Instructions for a Broken Heart (7 page)

“Carissa is whatever she is that day.” She pulled a pillow from behind her onto her lap, leaned into it. A breeze rustled the linen curtains at the window. She welcomed it on her face; it was cool and slightly wet. Outside, clouds gathered in the dark sky, blanketed the moon. Tomorrow, she would spend her last day in Florence, with its stone streets, its wide river, its buildings stuffed so full of art that even after so many hours she hadn’t even started to see it.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Ms. Jackson peeked her head in. “Lights out. Tyler, back to your room now, OK? Where’s Erika?”

“Mine and Blake’s room.” Tyler hopped off the bed. “I’ll get her.”

“Thanks.” Ms. Jackson opened the door a bit wider to let him by. She licked her lips, leaned her head against the doorway. Jessa picked lint from her pajamas.

“Mr. Campbell told me what happened.”

“He’s probably worried I’ll throw a drink in his face tomorrow.” Jessa felt a tear slip down her face, saw it fall on the letter in her lap, blurring two of the words.

Ms. Jackson sat on the bed next to her. “He’s worried about you. So am I.”

“It wasn’t his fault, Ms. Jackson. If you’re wondering. I don’t want to get him in trouble.” She folded the note quietly, concentrating on smoothing each bended edge with a slow pinch of her fingers.

“Well, it’s not good that it happened. But he told me. You’ve told me. There’s nothing else we can do. It would be best if you two weren’t alone together.” Ms. Jackson pushed her glasses on top of her head, rubbed her eyes. “And you really need to start reeling in your behavior.”

The sob started low in Jessa’s gut, rattled around there, pushing and plying at the confines of her body, checking for weak points, for a place to break through. It prickled underneath her eyelids and skin, bubbled to the surface like sulfur.

“Oh, honey…” Ms. Jackson held her, her arms around her, rubbing her back the way her own mother did the night before she left when she had told her, “You don’t have to go. You don’t have to go. You don’t have to go,” in the glow of the small table lamp Jessa had had since she was five, the one shaped like a milkmaid carrying water for her cows.

Jessa melted into her teacher, who smelled of pastries and a little like cut flowers.

Carissa knew.
She knew
, Jessa thought. This was mostly what her friend meant by the Dylan Thomas quote, not just the stuck-in-quicksand part. She knew Jessa needed to cry as much as she possibly could, to get him out through her tear ducts, until she couldn’t cry anymore.
The force that drives the water through the rocks, drives my red blood…
But maybe she didn’t know that the tears rolling down her face, water changing her, cleansing her, shifting, were just the start of something else—a river carrying her somewhere else. She didn’t fight it, just leaned into her teacher, whose arms around her became the only solid thing in the room; everything else was water. Jessa was her tears—her whole body washing away, washing into nothingness, forever changed, heading somewhere completely unknown.

Of course, Carissa also had another side to her. It’s why Jessa loved her so much. She could be super intense and deep and dark and then turn around and write something like Reason #6:

There was a stupid boy from our town

Who decided to start messing around

He found that he cared

Not about what was upstairs

But the eggs in the front of her gown.

The bus had let them off at the Palazzo Pitti, a sprawling Renaissance palace. After a quick tour, they had an hour to roam, armed with the boxed lunches Francesca had passed out to them. Jessa, Tyler, and Dylan Thomas wandered through the Boboli Gardens, pointing out statues and funny tourists—what was
with
the guy in the leg warmers?—until they found themselves at the upper, southern edge of the gardens.

Jessa read the note again, shaking her head, still exhausted after the outpouring last night. She had avoided Ms. Jackson’s gaze at breakfast, could still feel the weight of her arms around her body, a body still partly liquid. But now there was this poem of a different sort. Jessa had to laugh even though the limerick was totally stupid. She handed it to Tyler.

“Frankly, you need no other reason than this.” Tyler gave it back. “He’s a big coward who opted for boobs over brain. Not only is that generic, hers are too big anyway. I mean, that just has to get in the way.”

“Seriously,” Dylan Thomas agreed. “More than a mouthful’s a waste of space.”

“That’s lovely. Charming. Both of you.” Jessa tipped her head toward the sun, watching the bustle of the Easter picnics all around them. The view of the palace and countryside stretched out in front of them. Jessa’s dad always told her a view was as good an education as anything, so they decided to sprawl out and soak up the lazy, Easter Sunday sky, the sounds of laughing families and lilting Italian all around.

“Maybe someone should tell Carissa that a limerick might be more appropriate for St. Patrick’s Day, not Easter.” Tyler opened his lunch box.

Dylan Thomas stretched out on his back. “I think I’m a little in love with this envelope girl.”

Tyler shook his head. “Oh, friend, that’s a whole bucket of mess you do not want to dig into.” He kicked his legs out in front of him and munched an apple. “You’re supposed to read it out loud where the chicken can hear it.”

Jessa opened her boxed lunch. “What is with Carissa’s obsession with me publicly denouncing him?”

“She’s trying to take you out of your nice, orderly little shell,” Tyler said through apple bites.

Jessa frowned. “Well, I’m not doing it.”

“You weren’t about to throw a drink in someone’s face either.”

Jessa peeled open her baguette sandwich, peered in at the fatty meat. “I can’t get on board with this salami.” She picked off each piece and handed them to Tyler.

Dylan Thomas made a face. “Now it’s just a mustard sandwich.”

“And cheese. There’s cheese.” She held up the bread for inspection.

Tyler chewed the salami and stared out over the Tuscan countryside. “I could live here.”

Nodding, Jessa bit into her sandwich, then took a sip from her bottle of water. The breeze tingled her face—it was both warm and cool and the air was rose scented. A perfect day. She closed her eyes.

A shadow fell across her face. A cloud across the sun?

In a matter of speaking. Sean stood above her. No sign of Natalie. She felt Tyler stiffen next to her. Dylan Thomas sat up, intrigued.

“Um, Jessa?”

“What do you want, Sean?” Jessa took another bite of her sandwich, hoping she looked casual, like she couldn’t care less. “I’m eating.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry to bother you. Could I talk to you for a minute?” Sean cracked his knuckles and waited, an annoying habit Jessa had always hated. She could add “cracks his knuckles” to the growing list.

She set her sandwich back into the little brown paper box. Tyler looked like he might say something, but instead he ate his own sandwich slowly, not taking his eyes off Sean.

“Here.” Dylan Thomas offered her his soda. “You might need this.”

Smiling, she walked away with Sean, aware of the space of their bodies, the prickly sizzle of his nearness. What was it about this boy that made her skin feel drizzled with something electric, something alive?

They found a bench several yards away and out of sight of her friends. When he didn’t say anything, just picked at a hangnail, she finally asked again, “What do you want?”

He sighed, his face dark. She could see a piece of lint in one of his lashes. A week ago, she’d have picked it off so it wouldn’t get into his contact lenses. “I deserved the orange soda.”

“Yeah. You did.” She crossed her ankles, swung her feet a bit under the bench.

“I can’t believe you threw it at me, but I deserved it.” He glanced sideways at her. “Carissa tell you to do that?”

“No.”

Sean shrugged. He wore the blue long-sleeved shirt she had bought him for his birthday at a ski shop near her house. She remembered holding it up against the boy working there to make sure it would fit him. She tried not to notice how good it looked on Sean, how the slim bones of his wrists peeked out beneath the cuffs.

He leaned in to her a bit, his shoulder brushing hers. She could smell his shampoo, spice and citrus. He said softly, “It was actually kind of hot.”

At first she thought he meant the shirt, that it was too warm here in the sun-drenched gardens for long sleeves. Then she realized he meant her. The drink in his face. Jerk.

“Where’s the Boob Job?”

He sat up straighter. “You know you and Carissa really shouldn’t call her that. She didn’t have a boob job. It hurts her feelings.” His words forced sudden distance between them, a brick wall of Easter air. No more brushing shoulders.

“I wasn’t aware androids had feelings. She must be a hybrid.” Jessa kicked her legs a bit harder, imagined kicking Sean, hard, in the shins and running away, the way she did to her cousin Warren at Easter when she was six and he took her red egg. Another Easter kick for good measure, ten years later.

Sean planted his hands on either side of his legs on the bench. “You know, she’s actually going through a really tough time right now. Her parents are blasting each other in their divorce. Her dad took off and she doesn’t know where he is and she hasn’t seen him for more than five minutes in months.” He stopped, catching his breath. “Forget it. This isn’t about Natalie.”

Jessa hated the way her name sounded in his mouth. The way he almost breathed it, like it was something gossamer, something with wings. “What’s it about then?”

He put his hand on her leg, just a little higher than her knee, and she knew her jeans must be singed, that a big black burn mark must be appearing beneath him. “I miss you, Jess.”

Using what must only be superhuman strength, some sort of superhero power deep inside in her cells from a former cape-wearing life, she stood up, knocking his hand from her leg. Her jeans were fine. No burns.

“You don’t get to miss me. Besides,” she pointed across the gardens to where Natalie stood in a white tank top talking to a boy from the other group, the boy who had kissed Madison inside the Pantheon. Jamal, his name was—a basketball player with the easy charm of a movie star. The blonde girl from the Pantheon whose name had turned out to be Cheyla, sauntered up, whispered something in his ear, then wandered away.

“Isn’t your girlfriend waiting for you?” Jessa spit the word
girlfriend
. She knew it sounded petty and mean, knew her eyes were shooting microscopic knives into Natalie from afar, but she didn’t really care.

Sean looked like a four-day-old balloon deflating there on the bench. “I just thought…forget it.” He shook his head, turned, and walked away.

She watched him go to Natalie, wrap his arm around her waist. Natalie laughed at something Jamal said but turned and kissed Sean, was still kissing him when Jessa turned and walked slowly back to her friends.

***

That night, Jessa leaned on the sill of her hotel window and gazed out at the lights of Florence. Tomorrow, they would leave this place and travel to Venice. She’d miss this city with its rich frescoed walls and cobbled streets, with its fat, churning river. She watched a couple walking on the street below her. Something in the way the woman held the man made Jessa think of the painting she’d seen earlier in the palace, a Rubens painting—
The Consequences of War
. Venus trying to stop Mars from going to war as a Fate pulled him closer, the pull of destiny. The man and woman rounded the corner of a building, pulled toward their own fate.

Fate. What if Sean was supposed to kiss Natalie? What if Fate pulled him into the costume barn, pulled Jessa toward the door, opened it right at that moment? What if she was supposed to be in Italy alone watching the night sky through a hotel window?

Down on the street corner a figure emerged from the hotel, talking quickly, heatedly into a cell phone. The glow of a streetlamp cast her suddenly into a yellow-white light, and Jessa saw it was Natalie, gesturing wildly with her free hand.

Abruptly, the call seemed to end. Natalie sat down on the dark curb, back into shadow, and buried her face in her knees.

“Jessa?” Erika stood in the doorway behind her. “Ms. Jackson wants us all to come to the creativity salon now. She says we have to hurry while the other group’s out dancing so they don’t try to crash it.” She crossed the room and leaned onto the sill with Jessa. “Wow. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”

Jessa pulled her eyes from Natalie’s dark shape. She had never heard Erika call anything beautiful, had never heard much positive energy escape her black-lipstick mouth.

Erika tucked a lock of purple-black hair behind her ear. “It’s hard to believe that a place so beautiful could have such a dark history. I read somewhere that in the fourteen hundreds the Italians would publicly kill homosexuals.” Classic Erika. “They were drawn and quartered or burned at the stake. Right in the square for everyone to see.” She shook her head. “Actually, it was Florence that was lenient for a while, I read. But then they had to start doing it too. For political reasons.”

“Where do you get all this stuff?”

Erika smiled at her. “Gotta love the Internet.” She pointed at Jessa’s wrist. “Cool scar. Where’d you get that?”

“Oh, this.” Jessa considered the girl next to her, all that black and dark makeup, all that talk of vampires and burning at the stake and blood. “Just stupid seventh grade. Bad year. I’m fine now.”

Erika nodded, lifted a section of her sleeve. A thin, spidery line was etched there in her right forearm. “Sixth grade. Still not fine.” She smiled wryly, pushed away from the window. “See you down there?”

Jessa frowned but found her journal with the poem she’d written there in case Ms. Jackson got the crazy idea to start calling on people to read at the salon.

When she looked to the street again, Natalie was gone.

***

Jade was playing one of her original songs, “She’s Not Me.” Jessa had heard it before, but suddenly it had a very different effect on her. Funny how music did that—changed on you. She would’ve actually thought Jade’s song was a play-by-play of Jessa’s love life, except she knew Jade wrote it last year—before costume barns and overzealous bra sizes.

Baby, she’s not me. With her hair cut short,

Standing by your car last night in the moonlight.

Baby, she’s not me, she’s just your last resort.

Why’d you tell everyone that we were through?

Why’d you drive her home, why weren’t you true?

Jessa pressed herself back against the base of the couch, where she sat against Tyler’s legs. Ms. Jackson sat across the room cross-legged on a blue ottoman, her head bobbing along with Jade’s rich alto. The creativity salon had been Ms. Jackson’s idea, to get them all together to share some of their creative work. It sounded kind of fun when she’d told Jessa on the plane. But now it was really more of a train wreck.

Ms. Jackson had ushered them into a little room off the lobby of the hotel, where they sat mostly on the floor, propped up against couches and chairs. It had started off OK. Lizzie and Maya had each read a poem, Lizzie’s a funny pigeon’s-eye view of Italy, Maya’s filled with symbol and color. Devon and Tim had done one of their comedy sketches they’d been practicing in the hallway earlier. Something about a soccer player with no feet, which wasn’t actually very funny, but they thought they were hilarious, so everyone else thought they were hilarious. Those two could really commit to a scene. Jessa tried to laugh, but she couldn’t help feeling more like she wanted to run for the nearest exit.

Mr. Campbell seemed to be trying to look everywhere but at her. She’d been trying to talk to him all day, but he was like some sort of magician, always stepping from her presence into some unseen hidden paneling.

And now Jade had come up with that guitar of hers and picked that song:

When you kissed her in the rain,

Could you feel the pain drip down my face?

Disgrace…ooohhhhh…

Jessa leaned against Tyler’s legs, lacing her finger through the fringe of one of the woven rugs. He squeezed her shoulder. Across the room, Sean and Natalie were practically plastic-wrapped together on a totally cliché pink love seat. He rubbed her back in slow, steady circles. Her face seemed pinched, but she kept rubbing Sean’s leg, kept leaning back to give him tiny kisses, each one a dart on Jessa’s target body. Jessa’s chest strained, and she shifted beneath Tyler’s hand, her head starting to pound.

It’s like you didn’t blink.

You didn’t pause to think.

And now I’m crying…

“Whoa, Jade. Enough already. You’re killing us over here.”

Jessa’s eyes shot up to Tyler, who seemed just as surprised as the rest of the room at the words that had just tumbled out of his mouth. Seventeen sets of eyes swiveled his way.

Jade’s guitar stopped, her hand dropping away from the strings in the same slow fall as her jaw. “Tyler?” She ran a hand through her curls, fumbled with the woven headband pushing them back away from her wide face.