“Doing what?”

“Making music.”

Chapter Twenty-One

· isabel ·

On the way home, after the buzz of Cole had worn off, I kept finding my thoughts returning to breasts. I’d looked at mine in the mirror before. They didn’t look anything like the three sets that I’d just seen in Cole’s apartment, and not just because they had never had Cole’s name written on them. It wasn’t the size, really. It was the shape and the placement and the level of hang and sway versus perk and vengeance. It was the size and the shape and the color of nipples.

Different. But better? Worse? It was hard to attach a value judgment.

Ultimately, it just made me angry. What did anyone care anyway?

Cole stood around shirtless all the time. It wasn’t even really a thing for those girls to arrive without a top. It was an arbitrary decision culture had made to make our nipples salacious.

But it was a thing. And it did matter. And I couldn’t stop seeing them. That made me angrier than anything, that I couldn’t talk myself out of reliving the moment.

“Isabel, don’t you think you should tell people when you’re going to be out late?”

My mother’s voice carried from the living room as I stepped into the foyer of the House of Dismay and Ruin. I knew what I’d see before I’d even gotten to the end of the hall and rounded the doorway: my mother reclined elegantly on the sofa, hair cascading over her shoulders, wine glass in hand.

I was not wrong, though I hadn’t guessed that my aunt Lauren would be there as well, matching wine glass in her hand.

She waved at me a little, turning her head very slowly, looking weary behind the bandage taped between her eyes. She’d just gotten a nose job, and she was always saying that sudden movements gave her a headache.

“No,” I said, standing at the end of the sofa. On the television, a bitter soldier in a helmet peered into the distance. My mother watched war movies when she was feeling low. Probably because the excessive bloodshed and bitter victories reminded her of my father. “Because I’m over eighteen.”

My mother sighed. It was not particularly disappointed. She already knew this was an argument I was good at. I knew the rest of it, actually.

mom: But you live under my roof.

me: I’m happy to move out.

mom: You’ d have to get a job for — me: Yahtzee! Also, you told me I should find some friends.

mom:

My mother also knew the rest of it. So she just tipped the wine glass at me. “Want to try?”

“Is it any good?”

“No.”

I shook my head. “What’s that smell?”

My mother looked at Lauren. Lauren answered, “Sofia’s making cinnamon rolls.”

It was ten o’clock at night. I guessed there was nothing really wrong with baking at ten o’clock, but there was nothing really right about it, either.

“Is he cute?” Lauren asked me. “You were out with a boy, weren’t you?”

I blinked at her. I’d thought about what would happen when my mom and Lauren found out that I was dating Cole, but I hadn’t really expected how unpleasant it would feel to hear Lauren talk about him. Somehow it felt like it sullied him in a way he hadn’t been before. Dusted him with the sterile House of Ruin relationship powder, the grown-up version of love.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s like a damn panda.”

On the television, a tank shuddered as a round erupted from its gun. The camera shifted quickly to its target, a small bunker that exploded in a shower of cinder block and shattered dreams.

My mother began to cry softly. I went into the kitchen.

“Sofia, why are you making cinnamon rolls at ten o’clock at night?” I demanded.

My cousin turned from the counter. She was wearing duckprinted flannel pajama bottoms and her hair was down. She looked approximately twelve years old. Her T-shirt was covered with flour. I tried not to think about breasts.

“I was making them for you. So you could take one to class with you in the morning.”

I opened my mouth to snap something about carbohydrates, realized I was about to be a bitch, and shut it again. Maybe Cole was a good influence on me.

“Right,” I said. It was not thanks, but it was a lot closer than I usually got. “At the end of the week we should go buy you some shoes. I’ll take you to Erik’s.”

Sofia blinked at me. Her eyes luminesced.

“Shoes are the things you put on your feet.”

“Just us? Or Cole, too?” Right after she said it, she added, “Because I don’t mind. I mean, if he comes. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be just us. I appreciate you asking either way.

Because —”

“Sofia,” I snapped. “Stop.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Sofia asked.

“Sofia,” I snapped, with slightly more teeth. “Way to escalate.

What the hell. This is not a Disney movie. Have you learned nothing from the example of our elders?”

She turned back to the counter and began to operate the standing mixer, her shoulders slumped. Powdered sugar surrounded her in a cloud. Without looking at me, she said, “Dad called.”

Ah. This explained some of the wet-towel atmosphere in the House of Ruin. I tried to think of what an actual human would say in this situation. I asked, “Are you okay?”

Sofia began to cry, which was exactly why I generally tried to avoid being a human. I wished I had stayed with Cole.

“Yes,” said Sofia as tears dropped off her nose. “Thank you for asking.” She glopped a huge spoon of frosting from the mixing bowl onto a cinnamon roll and handed the plate to me.

“For the love of God,” I said, taking it. “Get one of those things and come on.”

“Come on where?”

“My room. Let’s go call Cole.”

We did. Up in my room, I put him on speaker and made him sing his latest song to us. When he found out Sofia was listening, he started swapping out his real lyrics for funny ones, and soon she was laughing and crying at the same time. Finally, I got up to plug my phone in because the battery was dying from all the singing, and Sofia went off to bed, happy and sad, which was at least better than just sad.

I took the phone off speaker and climbed onto my bed. I put my head on the pillow and laid the phone on my ear. “We’re alone. You can swear again.”