Page 188 of The Way the Heart Breaks: Jade’s Story

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

He looks at it, then back at me, but he doesn't push.

Instead, he lifts the camera again.

Click.

He takes another picture.

Click.

“Tommy.”

“What?”

“You're supposed to be photographing the scenery.”

“I am.”

He raises the camera again.

Click.

I shake my head and walk toward the creek.

The whole place feels strangely peaceful, like it has been waiting for me to come back; Like I wasn’t supposed to until I brought Tommy here.

Tommy follows, stopping every few feet to take another picture.

The creek. The stones. The logs. The trees. The light. And yes me.

“Are you getting anything good?”

“I think so, won’t know for sure until a thirteen-year-old tells me.”

“Are they that terrible?” I laugh.

“No, I’m making friends, so if I fail and have to come back next year, I’ll have a crew.”

“A camera crew,” we both say at the same time, and laugh.

34

FALL-ING

Tommy

Codependent. That's a nice word I learned from therapy and thought was total bullshit. I thought my mother was using the therapist to brainwash my ass into thinking what she did was right. As if it could ever be right to bar a kid, and not just any kid, your son's best friend, from a house because your daughter was a hormone-driven Hoover.

I remember my mother's utter disgust when I told her I learned a new word in therapy: predator. Told her she had the wrong kid seeing a head doctor. My sister was the head case. Head emphasized heavily.

That was the second time she slapped me across the face, and I laughed in hers.

It's been years that I have lived with a woman I know hates me, and I still fucking wish she was proud of me for something. She never will be. And now that I'm eighteen, I'm legally allowed to take off, but I know Dad needs someone once in a fucking while to smile at him in that house and mean it.

I don't know what makes him love her, but now that I know what love really feels like, I know that's something you can't unwrap, or, in his case, un-fuck.

In the past couple weeks, I've considered calling that therapist. The woman I imagine used to flip open her appointment book for the day, and would see my name, and cringe.