He snorts. “You have no idea.”
HE DOESN’T EVEN GET THE IRONY.
Another sip of coffee. Maybe I need to hammer it home. “It’s a shame you had to waste your time with me.”
“It’s not a waste of time,” he says, tap-tap-tapping at the screen. “I can do both.”
My expression turns into a line-face emoji.
Whatever. I pull out my own phone. Nightmare’s message is still sitting on top. I close it before I start hyperventilating again.
Besides, what’s the worst thing he can do? Show up at school? It’s not like he can find me from an image of my back. He might have a hard time if the only identifying mark is a girl with a dark ponytail. He’s already sent me an image of my avatar—not like I haven’t been down that road before.
I take a deep breath. This will be okay.
I want to text Cait but I’ve burned that bridge.
I’ve burned the bridge with Rev, too.
I’m stranded on this island all alone.
Maybe I could write Rev a note. He said his best friend used to exchange notes with his girlfriend before they met in person.
I pull up a browser on my phone and look for a Bible verse about divorce.
Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery.
Nope, not that one.
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies—
Okay, definitely not that one.
However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
According to that one, my dad is married to his iPhone.
A lot of these are about sex—and exactly zero of them are reassuring. I wrinkle my nose.
“What are you frowning about?” says Dad.
“I’m reading the Bible.”
“You’re—what?”
“You heard me.” I wave my hand, making no effort to hide my irritation. “Go back to your game stuff.”
“Emma …” He sounds like he’s not sure how to proceed from here.
I can’t help him. I personally have no idea how to proceed. Burying my face in electronics has worked in the past. At least computers do what I want. I don’t glance up.
I don’t understand how Rev can find any of this reassuring at all. Honestly, I’m tired of reading about how divorce is seventeen kinds of forbidden unless someone dies.
I change my search query to Bible verses about forgiveness.
Now they’re all about asking God for forgiveness. Also not what I want.
The sad thing is that I could probably walk up to Rev and say, “Is there a good Bible quote for asking someone to forgive you? I need it.”
Actually, that would make a pretty good opener for an apology, now that I think of it.
No, it might sound like I’m mocking him.
I need to keep looking.
The waitress returns to our table and unloads a plate of pancakes. The cup of butter is melted, which is awesome. I pour it all out, then add a gallon of syrup.
“Do you want to talk,” says Dad, “or are you going to have your face in your phone the whole time?”
I slam my phone down on the table. “Are you kidding? Tell me you’re kidding.”
We draw the attention of everyone around us.
“M&M,” my dad says, his voice low. “I don’t understand what you’re so—”
“You don’t understand what?” I snap. “You don’t understand why I’m upset? How about the fact that I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to breakfast with you, but—”
“I’m sorry it’s such a hardship.” His eyes flash.
“—but you won’t look away from your phone to have a conversation with me. So when I start looking at my phone because I’m bored and you’re not even eating—”
“I have a job, Emma.”
“—you get on my case about ignoring you, when that’s all you’ve been doing since you picked me up.”
“First of all,” he says, punctuating his words with his finger against the table, “I am not goofing off on my phone. You know this is already a tense time for me, without everything else going on. Second of all—”
I snort. “Gee, then maybe you shouldn’t have asked for a divorce.”
“—I asked you to breakfast because I miss you, and I don’t deserve this attitude right now.”
“You’re right,” I say sweetly, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “You don’t deserve this at all. Maybe I should go outside and have a glass of wine, you can roll your eyes over a bottle of beer, and we can have a discussion like grown-ups.”
“What?” he snaps. “What do you want from me, Emma?”
Attention.
I almost say the word. The weight of it is right there in my mouth, like something I need to spit out or I can’t breathe.
I have all of Mom’s attention, and I don’t want it.
I have none of his, and I crave it.
How can they both be so blind?
“Nothing,” I whisper. That dagger of shame buries itself a little more deeply. I clear my throat. “I think you need to take me home.”
He sighs. “Emma.”
“I don’t want to be here. I need to go home.”
“Eat your pancakes. We can talk about school, or whatever game you’re playing—”
“Home.” I shove the plate away. “I want to go home.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he snaps. “I don’t know what your mother is telling you, but I’m not going to have you behave like this every time I see you.”
My throat tightens again. “She’s not telling me anything.” I slide out of the booth. “You don’t have to worry.”
His phone rings, and he glances at the screen. “Stop. Emma, stop. I want to talk to you about this.” He doesn’t even wait for a response. He answers the phone. “Yeah, Doug, give me thirty seconds, okay?”
Thirty seconds. He thinks we’re going to resolve this in thirty seconds.
“Take your call,” I say. I toss my bag over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“I need some air. Take your call. I’ll wait outside.”
For some reason I expect him to disconnect the call and chase me out of the restaurant. He doesn’t. I hear him behind me saying, “Thanks, Doug. I’m just here with my daughter …”
Hilarious. He makes it sound like Doug is interrupting a nice time.
I find a spot on a bench in front of the restaurant. The air is brisk and stings my ears, but the rain has finally left the area. Cars fly by on Ritchie Highway. I can see Dad through the window, chatting away.
I wish I could just leave. A bus stops just down the road, and I wonder if I have the guts to run and catch it, and just ride forever.
No, I don’t.
Also, that would take some serious cardio.
Without warning, tears form in my eyes. I’ve never felt so alone.
I dial Cait.
Her mom answers. “Hello?”
I sniff and try to hide the tears in my voice. “Hi, Mrs. Cameron. It’s Emma. Is Cait awake yet?”
“She’s in the shower. It’s very early, dear.”
“I know.” I sniff again, and then it’s like my eyes refuse to keep up this fight. I start crying full out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Can you just tell her I’ll see her at school?”
“Emma? What’s wrong?”
Her voice is so warm. It’s at such odds with my parents, who speak with nothing but vitriol. “It’s nothing.” My voice cracks. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, sweetheart. You’re crying. It’s not nothing. Are you okay?”
“No.” All this emotion is fighting its way out of me. My sobs make it almost impossible to speak. “My parents are getting a divorce.” A diesel truck revs to life nearby.
“Emma. I’m so sorry. Where are you?”
“I’m sitting outside the Double T Diner. I was supposed to have breakfast with my dad
but he’s too busy.”
“Oh, Emma. Do you need me to come get you?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. Please.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. You stay right there, do you hear me?”
I spend the entire ten minutes wringing my hands and wondering if I should call her back and tell her not to come. Wondering what I’m going to say to Cait when I see her.
Wondering if my dad is going to notice the passage of time, or see that I’m sitting out here sobbing into my hands.
He doesn’t.
I spot Mrs. Cameron’s shiny maroon minivan as it pulls into the lot, and I send my dad a quick text.
Emma: Going to be late for school. Getting a ride with Cait.
Maybe that’ll wake him up.
He glances at his phone, then looks out the window just as the minivan stops in front of me.
He gives me a thumbs-up. A frigging thumbs-up.
I turn back to the minivan. Cait is opening the door.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I burst into tears again. “Cait, I’m so sorry—”
She launches herself at me and wraps me up in a hug. “Oh, Emma. You should have told me.”
“Come on, girls,” calls Mrs. Cameron. “I need to get the boys to school, too.”
We climb into the van. The door slides closed.
And I remember what it feels like to be wanted.
TWENTY-NINE
Rev
Rev,
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Psalm 51:3.
In other words, I’m sorry.
Emma
The note was shoved through the slats on my locker, and I don’t find it until I’m swapping books before lunch. I read it three times.
I’m not sure how to respond. My head is still full of anxiety about my father. About Matthew, who told Mom nothing, and now his life secrets carry equal weight with mine. I don’t know if Emma’s apology is a brush-off, or an invitation for more discussion, or if she’s so lost in her own issues that we should just let it drop here.
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
I shove the note in my backpack. I need to eat.
Declan is waiting at our table.
To my surprise, so is Matthew. A brown paper bag sits on the table in front of him, but he hasn’t pulled anything free. I wonder if he’s waiting to see if I’m going to chase him away. The ride to school this morning was filled with his usual silent rebellion.
I wonder if he’s wondering when I’m going to reveal his secrets.
Maybe I should. Telling Dad everything was such an unexpected relief. I’d been so worried that he would condemn me—and instead, he reminded me I’m not so alone.
This isn’t my secret to tell, though.
I throw my bag under the table and fish out my own lunch. “Hey,” I say.
Matthew waits for a moment, then opens his bag.
Juliet arrives at the table with a tray, trailed by her friend Rowan, and Rowan’s boyfriend, Brandon Cho. They’re all laughing. Declan and Brandon don’t have anything in common, but they tolerate each other for the sake of the girls. Usually I have to kick him under the table when his muttered comments get a little too edged. I’m pretty sure Juliet kicks him from the other side.
Matthew watches them all crowd onto the benches. His hand stops on one of the containers Kristin packed.
The girls and Brandon give him a little wave and introduce themselves.
He mutters, “Hey,” and turns his attention back to his food, though he still hasn’t opened anything yet. A moment passes, but they let it go, and return to their conversation. I wonder how much Declan told Juliet about him.
I lean in against the table. “You all right?” I say to Matthew.
His fingers fiddle with the lid to a container. “I’m fine.”
“We can go to another table.”
“I said, I’m fine.” He’s not belligerent about it. His voice is low. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
A camera shutter snaps, and I jump. So does Matthew.
“Sorry,” says Juliet. “I’m sorry. I should have asked. It was just—it was a good shot.”
“It’s fine.” I tell my nerves to back off.
Matthew says nothing. He looks back at his food.
Juliet is pressing buttons on her camera, staring at the screen on the back. Brandon is on her other side, and he leans over to see. “It is a good shot.”
She turns the camera around so I can see. Matthew and I are very still, facing off across the table, our expressions intense. The other students merge into a colorful, active blur behind us.
Rowan leans over to look, too. She’s not a photographer like they are, but she says, “I like it. You should call it The Final Showdown.”
“We’re not fighting,” I say.
Matthew still hasn’t said anything.
Declan is quiet, too. I wonder if he’s thinking about his father. I wonder if he’s told Juliet what he’s doing. When he picked us up this morning, he said, “You still good for this afternoon?”
When I said yes, he changed the subject.
Juliet studies Matthew. “I should have asked you, too. I know Rev doesn’t like—” Her voice falters. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care.” Matthew’s voice is low and quiet. He’s finally cracked open his Tupperware, but he’s eating like an animal that’s scared you’re going to steal its food.
Declan said those boys from yesterday probably wouldn’t bother him now, after what I did, but maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Matthew is hiding here, with us.
It should be reassuring after our rocky start. It’s not. It’s depressing.
But then he looks over at me. “You don’t like having your picture taken?”
I freeze. At the end of the table, Juliet winces. I’m sorry, she mouths to me.
And of course now I have everyone’s attention.
“Leave it,” says Declan. “They don’t need to know.”
Even here, my father has power over me. I set down my food and look at Matthew. “When I was a kid, my father used to take pictures. So I’d have reminders.”
“Reminders of what?” says Rowan, before Juliet hushes her.
Matthew stares back at me. “Your father sounds like a real prick.”
That shocks a laugh out of me. Matthew looks back at his food and doesn’t say anything else.
I’m encouraged that he said anything, though, even something about this. I realize that I know the worst parts of his life, but otherwise, I know next to nothing about him.
“What’s your schedule like?” I ask him.
His eyes flick up, like he’s surprised by the question. That surprise might be the only reason I’m getting a response at all. “It’s all right. They put me back in the same classes I had before.”
I wonder what it would be like to constantly change schools, even if it’s within the same county. To meet new teachers in the middle of a semester, to have to learn a new routine. Dad’s words are loud in my head, about how the unknown can be especially frightening when you don’t trust anyone. “Are you in class with those boys from yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they still hassling you?”
He shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Not whatever. You can switch classes, you know.”
“Yeah, whatever. You think I’m going to be here all that long anyway?”
That takes me by surprise. “You can’t keep running.”
He snorts. “I’m not even talking about running.”
I blink. “But—”
“I don’t really want to talk about this, okay?” His shoulders are tight, and his eyes are on his food.
“Sure.” I glance at Declan, to get his read, but he’s locked in his own head again, trapped with his own thoughts.
Great. We can all sit here and be quiet.
I’m not even ta
lking about running.
He must be talking about Mom and Dad. I want to tell him that they have never—not ever—given up on a child. They have never needed to find an alternate arrangement for anyone.
Then again, they’ve never housed another teenager before. And Dad asked me if he needed to find another arrangement for Matthew. If it was too much for me to handle. I said no. And even without knowing Matthew’s history, I wouldn’t have said yes. I wonder if Matthew knows that.
I look at his hunched shoulders, at the way he’s tearing through his food, and wonder if it matters.
“Was that girl your girlfriend?” Matthew says, out of the blue.
“What girl?”
“The one with the dog.”
“Emma. No.” I have no idea how to classify her.
I glance at Juliet and Rowan, who’ve stopped focusing on me, and are now talking about Spring Fling. I don’t even know when it is. It’s some kind of miracle I even know it’s a dance.
I assume Declan is going. I have gone to exactly one dance throughout all of high school, and that was Homecoming last fall. I went solely to play wingman for Dec.
Matthew continues, “That night I saw you in the rain, I thought you were making out.”
The words hit me with a jolt. “No.”
His eyes narrow just a little. “You sure?”
He sounds like he’s a breath away from mocking me. I narrow my eyes back at him. Maybe Juliet can get another intense picture. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember making out.”
“I think she has a class across the hall from me. In the computer lab. I saw her yesterday and again today.”
“She’s into coding.” I pause, thinking of her letter. She was crying in Declan’s car yesterday, and I had to go off on a rant. “How did she look?”
“Like a girl who’s into coding.” Matthew begins snapping containers back together.
I frown. “Where are you going?”
Matthew shoves the containers into his backpack. “I’m going to class.”
“Lunch isn’t over yet.”
“Like it matters.” Then he weaves through the other students.
I don’t know what just happened.
My phone chimes. I yank it out of my pocket, glad for a distraction. Any distraction.
Any distraction except this one. It’s an e-mail from my father.
Tuesday, March 20 12:06:16 p.m.