Page 26 of The Way the Heart Breaks: Jade’s Story

Pour Some Sugar on Me came blaring through the radio, loud and greasy and impossible to ignore, because it is everywhere. A few months ago, I would’ve laughed at hearing it. Jason and Jasper would’ve absolutely loved it. Jasper would’ve tapped his foot to the beat while Jason sang loud enough for the whole valley to hear him.

Now all I could think about is Mom, who disappeared into the bathroom with prescription bottles and came back glassy-eyed and far too happy. Or crying. Sometimes both.

Ry reaches over and shuts the radio off right in the middle of the chorus. “Song sucks.”

Alex nodded once.

Tessa glances up from her nails. “It sounds like a blender fighting a lawn mower.”

Alex almost laughs, almost.

Tessa points at him. “See? That means when the clock strikes twelve 0 one, Alex will stop being quiet and weird.”

“We’re all weird,” Ry mumbles.

Tessa ignores him completely and sits up straighter. “You know what would make us not weird?”

The way Ry sighs makes me think he already knows she’s going to suggest something off the wall.

“Whipping around the back twenty on the snowmobiles.”

Ry shakes his head. “There’s ice under the snow.”

“Exactly,” Tessa grins. “Adds personality.”

“That is not how ice works,” Ry tells her.

But she is already pulling on her boots, cheeks pink from the woodstove and excitement, and honestly? Why not?

Song: My Prerogative- Bobby Brown

6

THE NEXT TWO MONTHS

Jade

The next two months

Iswear every day that I bother coming home after Christmas break, she would sob, “I killed them.”

That stopped after I finally screamed at her, “It was a fucking accident! My brother’s death was a fucking accident. You didn’t kill them, but you are killing me, and you don’t even see it because you're drunk!”

Things seem to settle after that, at least enough that Dad starts sleeping through the night again and Mom begins coming downstairs before noon. She started going to meetings after I erupted at her. I screamed at her so hard my throat hurt for two days afterward, and for a little while it honestly feels like maybe...

The wine bottles disappear from the counters, the smell of alcohol fades from the living room, and Mom slowly starts doing small, normal things again, like standing at the stove long enough to make soup or folding towels while daytime television hums softly in the background.

Dad goes back to work full-time, and I can tell he wants that to mean something. Every morning, he kisses Mom goodbye like he’s trying to convince both of them that life is moving forward again, and sometimes when he thinks I’m not paying attention, I catch him watching her with this careful kind of hope that makes my heart ache. I want to believe in it too. I want to believe that meetings, time, and routine can somehow stitch our family back together into something recognizable.

For a while, I almost did.

One afternoon, I decided to ride the bus home instead of going to Tessa’s house after school. Snow falls thick against the windows as we bounce down the road, the kind of heavy, wet snow that makes everything outside look blurry and gray. The bus smells like wet boots and middle schoolers who haven’t realized deodorant is necessary when your body changes. Everybody’s loud in that restless winter way, throwing paper at each other and yelling over the noise of the engine.

Somewhere near Miller’s farm, laughter suddenly erupts from the front of the bus. Not normal laughter either. The kind that spreads instantly because everyone wants to be part of whatever’s happening.

I glance up from my book just as someone shouts, “What the hell is that?”

There’s a riding lawnmower driving down the side of the road through the snow, and the entire bus loses it.