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Adina smashes down the pause button, freezing the Mystic Harbor actors before their first passionate, rain-soaked kiss. “What the hell, Tovah?”
“I’m sorry,” I say automatically. Her words stir up fresh guilt. My problems are not in the same country as hers and Ima’s. They’re not on the same map. Does that make them less valid? At any given time there are millions of people legitimately suffering in the world; my privileged problems pale in comparison. I know that. But my sister is suffering right next to me. I can’t reconcile all these feelings. “I’m just trying to understand what happened.”
She hops off the bed. Doesn’t tidy up the messy blankets. “I felt bad for you at the rink, really, but you’re being ridiculous. You expected to get in, and you can’t accept that you still probably will; you just have to wait a
little longer? I’m so sorry you don’t get everything you want exactly when you want it. Poor Tovah.”
I did expect to get in early. But I also worked really fucking hard for it.
I scramble to my feet too, and it’s then that I notice a chocolate ice cream splotch staining the pillow Adina was lounging on. “I hope you’re planning to clean that up later.”
“Sure,” Adina says with a snort, tossing her curls over one shoulder. “I’ll add it to my list of priorities along with deciding whether I want to start any experimental medications and wondering when I won’t be able to pick up the viola anymore.”
There goes our peace, and I’m falling through the ice.
“So that’s how it’s going to go,” I say. “You win every argument from here until the end of our lives?”
“Until the end of mine, at least.”
I gnash my teeth. “I’m allowed to be upset too. Everything I’ve done these past few years has been for that school.”
“Lucky for you,” she says as she heads for the door, “you still have plenty of choices. You could get rejected from every school in the country, and you’d still have more options than I do.”
“It’s not like you don’t have choices,” I snap. The rage bubbling inside me feels even better than the warmth I felt holding hands with Zack. “You want to talk about moping? You’ve been moping ever since we got the results, and you don’t seem to realize that you have options too. Counseling, support groups, experimental meds. This sucks for you, it really fucking sucks, but do you think Ima spent all her time acting the way you do?”
“You don’t know how Ima feels,” Adina fires back.
“I don’t. You’re right.” Because I’m not part of the special club they have. I march over to where she’s standing in my doorway and try to edge her out. “I’m going to bed, so I can lie awake all night thinking about my choices.”
Adina puts her palm on the door, shoving back against it to hold it open. “Shut up! God, sometimes it’s like you don’t even care about Ima. If it’s not about school, it’s not on your radar.”
“Is that seriously what you think?” This is why I can’t let the guilt fully take over. When she says things like this, it’s clear she doesn’t understand me at all. I worry about our mother too. Sometimes it’s too much to be in the same room with her for long.
“It’s not what I think. It’s the truth.”
I heave all my weight on the door, as though if I can just—close—it, then I can shut out everything she’s saying, too. But Adina sticks her foot inside.
“What are you doing?” I say, voice climbing to a shriek as I bounce the door against her foot, trying to get her to move. “Get out of my room!”
We’re ten-year-olds throwing tantrums.
“I’m not done talking to you!” Her face is red and her eyes are slits. “You never let me finish a conversation with you.”
“This is a conversation? Really? I thought it was you telling me everything I’m doing wrong.” I heave my back against the door, crushing her in the space between it and the frame.
Footsteps pound up the stairs, and Ima marches down the hall toward us. “What the hell is going on in here?” she asks, following it up with a string of Hebrew curse words.
I step back from the door, freeing Adina, who’s still pushing on it so hard that she stumbles.
“It’s nothing,” she says quickly.
“Do you have any idea how late it is? Do you? Or are you both so . . . so self-absorbed that you didn’t think some people in this house, on this block, are trying to sleep right now?” Her words are razor-sharp. She kicks my door. Hard. “This is unacceptable behavior from both of you.”
I shrink deeper into my room, Ima’s words snipping several inches off my height. This is one of her mood swings. This isn’t her. Still, part of me thinks we deserved it. We’ve disturbed our mother with our venom for each other.
“Ani miztaeret,” Adina apologizes, and I echo her.
Ima crosses her arms over her chest. “Both of you . . . you . . . you need to figure this shit out. You can’t scream at each other like children.”
