The Wild One Read Online Free

even asked me what makes me happy. I mean, what would I answer? Books and baking? How lame is that? And do they really make me happy? They can’t, right? Because I’m not happy. I’m just … I’m not happy.
    I will never be happy.
    Suddenly, I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m going to cry, or scream. I have to get out of here.
    I quietly stand up and hurry out of the living room. No one even notices. Then I open the front door and step outside onto the stoop, closing the door quickly behind me.
    I can’t breathe. I can’t get enough air into my body, I’m choking, gasping for oxygen … One breath in. One breath out. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly my breathing calms as I stand on our stoop, looking out over Union Street.
    It’s a beautiful sunny evening, the kind that makes you feel like you should be out enjoying every second or else you’re a failure.
    Forcing myself to breathe slowly and evenly, I look out at the classic brownstones. The usual weekday afternoon suspects abound: local stay-at-home dads wearing babies in slings, competitive moms in Spandex with strollers, bored iPhone-clicking nannies, shuffling nanny-grandmas, the actors/dog walkers, the sophisti-kids skateboarding home from school with more cool than I’ll ever fake. There are a hundred ways of belonging in Brooklyn, and everyone has one.
    Except me.
    It’s times like this that make me really miss my mom. My dad is good at telling me what to do, but my mom was good at just making me feel like everything was going to be okay.
    I don’t want to think about her too much; I’ll get upset. Today is one of those days when I can feel my grief is closer to the surface. I slump down on the stoop and put my arms over my knees, resting my forehead on them.
    I will never be happy.
    â€œWhy, if it isn’t little Coco,” says a familiar voice.
    I look over the other side of the stoop. It’s Vic, our eighty-something downstairs neighbor. He’s lived at Rookhaven since forever, since my mom was a baby and long before that. You can always find him outside his basement apartment door watching the world go by.
    â€œHow’s life?”
    â€œMy life sucks so hard,” I say.
    Vic grins. His face is like a cartoon of an ancient oak tree, all gnarly crevices. “And why’s that?”
    â€œUm.” I take a deep breath, and suddenly everything just spills out. “My boyfriend cheated on me. And I think I’m about to get fired because apparently I don’t believe in myself.”
    â€œOkay…” Vic says slowly, inclining his head toward mine. I swear his ears are, like, the size of my hand. “Go on.”
    â€œI can’t tell the girls, because they’d just hate him. And I don’t need to hear that right now, and I don’t have anyone else to tell.” The words tumble out of me. “I saw him kissing another girl on Saturday night and I haven’t said anything to him, like at all, I just really don’t want to break up—”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause then I’ll be single!” It comes out louder than I mean it to. Then I realize I don’t want to talk about my relationship with an eighty-something-year-old guy. “And, um, more important, I just got put on probation, my boss thinks I’m really bad at my job…”
    â€œYou’re an assistant at a primary school?”
    â€œPreschool,” I say.
    â€œSounds fun,” he says.
    â€œIt’s not. At least, not for me. I mean, the kids are cute, but there’s a lot more to it than just kids.” Like Miss Audrey.
    â€œSo why’d ya choose it?”
    â€œMy dad and Julia said it was a good idea, you know, because I liked babysitting, and I’m not very good at being, um, aggressive? Both of them work in finance, and I guess they didn’t think I’d thrive in that particular, um”—I search for the right