Wild Awake

broken, but there it is, the missing spring, the snapped wire. I can’t stand it when people look at me that way. So I do what I know how to do. Smile and secure the perimeter.
    I take a long, ragged drink of my wine and reach for the bottle to pour myself some more. A million questions push at my brain.
    When did you start liking her?
    Did you kiss her first or did she kiss you?
    When you say you hooked up, exactly how much hooking do you mean?
    But I can’t ask. I can’t show him I care that much. Instead, I give him a casual shrug. “That’s okay, Lukas. It’s not like we were dating.”
    I think Lukas can tell it’s not okay just by watching my efforts to pour myself more wine. First it runs down the neck of the bottle instead of pouring out, then I swing the bottle down too close and break the glass. There’s a high-pitched chink . Wine leaking all over my dress.
    “Shit.”
    “I’ll get paper towels.”
    “Crap.”
    Lukas hops up, flees my bedroom, and all but vaults down the stairs.
    “Where are your paper towels?” he calls from the kitchen.
    “Goddammit.”
    My lap is soaked in wine and spangled with a million isosceles triangles of shattered glass. I can hear Lukas bumping around the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers. Lukas wouldn’t survive a single night at home by himself: Who looks for paper towels in a drawer? I get up from my bed. “They’re on the counter.”
    “What?”
    “Bloody hell, Lukas.”
    I tromp down the stairs and lumber into the kitchen, a glittering, wine-soaked King Kong. I rip a bunch of paper towels off the roll on the counter and pat myself down. In the glare of the kitchen light, all my hours of preparation are completely unnoticeable. The house is just a house. I am just a Kiri. Lukas and I are just friends. And that’s assuming our friendship survives this freaking circus.
    Lukas leans against the counter and watches skeptically while I try to pick the shards off my dress.
    “Be careful with that broken glass.”
    “Thanks, Lukas.”
    “Do you want me to get a broom?”
    I’ve been shedding glass on the floor every time I move, but Lukas won’t be able to find the broom closet until Google makes an app.
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “I think something’s burning.”
    The French bread. I lunge for the oven and pull open the door. The loaf of bread I stuck in an hour ago looks like a giant charred dog turd. As the smoke detector starts screaming, I grab the ruined bread with an oven mitt and throw it into the sink, where it lies hissing reproachfully. Lukas is flapping around uselessly under the smoke detector. I manhandle him out of the way and stab the red button with a barbecue tong. I take a big breath, dredge up a smile, turn around, and face Lukas.
    “Well. Shall we watch the movie?”
    Lukas looks at me like I’ve just suggested we sterilize a ballpoint pen and give each other tattoos.
    “Oh. Um, isn’t it kind of late to start the movie? I was thinking I would head home.”
    “But it’s only nine thirty.”
    “I’ve been going to bed early.”
    “We could make coffee.”
    “I think I’ll just go home.” He walks to the front door and hops around self-consciously, putting on his shoes. I watch him from the kitchen. “I guess I’ll see you on Saturday then,” he says, dropping a shoe, picking it up again, and sticking it on his foot.
    “What’s on Saturday?”
    “Battle of the Bands.”
    “Oh yeah.”
    I try to keep my voice light, as if for me this is just another perfectly normal evening of making unwanted sexual advances, being a sloppy drunk, and standing there pathetically while the object of my affection falls all over himself trying to escape from my lovearium before it’s even dark outside.
    Lukas finally gets his shoe on his foot. He grabs the door handle.
    “Okay. Good night, Kiri.”
    “Bye.”
    He struggles with the door, discovers the lock, lets himself out, and pulls the door half-closed behind him without realizing you have to really yank it to get it shut. It floats open again behind him, as if to add the final insult to the huge festering injury that is my life. I sigh, walk over, and shut it myself.
    Then I walk back to the piano. Because now that Lukas is gone, what else is left?

chapter twenty-one
    The next morning, I take the bus to Kerrisdale, sit down at the piano, and play one hundred pages of dazzlingly complicated piano music from memory while Dr. Scaliteri sits on her ball, inspecting a