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In the weeks that followed, I tumbled further and further into depression.
“You’re missing too many classes,” my mom would tell me, trying to shame me out of bed on the days I simply couldn’t get out of it. “I’ve been in contact with your academic advisor, and she’s recommending that you take incomplete for the courses and try again next semester.”
Other times, she’d cajole me. “I made your favorite for dinner — chicken and dumplings, just like when you and your brother were little. Why don’t you come sit at the table and eat?”
But I just didn’t have an appetite for anything. Not for food, not for learning, and certainly not for leaving my bed. I shed pounds that I couldn’t afford to drop. I slowly forgot what I’d been learning in college. I thought about what was happening and what I was doing — or not doing, rather — and tried to will myself to get over Mikhail being gone and me being left behind.
Even Jonathan came over, trying to appease my mom by checking in on me.
“So are you John or Yoko?” he asked, flipping on the light in my room even though it hurt my dark-adjusted eyes. “What are you protesting? Is this your bed-in for peace moment?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered, my voice hoarse with disuse.
“Are you pouting?” he asked. “What are you sad about? Some boy?”
“I’m just sad,” I said. “There doesn’t have to be a reason for it.”
“You’ve been in bed for weeks — according to Mom,” he said. “You’re worrying her, and now she’s dragged me into it. You need to go to the doctor if you’re that depressed.”
“I’m just taking a break.”
Jonathan and I didn’t look much alike. He looked more like our dad, brown eyes, sandy hair more than blond, and sort of a perpetual scowl. He scowled at me now, even though I knew him well enough to understand that he wasn’t pulling a face at me. He was thinking. Calculating.
“Does this have anything to do with Misha leaving?” he asked.
“I wish you would leave,” I snapped loudly enough to make my mom come in and check on us.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked.
“Jon’s bothering me,” I said.
“All of this is because Sadie misses Misha,” Jonathan said triumphantly.
“Is that true?” my mom asked. “Oh, honey…”
“It’s a lot of things,” I said. “I just want to be left alone.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Jonathan said, suspicion coloring his words. “He was my friend more than he was yours.”
Oh, if my brother only knew…
“Don’t be so cruel to your sister, Jon,” my mom fussed. “The three of you grew up together — practically inseparable.”
“Only because you made me take Sadie everywhere we went,” he grumbled under his breath. My mom still heard him and gave him a swat for his sass.
“All I’ve ever asked is for you two to look out for each other,” she said. “I thought ‘getting along’ would be implied, but maybe not. Why are you acting like this?”
I cringed, afraid that I’d have to think of some excuse to explain myself, but my brother sighed and sagged against the doorframe. “Misha and I had plans. We were going to go into business together.”
“Well, I think that’s wonderful,” my mom said. “I don’t understand why you don’t think it’ll still happen.”
“It’s been weeks,” Jonathan said. “None of us have heard from him. What am I supposed to think? He probably realized how much better everything was outside of this stupid town.”
I turned away from the door, drawing the blankets over my head. That was exactly what I was afraid of too. Mikhail had asked me to wait for him — as old-fashioned as that notion was. But how long was I supposed to wait while he was gone? He had gone to Moscow, which was about as different as you could get from a place like Smythe. Who knew where he would go next, or the things he would see?
And people he would meet. The women.
I couldn’t compete with anyone on that kind of scale.
