Excerpt

Rule number 1: Find comfort in your family.

The day after Jaime and I break up, my mom asks me to clean my room.

One thing you should understand about my mom—her definition of “cleaning my room” does not just involve making my bed, or picking up dirty laundry off the floor, or tidying my bookshelf. No, for my mom, it means sorting out my clothes, shoes, and accessories into three piles: Yes, No, and Maybe. It means emptying my desk drawers and going through each note and letter and greeting card, then throwing everything away. For my mom, the exact opposite of a pack rat, a clean room is an almost empty one. And she has hardly any tolerance for sentimentality.

Another thing you should understand about my mom—she knows everything. So when she shakes me awake on this Saturday morning, taking in my puffy eyes and semi-permanent scowl, she doesn’t just feel that something is up, she knows exactly what's up. And so I’m guessing that her telling me to drag my sorry self out of bed, take a shower, have breakfast, gulp down some coffee, and proceed to slave over the act of cleaning my room for the rest of the day is her way of helping me deal.

“Get up,” she says, as if I am not already sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, and groping around for my glasses.

“What are you dragging me out of bed for, Mom? It’s Saturday, no school,” I remind her, suppressing a duh at the end. I am tempted to dive under the covers again, but I don’t attempt to.

“I know that, Anna,” she replies. She rolls her eyes as she stresses the know, like, Lord, what evil have I done to deserve this much nonsense at the start of what could be such a lovely weekend?

“Then why are you waking me up?” I know I am pushing it by asking too many questions, and not very smart ones, at that, but I just can’t seem to stop.

She looks around my room. Then, at me. “This is a mess,” she declares. I am not sure if she is referring to my room, or to me, or both. She opens my closet. “Too many things in here,” she says. “That gray hoodie has to go, it doesn’t look good on you anymore. And why do you still have that denim skirt? Daddy told you it was too short. Didn’t he ask you to get rid of that?”

“Mom, it’s not—”

“And your desk is ready to collapse any minute now. Can you please empty those drawers? I don’t understand why you have to keep every single letter you receive from every single person you meet. Hay naku, Anna, this won’t do. I want this room spic and span by the end of the day. And don’t even get me started on that bed, if you can even call it that; I honestly don’t know how you can sleep in that thing…”

You know how people tell you that things always look better in the morning? It’s true. Mostly because when you spend almost the entire night crying, you wake up the next day with a dull ache in your head that renders you numb to everything else. In a way, you forget about the emotional pain because you are so focused on the physical pain. Which means you will say yes to anything and anyone just to shut them up, which explains why the only thing I can think of doing as my mom barks orders like a drill sergeant scorned is to wince and nod silently.

Several hours later, I have one big No pile and two small Yes and Maybe piles. In the No pile are three pairs of sneakers (all gifts from The Ex—and yes, I shall start referring to him as The Ex from now on, despite the fact that he was given a real name by his parents and I’m sure they think it’s a very nice name), every single dress I wore to every single dinner date with The Ex (twelve, last time I checked), my four-inch heels (The Ex is tall and lean, while I am…short and clumsy), the red bag The Ex gave me from his recent trip to the States, and the shirt I was wearing when The Ex and I officially became a couple (out in my corner in the pouring rain). The Yes and Maybe piles are all stuff that either a) do not remotely remind me of him, b) remind me of him but are too expensive/unique/cute on me to throw away, or c) remind me of him, no longer fit me, and are ugly as hell, but have been with me since the beginning of time.

In the background, “Apologize” (the Timbaland-less and therefore more conducive to emo moments version) is playing over and over and over again. The ache in my head slowly but surely beginning to subside but just as slowly and surely beginning to be replaced by an entirely different kind of pain, I head downstairs to update my mom on my progress—and maybe convince her to let me leave the desk drawers for tomorrow.

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