“If you knew I’d worry, why didn’t you ask me?” I feel people’s gazes whip from the photos to me. I feel larger than life. I feel the size of an entire photograph. I’m taking up so much space in the frame of each picture and now I’m taking up too much space in this building and I have to get out.
There’s a crowd right beyond the doors, smoking cigarettes and pot and drinking beers out of paper bags. The combined smells turn my already-turning stomach, and I keep walking, but where am I supposed to go? Jordi drove me here. Jordi’s done everything tonight.
“Abby.” She races to me, her hair bouncing with each step. “Abby. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t think about me at all,” I say. “No, you did think of me, and then you decided it didn’t matter? And I don’t even know why. You could have a whole great show without me, but you did it anyway, and now I’m …”
“Those are some of my best work,” she says.
“Fuck your best work,” I say. “I’m a person. I’m your girlfriend.”
“That’s why I love those pictures so much, because you—”
“No,” I say. “Don’t come out here and tell me why the pictures are so great when you know you should have asked me. And you know I would have said no, and that’s exactly why you didn’t.”
Jordi is silent.
“It’s so …” I search for words that capture how broken my heart is. “Intimate. We were on my bed and now that moment’s on a wall and later people can see it while Murphy Gomez is playing that song about pants.”
“I’ll talk to them,” she says. “Pehrspace, not the band. I’ll see if I can take them down right now. I’m—”
“Oh, just leave them up. I should have known if you’d burn a house down to get a good shot for your portfolio that I’d have no chance of escaping unharmed.”
It isn’t a fair thing to say and we both know it.
“Please let me fix this,” she says.
“I don’t know how you can,” I say. “Just go back inside to your show. I’m sure you’ll get into whatever art school you want now.”
“I care more about you than art school,” she says.
“Now there’s definitive proof that actually you don’t at all. You don’t even love me.” I turn from her and walk further, and when I don’t hear her footsteps following me, I keep walking. I stop in front of the gas station above Temple Street and take out my phone. How had I even managed to switch my lock screen to the selfie Jordi took of us only minutes ago?
I call Maliah and literally cross my fingers that she’ll answer. And she does.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m sorry. You’re probably out with Trevor but—”
“Abbs,” she says. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, god, am I crying?” I touch my face. I’m crying. “Can you come get me?”
“What happened?” she asks. “Abby, please tell me you’re okay.”
“Jordi and I broke up,” I say.
“I’m on my way,” she says. “Send me a pin.”
I click to my maps app and message my location to Maliah. To kill time, I go inside for a Diet Coke, and I know I’m still crying when I pay for it but I pretend like I’m not. My phone vibrates in my hand, but I go back outside before checking it.
the photos are down, Jordi has texted.
i fucked up so bad.
please come back, abby.
Maliah’s Mini screeches up to me, and I practically fall inside.
“Thank you so much.”
She looks me over. “Hi.”
“I know you want to say it, so go ahead.”
“Say what?” She reaches over and smooths my hair. “Girl, somehow you look wrecked and better than ever all at once.”
“Thank you?” I lean into her. “You can say I told you so. About Jordi.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t say anything when I went to that snobby country club party with Trevor, even after it was horrible in that really clichéd country club way. You even helped me pick out my outfit and let me complain for days.”
“We’re friends,” I say. “Of course I did.”
“Exactly.” She hugs an arm around me. “Seriously, Abbs. Where the hell even are we?”
I direct Maliah back to the familiarity of our neighborhood, and we end up at her house. I text Mom and Dad that I’m here, and that they can even call the Joneses to verify.
My phone gets three more texts while I’m holding it.
where are you?
abby, are you okay?
please, can we talk?
“Come on.” Maliah gently pulls my phone out of my hand. “This won’t do any good right now. Tell me everything.”
I finish drinking my Diet Coke, and I tell her the whole story. By now, Jordi’s parents should have arrived at Pehrspace, and I wonder what they think about my absence and the empty wall of the exhibit. I wonder where they stacked all the photos of me, of my life, of my relationship, of my body.
“Did she apologize?” Maliah asks.
I nod.
“But it’s over?”
I nod more.
“Okay,” she says. “What do you want to do? What are all the breakup things? I can’t believe I’m doing this for you. I just always thought it’d be you for me first.”
“Me too,” I admit, and then we both laugh.
“Ice cream?” Maliah asks. “Chocolate? Why are all breakup clichés food?”
“It’s dumb,” I say. “But also … okay. If you have those things.”
“If we don’t, we’ll get them,” she says. “Abby, I’m sorry.”
I nod.
“Not just … that you and Jordi broke up. I don’t feel like I’ve been very …”
“Supportive?” I try, and she laughs.
“It’s true I didn’t like Jordi at first,” she says. “But you’ve been really cool to Trevor, and so I should have tried more. I’ll try more with the next girl, okay?”
“Oh, like there’ll be a next girl,” I say. “It’s a miracle there was one girl!”
“It’s not, and you have to stop saying things like that,”
