“I can’t pull it together.” I wheezed as thoughts of Ethan threatened to send me to the next level of crying-mess, aka the puddle stage. If I hit that, there’d be no calming down anytime soon.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong?” Gabby asked. “Are you sick?”
At the same time Nittha said, “Do we need to cancel next weekend?”
I exhaled, my entire body collapsing as me and my oversized hoodie became one with the little wooden bench. Part of mewished I had texted them the truth. But after everything that happened last week, I’d been too busy trying not to snot-cry in front of BamBam to do much of anything other than message them with an excuse that I wasn’t feeling well and therefore wasn’t going to be at the pool party. I left out the part where I’d waited for BamBam to leave so I could look for breakup playlists to sob to in the shower instead of wrapping up TrendCon with my friends. In retrospect, admitting that Ethan and I were done, and that I wasn’t going to enter the contest, so there was no reason for them to come all the way to the Chicago area regional event to see my big directorial debut, would have been the less chaotic thing to do.
“Jamie, this long silence is making me nervous,” Gabby said, lifting her sunglasses up and leaning closer to her screen. “And where are you?”
“Wait, don’t say whatever it is yet. I need Cricket.” Nittha dove off of her bed.
“You are really gonna make us wait longer.” Gabby glared at Nittha’s empty square.
“Unlike me, Cricket is very good with emotionally difficult situations,” Nittha hollered from somewhere off camera. “Okay, we’re back. Go ahead, Jamie.” Nittha waved Cricket, who was wearing a pink polka-dot bow and matching collar, at us. “Please tell us you aren’t in Point Nemo or something.”
“Where is Point Nemo?” I sniffed.
“Middle of nowhere. It’s basically inaccessible. We’re learning about it in school,” Gabby said. I was glad they went to the same online school so she could decipher Nittha’s particularbrand of random. “Tell us what’s going on. You look like you were attacked by a wild pack of sloths.”
“Do sloths come in packs?” I wrinkled my nose. Nittha giggled, but Gabby wasn’t having it. “Okay, okay. I’m at the dry cleaner’s. In the alterations booth.”
“What?” Gabby asked, looking deeply disturbed.
“Why are you there?’ Nittha’s forehead creased with confusion. “And why are you crying?”
I took a deep breath and stared up at the noise-absorbing tiled ceiling trying to decide where to start. In the background, the shop’s bell dinged with the entry of another customer who Dalia whispered a greeting to, presumably so as not to disrupt my recovery during a stage-three public meltdown. That was kind of her.
Turning back to the phone, I let the whole story come out, at first in measured, deep breaths and then, as I got closer to actually breaking things off with Ethan, in another round of pathetic, messy sobs. For maybe the first time in years of friendship, Nittha and Gabby didn’t interrupt me to ask questions. Instead, they let me blabber with only an occasional break for me to wipe my nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.
“So, yeah. There is no video and no Ethan. But that’s okay.” I tried to end the story on a happy note, although my voice sounded like I was dangerously close to wailing again.
Gabby blinked at me for a second, while Nittha rocked Cricket back and forth like a baby, both of them waiting to see if I was done sob-talking or if I was going to break into actual howls now.
“Low-key feels like maybe you could have told us immediately after this happened and not like a week later when you had a breakdown at the dry cleaner’s, so you didn’t have to be sad by yourself.” Gabby nodded; after a beat, she added, “But I’m glad you’re telling us now.”
“Me too.” I sniffed. Telling them hadn’t exactly made me feel better. I did, however, feel like a human ball of emotions crammed into a dirty sweatshirt, so there was that.
“We’re not mad,” Nittha added, more as a warning to Gabby to ease off unless she wanted another Jamie-shaped tear puddle to appear. “Jamie, do you want to talk-talk about this or cry-talk about it? Like, where is your headspace?”
“Good question.” Gabby leaned back in her chair. “Are we all shaking our fists at the sky and saying we hate Ethan? Or are we exploring the root cause of our feelings? Both are valid.”
“I don’t know? Both?” I said, feeling like maybe I wasn’t as done crying as I thought I was. “Like, I want a hug, for Ethan to be miserable without me, and for everything to be okay.”
“Got it.” Nittha nodded and waved Cricket at the screen. “Virtual hug.”
“Yup, big puppy snuggles,” Gabby said flatly. Pushing her sunglasses back over her eyes, she added, “Are you okay with me asking a hard question now?”
“That wasn’t a very long virtual hug,” Nittha chided, laying Cricket down next to her.
“Shh, it’s Jamie’s turn.” Gabby waved playfully. “Jamie, don’t take this the wrong way, but don’t you think a lot of assumptions were baked into this breakup?”
“Okay, yes.” Nittha nodded in agreement. “I thought so, too.”
My nerves tensed up, and I played with the cuff of my sweatshirt, waiting for Gabby to wait for Nittha to finish so the former could ask her question. “I’m not asking this to be mean, but like, how do you know your parents wouldn’t support your career aspirations or that BamBam would hate you?”
I paused, forcing a gulp of air into my lungs as my throat tightened. My vision blurred as a fresh round of tears threatened to start up again. “My parents are constantly on me. The only time they aren’t telling me to be better is when I’m asleep, or at mock trial, because parents aren’t allowed to speak in the courtroom.”
“Do you need a Kleenex?” someone who was decidedly not Dalia called from the other side of the blue curtain, causing my friends and me to jump.
