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I Can Do It with a Broken Heart!

One of those houses is the Lemon house.

The other belongs to the DeLucas.

I make it a point not to look at that house as I pull into the driveway, instead channeling my attention to the thousands of notifications from my latest video on (the popular app that could very well be banned by the United States government by the time you read this, and, if not, oh well because henceforth it shall be known as) the Clock App.

External validation is not only delicious; it’s nutritious, too. Tastes a lot like Nonna’s Sunday sauce—a garlicky ragù with fresh mint that zings on the palate, the smell of which wafts out from a rickety open window in our modest brick house, lead paint chips peeling off its frame.

Immediately, my phone is out and recording as I burst inside—my followers love home-cooked family dinner content, especially Nonna’s famous meatballs.

“Fielder’s home!” Ma shouts to Nonna, who is streaming old episodes of The Price Is Right at such a loud volume I’m surprised there hasn’t been a noise ordinance.

“You get me for the whole day.” I stop recording and swipe open the remote app on my phone, lowering the TV volume. Right on cue Nonna cries out as if an axe murderer broke into the living room.

Ma snickers. “It’s like a special occasion or something!” Italian guilt, her specialty. She acts like I don’t live here.

“I saw you all day yesterday, remember?” I kiss her cheek and hand her a potted flower.

It’s been our tradition since I was small to help her plant new flowers in Nonna’s garden every year on her birthday.

“I have the rest of the flowers in the trunk of my car. Went out early for a run and then Home Depot for plants and soil.”

“Such a good boy I raised!” She pinches my cheeks, then slaps them for good measure. “Go get Nonna out of that damn chair. I keep telling her to move around; she’s gonna get sores on her ass.”

“All right.” I wave her away and stop at the window over the kitchen sink.

From here, I can see straight into the DeLucas’ house.

Nobody is home. No cars in the driveway.

A For Sale sign in the front yard. Mr. and Mrs. DeLuca have been down in South Carolina on and off since he graduated last year.

Sienna, his older sister, hasn’t lived here in Westchester since I was in middle school, and—

“Oh!” Ma exclaims, stirring the pot of Nonna’s tangy sauce bubbling on the stovetop. “Guess who I saw this morning at church!”

My chest tightens and I stop breathing. Every time she says this, I think she’s going to say his name.

“Zia Gabriella. She says you don’t call her.”

“Ma, I just had lunch with Zia Gab two Saturdays ago.” Or was it three? “You see your sister all the time.”

“Be nice to me today. It’s my birthday. I’m twenty-two times two today.”

“You don’t look a day over eighteen times two,” I say, checking notifications, swiping through and responding to comments and DMs.

She says nothing, and I don’t know how long she’s standing in front of me waiting for me to look up, but when I do, she plucks my phone from between my fingers so swiftly I don’t register it.

Ma’s got expert spy skills. If you’ve ever met a scorned Italian woman, you’ve basically met a trained assassin.

“Hey!”

“You’re on this thing too much. You’re missing life, Field.” She shakes her head in disappointment the way only an Italian mom could.

“No, I’m not. I hate when people say that.” Anxiety bubbles inside me. I reach for my phone, but she swivels out of reach.

“I hate phones. Life was better before cell phones. In my day . . .”

Dear reader, I roll my eyes so hard my entire body follows and I crash to the floor in dramatic fashion.

“All right, stugots! Get up! Zia Gab, Zia Rosa, and Matty are coming over for sauce. Go wash up. You smell.”

I sniff under my arms. She’s not wrong.

Then, randomly, she asks, “Have you heard from Topher?”

I haven’t spoken to Topher in a couple months, at least. “No, why?”

She clicks her blush-pink manicured nails together. “There’s some wonderful family news. But first—” She mimes a zipper closing across her lips.

Curiosity: piqued. “Why so cryptic?”

She shrugs. “What happened with that boy?” She’s trying to throw me off the scent of something much larger than a boy.

My head whips around. “Huh? What boy?”

“The one who was over the other day.” Ma’s nostrils flare.

“Good thing it was me who saw him, and not Nonna. She’d give him a lecture about the proper way to court her grandson, and then scream at you for being disrespectful and not introducing him.

Was he the neighbor’s kid from down the street, Rye? He’s a nice boy, but he’s no R—”

“ Ma! ” I cut her off before she can say the name. My cheeks heat faster than Nonna’s Bialetti espresso pot. “First of all, Ma, I’m sorry—I’d never disrespect you or Nonna like that. Rye’s just a friend.”

Ma’s eyes narrow. She’s too smart for that. “It’s nice to see you moving on, finally.”

“Mm-hmm.” I don’t have the heart—or balls—to tell her that Rye’s also a friend I occasionally hook up with. After my heart was crushed by the boy next door in what I call “the Great Commencement Massacre,” I needed to have fun. Kiss lots of boys. And nobody ever got hurt kissing a boy, right?

*Stares directly at camera.* Anyway.

I’ve discovered over the last year since he , the big fat R in the room, broke up with me, I can pretend I’m completely fine day-to-day: film online content, go to school, do homework, hook up with guys on the football team while saving my heart for the guy who ruined me yet not be able to say his name out loud, and do it all with a broken heart!

Some call that delusional; I call it containing multitudes!

“But, yeah, the guy—erm, yeah, he isn’t gonna work out.”

“You’re young.” She avoids eye contact. “But while you live under my roof—”

“Nonna’s,” I correct.

She clears her throat in an interrupt-me-again-and-I’ll-whoop-your-ass way. “As long as you live here, you live by my rules. Once you’re old enough to get your own place, you can have any Kevin, Joe, or Nick you want over.”

Dread creeps into my chest.

“Did you just name Jonas Brothers? Ma—”

It’s not like I haven’t thought about moving out.

All my high school friends are about to move on to their various campuses, into run-down dorms, and I don’t want to be stuck in my same bedroom wallpapered with posters of Pedro Pascal, Orville Peck, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, a Ryan Reynolds–autographed Deadpool poster—who doesn’t love a fourth wall break?

—and Polaroids of high school friends, family—and him —a time capsule for who I once was.

But where would I go? I like being home.

Part of Ma’s “No College? Fine, but You’re Learning a Thing or Two from Me” agreement included paying rent and contributing to household bills and expenses, which I’ve had to do all through high school anyway to help make ends meet.

But the part Ma really goes hard on is wanting me to focus on a career beyond social media.

Ma’s rule—I have one year of living at home (not rent-free, to clarify!) to sustain an Italian mom–approved career outside of the Clock App.

Even though my only marketable skill is the million-plus user following I’ve built using the Clock App.

Right now, I’m laser-focused on being a Clock influencer and riding that to whatever comes next.

At the very least, it’s a bullet train to gaining more followers and building more “fame.” Expand my platform.

As it stands now, I’ve done a stellar job doing that on my own.

My Clock account is a success by any metrics or standards.

That’s all I need, right? At least, that’s what I’ve told myself—and Ma.

*Stares directly into camera, blinks twice.*

Anyway.

“I can move out soon. Ish. If you want,” I offer, though I know she’d never go for that. Italian moms would keep their kids until they died if they could, Norma Bates–style.

“Nonsense!” She waves away the thought. She moves in closer and grabs the side of my face.

Her hands are soft and smell like marinara, onions, and garlic.

“Remember what I told you when your father died? Sometimes the plans we thought we had for ourselves don’t always work out.

They change. Life changes. I mean, look at me.

I never thought I’d be living with my mother at this age.

I wanted to see the world, do something important, you know?

Now I’m forty-four, and what do I have to show for it?

Besides you, I haven’t done much with my life.

And you’re not a kid anymore.” She plants a wet kiss on my cheek and sings, “But you’ll always be my baby.

I want better for you, than this .” She gestures around Nonna’s small house, the one she could never make it out of due to her and Dad’s money struggles, then Dad’s cancer diagnosis and eventual death. Ma wants more for us. For me.

I want more for her . “Ma, you’re super young. You can see the world. Do whatever you want. You act like you’re in the final stages of life.”

She shrugs. “I’m stuck with Nonna.”

If there’s one thing I want you to know about Italian women, it’s this: They’re soldiers.

They take care of everyone at their own expense—feed the family at dinner, loading everyone’s plates twice over before even taking a slice of bread, break their backs until they bleed and never so much as complain.

And don’t you dare feel sorry for them. Just do better.

“Zia Gab and Zia Rosa can help with Nonna.”

The door swings open and slams into the Formica counter, chipping the corner. Ma curses.

“What can I do? I heard my name. You shit-talking, nephew?” Zia Rosa sets down a platter of pignoli and rainbow cookies, and stomps her boots on the welcome mat before beckoning me for a hug.