I nod, trying—but failing—to pull the bucket with me when he lifts me around my ribs.
“Leave it,” he says, still chuckling. “Come on, Mia. Leave it. I’ll take care of it.”
When he lays me down on a mattress, I’m barely aware of the light, the smell of him everywhere. I’m too incoherent to be curious about his apartment but I make a mental note to look around and compliment it as soon as I no longer want to die. I add this task to the to-do list where I also thank him profusely, and then apologize, and then get on a plane and fly back to California in mortification.
With a small pat to my back, he’s gone and almost immediately I fall fast asleep and have intricate, fevered dreams about driving through dark, narrow tunnels.
Beside me, the mattress dips where he sits and I jerk awake, knowing somehow it’s been barely a minute since he left.
“Sorry,” I groan, pulling my knees to my chest.
“Don’t be.” He puts something down on a table near the pillow. “I’ve put some water here. Approach it with caution.” I can still hear the smile in his voice, but it’s easy, unmocking.
“I’m sure this isn’t how you pictured our first night here.”
His hand smooths over my hair. “Nor you.”
“Probably the least sexy thing you’ve ever seen,” I babble, rolling into the warm, clean Ansel smell of the pillowcase.
“‘Least sexy’?” He repeats with a laugh. “Don’t forget I biked across the United States with sweaty, dirty people.”
“Yeah, but you never wanted to have sex with any of them.”
His hand stills where it’s gently rubbing my back, and I realize what I’ve just said. It’s laughable, this assumption that he will ever touch me sexually again after the past fifteen hours. “Sleep, Mia.”
See? Proof. He called me Mia, not Cerise.
I WAKE UP to morning of some bright, unknown hour. Outside there are birds and voices and trucks. I smell bread, coffee, and my stomach clenches, quickly protesting that I’m not ready for food yet. And as soon as I remember the day before, a hot wave covers my skin; whether it’s embarrassment or fever, I have no idea. I kick off the covers and see that I’m dressed only in one of his T-shirts and my underwear.
And then I hear Ansel in the other room, speaking English. “She’s sleeping,” he says. “She’s been very sick, this past day.”
I sit up in response to the words, but I’m thirstier than I’ve ever been in my life. Grabbing the glass of water on the bedside table, I lift it to my lips, drink it in four long, grateful swallows.
“Of course,” he says, closer now. He’s just outside the door. “Just a moment.”
His feet quietly pad into the room and when he sees that I’m awake his face cycles through relief, then uncertainty, then regret. “In fact, she’s already awake,” he says into the phone. “Here she is.”
It’s my phone he’s handing me, and the display tells me my father is on the line. Ansel covers the receiver briefly, whispering, “He’s called at least ten times. I’ve charged it, so fortunately . . . or not,” he says with an apologetic smile, “you have plenty of battery left.”
My chest aches, stomach twisting with guilt. Pressing the phone to my ear, I manage only, “Dad, hi. I—” before he cuts me off.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yells, but doesn’t wait for a reply. I pull the phone a few inches from my ear to relieve the pain of his shouting. “Are you on drugs? Is that what this Ansel person means when he says you’re sick? Is that your drug dealer?”
“What?” I blink, my heart pounding so fast I’m terrified that I’m going to have some sort of cardiac event. “Dad, no.”
“Who other than a druggie flies to France with no warning, Mia? Are you doing something illegal?”
“No, Dad. I—”
“You’re unreal, Mia Rose. Unbelievable. Your mother and I have been worried sick, calling constantly for the last two days!” The rage in his voice comes through as clear as if he’s in the next room. I can just imagine how red his face is, lips wet with spittle, hand shaking where he grips the phone.
“You’ll never get it. You’ll never get it. I just hope your brothers do better when they’re your age.”
I close my mouth, close my eyes, close my thoughts. I have the vague sense of Ansel sitting down beside me on the bed, his hand rubbing soothing circles on my back. My father’s voice is booming, always authoritative. Even if I pressed the phone flat to my ear I know Ansel would be able to hear every word. I can only imagine what he said to Ansel before I got on the line.
In the background, I can hear my mother’s pleading voice murmuring, “David, honey, don’t,” and know she’s carefully trying to pry the phone away. And then her voice is gone, muffled voices behind his hand over the receiver.
Don’t, Mom, I think. Don’t do this for me. Defending me right now isn’t worth the days of silent treatment followed by more days of snide, underhanded insults.
Dad returns to the line, his voice heated and sharp as a knife. “You do realize, Mia, that you are in a world of trouble. Do you hear me? A world. If you think I’m going to help you move to Boston after this, you’re delusional.”
I drop my phone on the mattress, Dad’s voice still hurtling through the line, but the glass of water I’ve had doesn’t want to stay down. The bathroom opens off Ansel’s bedroom, and I’m tripping across the room, falling onto my knees in front of the toilet, and now not only do I have to suffer the humiliation of having Ansel hear my father berate me on the phone, but he gets to watch me throw up. Again.