It’s a stilted conversation, a lot of dead air. He interrupts her accidentally. He starts talking when she does after a lot of silence. Then he shuts up and tells her to go first. She wants to talk about auditions and how everyone looks the same at auditions and how she’s the only brown girl in the room at auditions, and all he can think about is how far L.A. is and how shiny her new life looks from the pictures.

She sounds happy he called, a little scared it’ll break down into a fight. Everything breaks down into a fight lately. He starts most of them.

“I hope I get a callback,” she says. But her tone sounds resigned.

“Don’t sweat it,” he says. “There’s always more auditions.” But the words feel thick in his mouth and he knows every gig she nails is one that takes her farther and farther away from him. Some day, he suspects, she’ll disappear.

He can’t make money fast enough. He can feel himself backsliding. And it’s not anger but it feels like anger. It feels like impatience and disappointment and bitterness and resentment and fear. He hates himself for caring this much. He’s selfish. And how did she pull this goddamn trick on him anyway. How’d she become so important that every dead second of the day, he thought about her. Was he working this hard to stop thinking about her or was he working this hard to get to her? Which one was worse?

The line goes quiet again. She finally asks, “How you been though?”

And his body feels heavy. He’s sitting in the basement in the dark with the receiver pressed to his face because he wants to hear her breathe but the connection’s busted. He wants to tell her the truth and be shameless about it. His face hurts from biting back down on his teeth.

I miss you, he wants to tell her. I miss you like fuckin’ crazy.

But what he says is, “Good.”

His mother’s been in the hospital for two days. She’s having trouble breathing again, coughing up blood. Sometimes it’s all right, sometimes it’s bad. She ran out of sick days a while go. Now she just isn’t getting paid. The stress drives her back to her feet no matter how many times he tells her he can pay the bills. She hadn’t wanted him to quit. Not after all the trouble she’d gone through to put him through school. But watching her die slow wasn’t worth it. So he’d quit.

He calls her L.A. apartment, and then her cell phone, but he knows she’s working. Maybe she’s not even in the city. Maybe she’s out in New York already, or maybe she’s down in Texas. She sounded excited about the show in Texas. He wants to tell her he’s going to Houston and maybe he can see her if she’s around. You know, if she has time. But he knows it’s a long shot. She’s probably working in L.A. They barely talk anymore. He doesn’t tell her about his mama. He’ll have to do it alone, and he gets tense thinking about the shot he’s getting, meeting one of his idols, sick with nerves about letting J down. He doesn’t talk about that though.

He talks about inking a deal and not sweatin’ a thing and proving he’s not a wannabe Backstreet Boy from Canada.

Except he’s afraid he’ll only have one shot so the only option is to make it. There’s not a lot of money left. His mama’s losing her job. She’s not getting better.

He tries her again when she doesn’t pick up.

After six rings, her phone goes to voicemail and he thinks, I need you to pick up right now. I need you to fix me.

But what he says is, “It’s me. Call me back.”

It’s four in the morning when he comes to. He always wakes up around four in the morning after drinking too much. It’s never hazy. He comes to fully conscious, fully formed, fully aware of his bad choices. He used to tell her he had god’s tolerance, no hangovers in his blood. He’d roll on top of her in the dark and kiss her face and ask her if she was awake until she was awake and demand she tell him he was her one and only. He was The Boy. And then he’d tell her he was indestructible and she’d tell him to do something with his mouth or shut up until he shut up. But she isn’t the girl with him tonight. K--’s with him tonight. K-- with the thick curly hair and the pink lipstick that gets fuckin’ everywhere and the roundest ass he’s seen in awhile. K-- who’s been orbiting him for the past month while he fights it out over the phone, waiting to slip in when he finally gives up calling. He made the mistake of telling her he doesn’t get hangovers, that he misses sex. So she rose to both occasions like a champ, mixed something strong enough to set the room on fire. He hadn’t been that eager since 16. All he’d thought was they’re always on the outs these days. They’re always fighting. He’s too stubborn to call her back. So he dances with other girls, so what. So he keeps some numbers, so what. If she’s seeing other boys, he can see other girls. So why not. He hadn’t said no tonight. When they finally stumbled into her bedroom, K-- asked him what he saw in Ms. Hollywood’s stuck-up ass if she didn’t even want him enough to stay. He told her to shut up. So she dropped to her knees and smiled up at him and shut up. He’d fucked her against wall, on the floor, and eventually the bed. It was too hot to sleep under her so he’d pushed her off before blacking out. Now it’s four in the morning. She’s passed out beside him like a corpse. His mouth tastes like shit, and the room’s pitch black and smells like hash and sex. He lies there, thinking of K--. She’s good looking and funny sometimes and he wonders if he really tries, if he can make himself a little crazy about her. He likes the attention she gives him. She thinks he’s amazing, so talented, such a fuckin’ Somebody, and after all the fighting the past year, it’s nice to feel like Somebody. She’s not that bright, sure. Their conversations aren’t that deep, whatever. But he likes her legs and her perfectly round ass and she knows how to fuck and she’s here and she wants to be and she wants him. Maybe he can make himself a little crazy about her. But it doesn’t feel the same. He thinks about L.A. and how much he fuckin’ misses her, how he saw her on TV and she’d called him to ask if he’d seen the show. Of course he had. She’d been so fuckin’ pretty and he’d been so fuckin’ proud and he wouldn’t have fuckin’ missed it for anything in the goddamn world. He could’ve told her that. But all he’d said was it’s okay. And she’d wanted him to like it so bad. He’d felt the neediness of it over the phone and he’d told her it’s okay. She’d gotten quiet for a second and he’d known he’d fucked up again and he’d tried to fix it by telling her she looked great, that it was real good, but the moment was gone. She’s so fuckin’ beautiful but the moment’s gone. And now he feels like he’s dying. He’ll never be crazy over the body next to him. These new girls. They make him feel impatient and criminal. He already feels like a dog for fucking her because she’s not the one. So he fumbles around in the dark for his phone and leaves the bed to call The Girl. He knows it’s too early. She’s probably asleep. But he wants to hear her voice. And he locks himself in the bathroom with all the lights off and prays for a miracle. He needs to hear her voice. And when she answers, he starts to believe in god. She sounds tired and worried over the phone and she asks him what’s wrong. He can picture her in bed under the covers, barely conscious. He wonders if she’s alone. He wonders if she locks herself in strange bathrooms too after sleeping with new boys. It sobers him up. He feels his temper swelling up in the back of his skull and rubs his hand over it. Raphael? Raphael, are you drunk right now? And he wants to tell her everything. How he’s miserable and angry. He wants to tell her, I love you. I still love you. But what he says is, “Why are you up?”

They’re sitting on the living room floor. His legs are pulled up. She’s wedged between them, sitting cross-legged, Indian style with her back to him. She uses the tops of his knees as armrests. She leans the side of her face against one and sighs happily, breaking briefly from the art of rolling a perfect blunt. She’s wearing a red sweater with his face on it. He brought it for her, says it’s funny. She humors him because she knows what it actually means, leaves her blood pressure-raising panties on as a deterrent. It’s a flimsy one.

It’s winter in L.A. and it’s raining.

He’s backed up against the foot of the couch. She has all their goodies spread out on the coffee table in front of her.

This is the first time he’s been in her new apartment. It smells like dried flowers and weed. There are pictures of him pinned to the walls, some of them embarrassing, most of them featuring her, too. The selfies before cell phones, pictures developed at awkward angles of them squinting up into the lenses on a hope and a prayer. He knows she collects memories like books she doesn’t have time to read, but it makes him happy that he’s still around, hanging on her walls, sealed in colorful frames beside her bed. Little proofs that she hasn’t given up, no matter what paranoias he talks himself into over the phone.

He tucks a hand under the sweatshirt and rubs his thumb over the small of her back. Another inch south and her toes’ll start curling.

“We’re booking tour dates,” he says.

“I know,” she answers.

Google alerts, maybe. Roman, most definitely.

His very own tour.

“Crazy,” he says.

“It’s not that crazy,” she replies.

“Who fuckin’ knew.”

“Me.”

“I’m gonna buy you a house, Raquel.”

“What kinda house.”

“A motherfuckin’ house.”

“Stupid ass,” she says as she turns her head over her shoulder to glare at him. He loves how musical it sounds when she insults him. She adds, “My feet are cold.”

“Fuckin’ baby,” he fires at her.

This is a good summer day compared to what the weather’s like back home in Toronto.

He reaches around her and covers her tiny feet with his hands. She wiggles her toes. His chin hooks over her shoulder. He can’t remember the last time he felt this much like himself. She kisses his neck and rubs her face against his face and says I love you, stupid ass. And he can’t remember what’s so important that they have to fight all the time about stupid shit and people who don’t matter and things that aren’t real when they have this. They still have this, and isn’t this so much more important than all the hours they waste being angry with each other for not being perfect.

He wants to tell her, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being a terrible boy.

But what he says is, “I missed you, Raquel.” He’ll start there instead.