She moved her hand from its careful position on the bed and gently settled it on Adaku’s thigh. “But that’s not possible. And I made you feel terrible for failing to do the impossible.” Sewanee smiled sadly. “As much as your relentless optimism drives me nuts, I wanted it. And you certainly have enough to go around. So I pretended to have it, too. But it wasn’t what I needed.”
Adaku nudged the box toward Sewanee. “What you need is some of these fries.”
Sewanee put a few in her mouth, chewed. “When I saw Mom, she said–”
“When did you see your mom?”
“In Venice. That’s why I went. We talked and there was one thing she said that I so wish you could have been there for. She said that you’ve all been waiting for me to be okay with what happened, to accept myself as I am now, so you could be okay with it. But I’ve been waiting for all of you to tell me it’s okay, that . . .” Her throat squeezed. “That I’m okay. And it was so unfair of me to put that on everyone else. I wanted you to throw me a life preserver because I didn’t want to save myself. I didn’t want to learn how to swim.”
Adaku chewed thoughtfully, silent.
“And then Nick said–”
Her eyes bugged. “You’re talking to Nick?”
“Yeah, he was there, too.”
“What?” She swallowed her food. “When did you call this summit and why wasn’t I invited?”
“He said I need to stop thinking I’m nothing more than the damaged version of myself. That who I was is who I am.” She looked down at the blanket. “And it made me think: we break, in many different ways. But it doesn’t mean we’re broken. Do you get what I mean?”
Adaku waved a weak hand around the hospital room, her gown, her busted head. “Not in the slightest.” She tossed the now empty box aside, and held up her arms, begging Sewanee into a hug. “Can you put all that into my drip and directly into my vein?”
They fell into each other and held on as if they were floating. Neither needing the other for saving, both able to swim, but resting on each other for a moment, catching their breath.
When they separated, Sewanee pointed at her eye patch, then at her friend’s bandage. “Twinsies!”
Adaku blurted a laugh.
Sewanee took a moment. “So, what happened?”
Adaku sighed, looked down, picked the salt from under her nails. “It’s so embarrassing. When I left your place–I wasn’t a hundred percent from the London trip. Tired, nauseous, muscle aches, running on adrenaline. Got to Georgia and they immediately took us to the woods. Camping, hunting . . . bonding.” She rolled her eyes. “But two days in a storm hit and we went back to civilization. Where I got an e-mail. The Angela Davis people wanted to have a meeting–”
“No.”
“Yes. So I got on a red-eye back to L.A.” Adaku continued, sarcastically, “Because it was meant to be! And I can handle it. I handle everything. No sleep, no problem. Train six hours a day, seven days a week, sure. Years without a single day to myself, bring it. All this time busting my ass and I still feel like we’re back in Washington Heights, me with one audition for every ten of yours. Twice as hard to go half as far, right? That shit never ends. So of course I’ll kill myself to make that meeting happen. Kill myself to be the unimpeachable picture of the strong Black woman manifesting her success, and–” She abruptly sobbed. Tears poured from her eyes and she turned toward the window, as if she could grab oxygen from it. Sewanee clutched her hand and stroked her leg through the blanket, swallowing back her own tears. Adaku wrested control and continued, in a strained voice, “I didn’t make the meeting.”
“What happened?”
“I guess a panic attack? But I pushed through it. Then I got off the plane and stepped out to the arrivals curb, and . . . splat. On the sidewalk.” She pointed at the gauze. “Crack.”
Sewanee winced. “God, A.”
“Exhaustion,” Adaku mumbled. “What a cliché.”
Sewanee picked up a cup of water on the tray table next to the bed and gave it to Adaku. “Drink.”
She took a sip, handed it back to Sewanee. Took a moment. “This is a fucked business, Swan. Nobody cares. It’s about nothing but money, power, the special treatment. We didn’t get it at the time, but remember our big goal? Make a million before we’re thirty-five? It wasn’t about art, or talent, or being someone in this world. It was about being something. A commodity. Something that would one day be worth a million dollars.” She closed her eyes, tipped her head back. “You don’t know how lucky you are. This never stops being hard. Every time I win, I don’t dare think about what that win cost me. I’m just on to the next one.” She opened her eyes, gestured harshly at the bed. “I mean, what does it take for us to wake the fuck up?”