She let out a long, tired breath and moved back on my bed until she was sitting against the headboard. She patted the empty spot beside her and I lay down on my back, still clutching that photo between my fingers, that reminder of a different time.
“I think . . . ,” she began, looking up at the ceiling, “I wouldn’t get a divorce. I would stay with him.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him.” She said it so easily. “Because I believe him when he says he’s sorry.”
“But how do you know he really means it?” I asked.
“Because he’s trying, Brett. He’s really trying with these counseling sessions. He wants to make everything okay. Look around you—at this house, this life. He’s spent all these years working so hard so we could have this. I’ve loved your father since I was seventeen years old, and in all those years, this is the one big mistake he’s made. How do we decide if one mistake is worth giving all of this up? The life we’ve built together?”
My mom sat up, placed her hand on my shoulder. I looked her in the eye and I could see it, how much she loved him. How much she wanted to be with him. And all this time I thought this past week was only hard on her because the truth was out. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was hard because my dad was staying at the hotel and she was away from the person she loved. And I had made that decision for her out of anger. I took my mom’s choice away because I thought I was protecting her, when really I was only thinking about myself.
“Mom?” I said, holding both her hands in mine. “All I want is for you to be happy. That’s it. And if our family staying the same makes you happy, then . . .” I took a deep breath, forced the words out. “I’m okay with that. I’ll go to counseling. I’ll try with Dad. I’ll try for you. But if you decide that you want everything to change, to get a divorce and never look back, then that’s okay too. I want whatever’s best for you because that’ll be what’s best for me too. Okay?”
I was so used to seeing my mom cry that when the tears started to spill, I didn’t even flinch. And I realized that all I really wanted was for her to not cry anymore. If that meant sitting in an office with Dr. Kim and talking about my feelings or opening the door and letting my dad back inside—I’d do that for her.
I hugged my mom, held her so close to my chest and wished I could make this all okay.
“He’s not a terrible dad, Brett,” she said. “If he was, you wouldn’t have ended up like this, with a heart as big as yours.”
Then she took one last look at the photo and walked away.
I was lifting my hand to knock a second time on Becca’s door when it opened. She took one look at me and her eyes went wide. “Oh no,” she breathed. The door opened a little more and I could see her fully. Messy hair and unicorn pajamas. Not exactly movie attire.
“You forgot,” I said.
“I’m so sorry, Brett. Oh my gosh. I was helping my mom out with this new recipe and I totally lost track of time. I’m sorry. Come in, I’ll get dressed and we can leave. The trailers usually take forever, right? So we won’t miss that much of the movie. Maybe only the opening credits or the first few minutes. . . .”
“Becca.”
“What?”
I pushed open the door, stepped inside, and pulled her to me. “You’re talking very fast,” I said.
She began to smile. “I do that sometimes. Sorry I forgot.”
“It’s okay.”
She pulled my face down to hers. She smelled like vanilla. Tasted like it too. Then her mom walked into the hallway and Becca jumped away from me like she’d been electrocuted.
“Brett, you’re here! I was just saying how we could use another set of hands for this recipe. Want an apron?”
I grinned. “I would love one.”
“Mom,” Becca groaned. “We’re going to watch a movie.”
“No, that’s okay. We can skip it and help,” I said. Clearly not the right answer because Becca looked absolutely mortified as we walked into the kitchen. I swear I heard her whisper my name and “fiasco” under her breath.
“Wonderful! We were just reminiscing about that time I bought Becca an Easy-Bake Oven and she almost lit the kitchen on fire.”
“Oh, I would love to hear that story, Ms. Hart.”
She handed me a bowl and a whisk at the same time as Becca reached out and smacked my shoulder. “This is not okay,” she hissed while her mom went on with the story.
“Nice pajamas,” I whispered back.
I had never seen her look so angry.
“So what are we making?” I asked, shrugging off my jacket and placing it over the chair. The counter was covered with baking sheets, cupcake trays, and some circle pan thing with a hole in the middle.
“That’s a Bundt,” Becca said, following my gaze.
“I knew that.”
She stuck her tongue out.
“We’re making,” her mother began, pressing some buttons on the stove, “a new recipe that is either going to be some sort of cake, sheet cake, or cupcake.”
“My mom is convinced she can make lemon and chocolate taste good together,” Becca explained.
“It will taste great, and it will definitely give jelly bells a run for their money.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Becca added.
“I’m with Becca on that one,” I said.
Her mom pointed a batter-covered spoon at us. “You two wait and see. I have an eye for bringing together unnatural pairings.”
Becca
JENNY SHOWED UP AT MY locker after last period.
“I was thinking of swinging by the bakery and getting a dozen of those jelly bells. You in?” she asked.
I still wasn’t entirely used to the two of us being friends again. It felt like I’d been swept into a wormhole and dropped off in another dimension. Or I’d traveled back in time to freshman year.
I shut my locker, pulled my bag onto my shoulder. “You’re inviting me to my own mother’s business?”
“Is that a yes or no?”
“Yes, obviously.”
We left school together. Walking beside Jenny was the same as walking beside Brett. We couldn’t make it down one hall without at least three different people trying to talk to her. Eventually we escaped, and while we walked down the road to Main Street, Jenny was staring down at her phone.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up. “My brother’s girlfriend broke up with him a few days ago,” she explained. “His social media has been taken over by all these sappy quotes about love he keeps posting.”
“Why’d they break up?”
“He won’t tell me. Or anyone. My parents don’t even know about it.”
“You never really talked about him,” I said, referencing the time we used to be friends. Which, now, didn’t feel so long ago.
“Parker’s in college now, he’s two years older than us. He’s my parents’ pride and joy. They’ve been training him to take over the family business since he was in diapers. He practically sucks all the attention out of every room we’re in.” She must have noticed the way I was looking at her, because she added, “This is not a pity party or anything. I’m not some neglected daughter. I actually like all the attention being on him. Lets me do whatever I want without my parents noticing. What about you? What are your plans after we graduate and leave this dump?”