keeps brushing and says, “Probably eating cake.”
    “Yes!” she says. “He’s definitely eating cake.”
    “And maybe hanging out with Michael Jackson.”
    “Michael Jackson?”
    “I don’t know a lot of dead people,” Thad admits.
    Then he has an idea. “Hey, Mom, Aunt Nora’s not going to work till late. Want me to go to the store and buy a cake?”
    “Oh, I—” She sighs. “That sounds fun, but honestly, I think I’m pretty tired. I’m sorry.”
    “That’s okay,” he says, putting down the brush, although he can’t help feeling a little disappointed.
    She pulls the blanket up to her chin, and he notices her feet are covered up, too. He doesn’t want them covered up—he wants to see her wiggle her big toe. Both big toes, maybe. It could happen.
    “Mom?” he says. Maybe she’ll try, just for him.
    “Hmm?” she says, like she’s too tired for words.
    “Never mind.” He gives her a kiss on the forehead and leaves the room quietly. On the way back to the kitchen, he pauses at the front closet and stares at the louvered door. Behind that door, on a shelf, the Box of Dad sits.
    Happy birthday, Dad.
    This is the problem with love—real love, not the stupid make-believe stuff that Mabry passes it off as. On a good day, it can wind up in a wheelchair—on a
good
day. On a bad day, it can end up in a box that costs ten dollars and seventy-two cents to ship.

yo corto

tú cortas

ella corta

nosotros cortamos

ellos cortan
    I n the morning, there’s no sign of Sirina at school. I study my new Mariela face in the tiny mirror on the inside of the locker door, brush some of the mascara flakes from my cheeks, and try that whole
heartbreak, thy name is
thing silently. It feels tinny and hollow without her.
¿Donde estás, Sirina? ¡Donde estás!
I finally pull out my phone and call her. It’s an illegal act here at Hubert C. Frost, but it’s like when, on
La Vida Rica
, Rafael had to steal food for his starving children. Something that has to be done.
    “Why are you calling me?” she asks, panicked. “You’re going to get caught!”
    “Where are you?” I hope to hear that she’s just running late, because a day of school without Sirina is a day of unbearable loneliness.
    “I had one of those auras,” she says quickly. “I’m fine; my mom’s just being paranoid and wants me to rest. I’m just going to stay home and eat Jell-O.”
    Jell-O. It’s an ongoing joke between us—ever since I made the Red Jell-O Confession. But I find it hard to laugh right now, because I always worry when she has an aura.
    The auras are part of her epilepsy. They used to come right before a seizure, but she hasn’t had one of those in almost a year. I try to remain calm. She hates it when I get too anxious about it—she tells me my stress is contagious. So I ignore the ambulance sirens and hospital scenes that are blasting through my head and say, as reasonably as possible, “But you’re okay?”
    “Yes! I don’t need you to start worrying, okay? Look, I did everything I could to come to school today, but my mom is just being a total nut. And we seriously don’t need to get on the wrong side of Officer Dirk right now, so I’m going to hang up before you get detention.”
    And she does. I feel as alone as Graciela when she was lost in the forest and living in a cave. I try to remind myself that I’ve been through worse, such as the four weeks last summer that Sirina went off to her epilepsy camp, leaving me lonely and miserable, a shell of myself. Even though it was nearly impossible, I
somehow
did manage to stay alive. So I should be able to handle one day without her.
    I look down at my purple tunic. I look down at the heels I borrowed from my mom’s closet. And suddenly I feel like an eighth grader in costume instead of the Mighty Mariela I