Instructions For A Broken Heart Part 19

Jessa shrugged. She wasn't really sure "nothing" existed-everything was about something. Carissa had said the kisses were nothing too. Maybe they meant more to her than she was willing to admit. Maybe everyone lied a little to themselves right in the moment because it was easier than looking like the one who wasn't wanted. She had asked Jessa, "Did you love him?" Maybe Jessa should have asked Carissa the same thing. What Jessa had said was, "I don't know anything anymore."

She repeated this to Dylan Thomas.

"Because you are not a stupid girl. Don't act like one." He leaned a bit toward Kevin. "I'm going to keep this seat, OK?"

"Help yourself," Kevin said.

"Smart girls can act stupid." Jessa said, plugging her ears up again with her music. Turning her eyes to the sweeping caramel hills flying by outside, she whispered, "We are all more stupid than smart, I think."

Reason #18 was a picture of Frodo. Well, two pictures of Frodo. One of the actual Frodo or that actor who played him-what was his name? Elijah Wood. And the other picture was of Sean's car, the green Honda she'd named Frodo. She set the letter on the bedspread in front of her. Her last hotel room in Italy, and she wouldn't even sleep here since they all vowed to stay up until they left for the airport.

Reason #18: This probably seems stupid now after everything else, but he is really weird about his car. You know I'm right.

Carissa was right. Sean was a freak about his car. But Jessa knew that was just a place holder, that this envelope was really about the instruction: Let's think about the other Frodo for a minute-the hero's journey and all that. So think about it. What did you learn on your journey?

Jessa had checked her phone in Rome. No more texts from Carissa-total text silence from her end. She would wait Jessa out. Sighing, Jessa scanned her things, her suitcase, her dirty clothes, the presents she bought: the Murano gla.s.s frame she'd selected for her mom and dad, the leather journal for Maisy. After tucking all the ticket stubs from their museum visits and church visits into the small blue cameo bag so she could make a collage for her photo book, she picked up the cameo Madison bought her. The Three Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity. She knew she would need all three in her immediate future, supersized versions.

Someone knocked on her door. Jade poked her head in, her curls tied back at the nape of her neck. "You coming?"

"Almost done." Jessa placed everything in her suitcase, zipped it shut. Would she really go home tomorrow, walk through the red door of her parents' house and back into her old life? Her bed with the quilt her grandmother made her, the white furniture she had desperately wanted in seventh grade and now seemed sort of babyish, the view of the pine trees out her window, her huge calendar bulging with activities, events, responsibilities, checklists-the tried-and-true path she was laying like bricks out in front of her, solid, predictable bricks. Would everything be just as she had left it? Or would her normal life now seem foreign and strange?

Jade leaned her head against the door frame. "Ms. Jackson wants to start right at midnight. Ugh, I'm so tired."

"Me too." Jessa ran her hand over her closed suitcase, fingering Maisy's little hair ribbon tied to the handle. "But we can sleep on the plane." Jessa set her suitcase on the ground. "It will be better to just not sleep at all now."

They had to leave for the airport at 3 a.m.

Jessa followed Jade down to the lobby. The other school group waited there, sitting on their suitcases or on the floor. Jessa didn't see Cameron. She was probably somewhere saying good-bye to Tyler. The whole room seemed filled with shadows, people saying good-bye in dark corners.

Jade cuddled up next to Dylan Thomas, who was sitting propped against a far wall of the lobby. He whispered something to her. She laughed, brushed some hair out of his eyes. Jessa clutched her journal, searching out where they'd be meeting for their last creativity salon. Ms. Jackson and Mr. Campbell sat alone on some couches in a dimly lit room right off the lobby. She didn't want to be the first one there.

A patch of night sky loomed outside the crescent windows above the hotel doors, and she found herself pushing through the heavy doors and out into the cool night. The air filled her lungs, the sweet smell of Italy, flowered and musty. She could hear airplanes in the distance. She wished she was on one.

"What, you bad with good-byes or something?" Dylan Thomas stood in silhouette against the open hotel door. It hushed to a close as he joined her on the sidewalk.

"I was going to say good-bye." Her whole body began to shiver, her skin crawling with goose b.u.mps.

"Sucks I'm missing the last salon," he said. "But we're leaving now. Our plane leaves soon."

"I wish we were leaving now."

"No you don't."

Jessa felt tears wetting her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Dylan Thomas moved close to her, pulled her into his sweatshirted chest. She realized she'd never hugged him before, which was weird because she was such a hugger. He smelled great. Like mint gum and aftershave, something musky and soft. He smelled the way velvet should smell.

"I'll miss you," he said. "You poor poet, you."

Her breath caught; she looked up at him. "What did you say?"

He smiled, his eyes dark but full of hotel lights. "What? You're not the only one who reads."

Dylan Thomas took a step back. A bus idled near them. The other group filed out of the hotel, bags over shoulders, wheeling suitcases, a wilted, travel-weary brood. They'd lost a bit of the shine they'd walked into the Pantheon with that first day, but it looked good on them, the dull rub of these past ten days. Madison waved to her as she climbed on the bus, took a quick snap of a picture. Jessa waved back.

"Oh, hey," Dylan Thomas grabbed her left wrist. "You should tell people the truth about that scar of yours. The truth is always more interesting anyway. It has rougher edges."

"What makes you think I'm not telling the truth?" But she knew her smile gave her away.

He gave her wrist a little squeeze, his eyes warming hers. "You know how to find me." He wiggled his phone at her.

"Bye," she whispered as Dylan Thomas climbed on the bus behind Cameron, her face tear streaked. Jessa felt Tyler next to her, the weight of his arm on her shoulder.

"Well, that's lugubrious," he said, finally, as the bus pulled away.

"Lugubrious?"

"I'm trying it on for size."

Jessa leaned into the curve of him. "It's perfect, actually. But I don't really see it catching on."

Shrugging, he gave her shoulders a little squeeze, waving again to the bus disappearing into the Italian night.

Jade played Green Day's "Time of Your Life," which seemed totally perfect even if it was so completely overused in these kinds of situations. They all sang along.

"Thing is, this song is really t.i.tled 'Good Riddance,'" Tyler whispered. Jessa gave him a good-natured poke with her elbow and sang loudly over him.

Jade finished, red cheeked, adding a little flair at the end just for fun. The room burst into applause. Next, Devon, Tim, Hillary, and Kevin did a funny scene with Tim miming a frog on a stick. Kevin played an alarmingly accurate Cruella outside the Uffizi with Hillary as the dithering, clueless Borington, who couldn't, literally, find his a.s.s with both hands.

"OK, OK," Mr. Campbell said, cutting them short of an ending sure to turn inappropriate much too fast. "That's enough of that. Accurate. But enough." Laughing, they fell into their seats. Kevin took an extra bow, smiling at the boos and hisses.

"How very Commedia of you all," Mr. Campbell said proudly.

"Next?" Ms. Jackson asked.

"I'll go," Jessa said, standing up. "And no drinks in the face-I promise."

Kevin gave Sean a good-natured thump on the back. "Want my rain jacket just in case?"

Sean's eyes locked on Jessa. He looked a little sick to his stomach.

Jessa opened her journal. "OK, so you all know that Carissa gave me those letters with all the reasons why I shouldn't be with Sean. And number 18 is called 'Frodo.'" A couple of whistles for Frodo sounded out. Sean's Honda had its own little following. Jessa continued, "And this is, of course, a nod to your Frodo, Sean." He managed a queasy smile. "But the question really is, What did I learn on my journey? Well, I learned a few things here in Italy, but one in particular that I'd like to share."

She paused. "This is called 'Instructions for a Broken Heart.' And it's for Sean."

Sean's smile vanished. Silence poured into the room or else all the noise, the small whispers and fidgets and feet shuffles, were sucked out suddenly with a superpowered sound vacuum.

Jessa read into the silence.

Instructions for a Broken Heart I will find a bare patch of earth, somewhere where the ruins have fallen away, somewhere where I can fit both hands, and I will dig a hole.

And into that hole, I will scream you, I will dump all the shadow places of my heart-the times you didn't call when you said you'd call, the way you only half listened to my poems, your eyes on people coming through the swinging door of the cafe-not on me-your ears, not really turned toward me. For all those times I started to tell you about the fight with my dad or when my grandma died, and you said something about your car, something about the math test you flunked, as an answer. I will scream into that hole the silence of dark nights after you'd kissed me, how when I asked if something was wrong-and something was obviously so very wrong-how you said "nothing," how you didn't tell me until I had to see it in the dim light of a costume barn-so much wrong. I will scream all of it.

Then I will fill it in with dark earth, leave it here in Italy, so there will be an ocean between the hole and me.

Because then I can bring home a heart full of the light patches. A heart that sees the sunset you saw that night outside of Taco Bell, the way you pointed out that it made the trees seem on fire, a heart that holds the time your little brother fell on his bike at the fairgrounds and you had pockets full of bright colored Band-Aids and you kissed the bare skin of his knees. I will take that home with me. In my heart. I will take home your final Hamlet monologue on the dark stage when you cried closing night and it wasn't really acting, you cried because you felt the words in you and on that bare stage you felt the way I feel every day of my life, every second, the way the words, the light and dark, the spotlight in your face, made you Hamlet for that brief hiccup of a moment, made you a poet, an artist at your core. I get to take Italy home with me, the Italy that showed me you and the Italy that showed me-me-the Italy that wrote me my very own instructions for a broken heart. And I get to leave the other heart in a hole.

We are over. I know this. But we are not blank. We were a beautiful building made of stone, crumbled now and covered in vines.

But not blank. Not forgotten. We are a history.

We are beauty out of ruins.

Jessa stopped, closed her journal, turned her eyes on her silent friends. Then, Jade jumped up, threw her arms around Jessa. Over Jade's shoulder, she saw Mr. Campbell and Ms. Jackson clapping; she saw Hillary smiling, nodding. She let her gaze slide to Sean, who sat very still on the couch, watching her with heavy, Hamlet eyes.

"OK," Devon said, "That was kind of a downer, Jess. Can we do our scene again?"

#19: air, not just for.

breathing anymore.

Everyone, it seemed, had Jessa's seat. Or was it the other way around? Jessa had already moved twice. First, a ridiculously tall German woman told Jessa she had the wrong seat. She wasn't very nice about it, probably because she was used to being able to squash people like grapes. Then it was a grandma in an "I Was Romed" T-shirt, which didn't make any sense, who didn't act very grandmotherly. Now, a short, blue-suited Italian man sitting next to Jade looked apologetically up at her. The flight attendant tried to tell Jessa that she would have to find her another seat, but the man stood, gathered his newspaper, ushered her into the seat, the kind of gentleman they didn't seem to make in California anymore.

Already, Jessa felt coated with a thin film, dust or sweat or some sort of hybrid body excretion that rears its head only on airplanes. She settled her bag on the floor in front of her, nodding at Jade, whose pen scritch-scratched across the pages of her journal. Jessa's eyes surveyed the plane. A row up, a gorgeous couple sat thumbing through magazines, probably on their way to be Armani models or something, one giant advertis.e.m.e.nt for why the rest of the world was just too ugly to breathe. They whispered quietly, he in what sounded like German, and she in Italian. Nothing like a Europe trip to make you realize how stupid you were when it came to languages. Jessa vowed to pay more attention in Senor Allen's Spanish cla.s.s.

Italian filtered out over the speakers, announcing their departure-instructions never sounded so beautiful, and Jessa took another peek out the window but it just looked airporty.

Ciao, Italia.

Jessa checked the big envelope again, pulling out all the smaller envelopes. One by one, she set them on her pull-down table, trying not to wake Jade who slept next to her with tiny, purring snores. Eighteen envelopes. She knew she'd left one at the place where she'd had dinner with Giacomo, but where was #20? She hadn't opened #19, thought she'd just open both and then maybe sleep the rest of the plane ride. It would be so like Carissa to just forget to put in #20 or maybe it would be waiting for her on her pillow at home. Dramatic flair.

She peeled open the last envelope.

Big Fat Reason #19: Air, Not Just for Breathing Anymore He took you for granted.

Air: Not Just for Breathing Anymore Breathe it, fly through it, spill our dreams into it, color it with rain. Air-necessary and totally taken for granted.

No instruction with this last envelope. Maybe the poem was the instruction even if it was more like a decree. The world according to Carissa. Did Sean take her for granted? Did Jessa take Carissa for granted? Probably. Maybe air was a lot like love, or friendship. It was noticeable when you suddenly lost it and were left gasping. But up until that loss of it, did she notice it? Jessa had the horrible feeling that she'd yet to scratch the surface of all she'd been taking for granted her whole life. She'd sure taken Tyler for granted on the trip. Rolling her head from side to side, Jessa folded all the notes back into the larger envelope and tucked them back into her bag, then sat back into her seat. Breathe-breathe air.

Sean turned in his seat several rows up, caught her staring. They hadn't talked since her reading, but the crackling bridge of ice between them, the one that held her from him but also fastened her to him, had thawed, melted, leaving only a few icy tendrils, ones that could be seen only in direct light, tiny diamond sparkles. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time. Teenage boy in bone-colored shirt, great hair, slightly crooked nose, long limbed-far from her, miles from her. She smiled, and with their history framing his face, he smiled back, then returned to his magazine.

Jade stirred next to her, mumbled something that sounded like, "Rwar awr me?"

"The polar route over the ice caps," Jessa said, pointing out the window. Both girls pressed their faces to the window. Below them, the beautiful blinding ice stretched out, rippled and textured, rolling away into vastness and then sudden glimpses of blue sky shot through thick as paint.

"It's like The Golden Compa.s.s or something," Jade breathed. "We can imagine we're bounding over it in a huge, red balloon."

Jessa nodded, wanting very much to imagine that. "Do you think there is life there?"

Jade's eyes sparkled, taking in the ocean of ice below. "I imagine dozens of ice creatures living in tunnels beneath the snow, eyes like slits, creatures who use smell the way we use sight, who can feel the difference between snowflakes, who have a million nerve endings at the end of their fingers." Her eyes darted quickly to Jessa. "Oh, G.o.d. You probably think I'm such a total freak that I just said that."

"No way." Jessa leaned closer to the window. "It's just that the creatures in my head have huge orb eyes instead of slits. And they live in cavernous gla.s.s domes beneath the ice."

"Oh, that's good." Jade smiled, her white teeth even, organized squares. "I'll have to text Dylan Thomas when we land. He'd love that."

"You two had a good connection, huh?" Jessa felt an icy pool gathering in her own belly, felt Jade's creatures taking refuge there.

Jade nodded. "He's a really sweet guy, so smart and funny. We had fun."

Jessa hesitated. "Are you guys, um, together now?"

"What? No! I've been with Trevor Johns for, like, two years."

Trevor Johns! Jessa had totally forgotten about Trevor-senior, president of Project Green, long-distance runner, overall crunchy-granola cutie pie. He basically wanted to marry Jade and live in his Eurovan. How had she so easily popped him right out of her mind?

"Oh, yeah. Duh."

Jade pulled her curls off her shoulders, tying them into a knot with a strip of cloth at the base of her neck. "Trev's in Mexico building houses this break. This trip's just a little too consumer splurge for Trev. Can you imagine him with that other group?" Jade giggled. "He'd be all, like, um, Cruella, are you aware of your global consumer impact?" Jade's love for her boyfriend wrapped each word with music. "That would be hilarious."

"He's very earnest, your Trevor," Jessa smiled.

"Oh yeah. He'll change the world." Jade pulled her journal out of her woven bag. "But I wanted to see Italy. Because it's really, really pretty."

"So pretty," Jessa agreed.

Jade held her journal up. "Gonna write about our gla.s.s-dome cave creatures. Might make a good song."

Jessa nodded, the ice pool in her belly evaporating. The in-flight movie blinked on, and she pulled on the headphones, curled into her seat, cradled in all the air surrounding her, buoying her, as they hurtled through the sky above the wide expanse of ice, the frozen ocean below.

#20: addendum.

Jessa peered into the bleary light of the Sacramento airport. Was it just her or did the light here seem beige, so unlike the fairy wing light of Italy? All around her, beige people wheeled beige bags, sat on beige chairs, ate beige food.

"Culture shock." Mr. Campbell rolled his suitcase up next to hers. "It pa.s.ses in, oh, well," he shrugged, "never."