Page 112 of Summer Breakdown
“What’s going on, my girl?” Jasmine asks. “Please. Tell me something.”
“I – Ican’t. I don’t -.”
Jasmine rests her hands against Frankie’s cheeks.
“Is it the new pills?” she asks. “They’re not working?”
Frankie blinks. Maybe. She’s never tried something new, and she didn’t want to change, but trying to convince someonenew that her demons are real and not in her head when technically they’re in her head is traumatising.
“Frankie,” Jasmine whispers, a surety to her voice that Frankie can’t miss. “You’re in a low episode and you think I’m going to leave because it’s too hard.” Frankie knows that’s true, but Jasmine wasn’t supposed to call her out on it. “You’ve never had a depressive episode with anyone new, and you’re scared. You’re being mean because you want me to leave you, but I don’t want to leave you.”
Frankie’s face falls. She doesn’t want to be mean to her. Jasmine would never deserve someone to be mean to her.
“My girl, it’s okay to be scared,” Jasmine whispers. “I’m terrified, but I knew you had bipolar before I even knew your last name. I love you. I love you when you’re happy and I’ll love you when you’re sad.”
The tears roll down Frankie’s face before she can stop them. Jasmine drops her hold on her cheek and places her bag on her lap, rifling through it. Frankie wants to help, but she’s not sure she’s allowed.
“Where’s my fucking phone?” Jasmine growls. Frankie can see it poking out the pocket of her bag. She reaches for it slowly. Frankie holds it in the palm of her hand while Jasmine stares at it like she’s trying to figure out how to get it without touching her. Frankie looks down as the phone screen lights up. The background is Frankie and the kids in the pool. Lani is on her shoulders, and Marcel is hanging off her back. She doesn’t remember the day. There was nothing of note. It’s her life. It was her life. She’s going to lose them too, like she’s going to lose Jasmine. It’s her fault. She knows that, because Jasmine is asking her if she’d ever love her, and she’s telling her no even though it’s not true.
Jasmine takes the phone from her, spinning it as she does. For a moment, Frankie wonders if she’s calling Ezra and he’ll see right through Frankie’s lies and force her to admit she’s in love with Jasmine. He’ll doom Jasmine to a life of captivity, and she won’t even realise he’s caused her harm.
“Ezra,” Jasmine says. Her voice is off, and Frankie almost dies for real. She sounds sad. Broken, not that she ever could be, but like Frankie telling her she doesn’t love her is hurting her. It’s not supposed to hurt her this much. She was meant to take a hit to her ego or something for half a second and then move on.
Frankie watches as Jasmine runs her hand across her forehead.
“I,” she starts but her entire voice cracks. “Frankie’s in trouble, and I don’t know what to do.” The whistles from practice across the field drown out. There are no screaming children. There’s nothing but the sound of the sob that comes from Jasmine’s throat.
“She broke up with me, and we don’t think the new pills are working.” Jasmine sniffs, and Frankie doesn’t know how to help her. She wants to help her. Every iteration of their relationship happened right here. She fell in love with her here. She saw her again for the first time here. She waits for her every Thursday here. She realised she was in love with her here.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I don’t want –Ezra.”
Jasmine grips the seat below her. “Okay,” she mutters. “Yeah, okay.” Jasmine ends the call and takes a deep breath. Frankie wants to kiss her and tell her she’s sorry and that she never wanted her to get hurt. She wants to tell her she’s done nothing wrong. That all of this—every wrongdoing, every hardship—is Frankie’s fault. She wants to tell her she knew she never deserved her anyway.
“I love you,” Jasmine says.
Frankie lets out a deep breath. It shakes through her body, and she’s not sure how she survives, but it will help later. It will make it easier to go.
“It’s okay,” Jasmine says, with a small smile. “It’s okay if you want to break up. I’ll let you go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jasminesmileswithdinner.She dances with Marcel as they clear up, and she makes up another excuse when Lani asks if they can call Frankie to do voices when she goes to sleep. She does it all, and she’s not sure how.
Ezra told her to let her go. Not forever, but right now, Frankie will be panicking and terrified, and Jasmine didn’t want her to be either of those things. She doesn’t need to be something Frankie worries about right now.
Besides, Frankie broke up with her. Jasmine said she’d never be back in a situation like before. She didn’t want to be anywhere she wasn’t wanted. She knows it to be true, but the idea that she could keep Frankie weighs on her mind. How awful could it be to know she doesn’t love her, that she never would, but at least she’d be able to see her sitting at her dining table?
Jasmine wants to be sure it’s her pushing her away, but she can’t be. Frankie pushed her, that’s true, but Jasmine told her she knew what she was doing, and she didn’t give in. She didn’t do anything.
Somehow, Jasmine knows it gets worse than this. Right now, she’s sure she can feel the beat of her heart slowing. She’s so sure that she’ll go to get up and she’ll fade into nothing. She’s so fucking sure that when she stands up, her heart will stay right here, a bloody mess on the floor. And it’s going to get worse. Lani will start school and wear the backpack Frankie helped pick out for her. Marcel willstart year eleven, and he’ll use the schedule planner Frankie taught him to use, and she’s not sure how to survive it.
There’s no part of her that wants to let her go. She wants to see her walking around with her claw marks on her arm. Proof that Jasmine didn’t want this. There is no corner of her heart that Frankie does not belong. Jasmine takes a breath. It hurts when she does, but she was expecting it to. She flinched all the same.
Jasmine waited as long as she could before coming to bed. Last night, she slept on the sofa. Her pillows are going to smell like Frankie. The bedside table has her pill bottle on it, her lip balm, and the book she was trying to read to talk to Jasmine about.
Her bedroom isn’t dark—the ceiling is covered in hundreds of glow-in-the-dark stars. Jasmine was so sure Frankie was having a low moment when she stopped going over, and soon, she’d want to have it at home, and she stuck them all up in the hopes it would make her smile. That she’d feel comfortable enough to share that part of herself with Jasmine.
Frankie’s life is here, within these walls. Jasmine was so sure of it. The sideboard that Frankie saw at the charity shop and asked Jasmine if she wanted it. She did, and Frankie hired a van to get it for her. She didn’t need it. Frankie knew she’d like it, and it was bigger than the one before. It meant there was space for Frankie’s jumpers. The blankets she has a million of because she gets cold. From now until forever, Jasmine’s heart will break at the sight of fluffy socks.
