Dad’s lips made a thin line, but he sealed his mouth shut.
I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I had to get this out right. “I’m moving out.”
“You are not,” Dad said immediately.
“That is why I’m moving out,” I replied. “You don’t get to tell me what to do all of a sudden. You can’t just wait until I start to choose my own family and my own life and my own happiness and say, no, Grace, that’s not allowed. Go back to being lonely and miserable and a grade-A student! It’s not fair. It’d be different if you were there like Rachel’s parents or Sam’s parents.”
My father made a face. “The ones who tried to kill him?”
“No, Beck,” I said. I thought about that afternoon, Beck and Sam, head to head, that silent bond so strong that it was visible to bystanders. I thought about Sam’s gestures, putting his hands behind his head, how he had gotten them from Beck. I wondered if there was anything of my parents in me, or if who I was was entirely cobbled from books and television and teachers at school. “Sam would do whatever Beck asked him to do, because Beck’s always been there for him. You know who’s always been there for me? Me. Family of one.”
“If you think you’re going to convince me,” my father said, “you’re not. And the law is on my side, so I don’t need to be convinced. You are seventeen. You don’t get to make decisions.”
Rachel made a noise that I thought was her refereeing but turned out to be just the kitten biting her hand.
I hadn’t really thought I would persuade Dad that easily. It was principle now, I could see, and Dad wouldn’t back down from that. My stomach squeezed again, nerves crawling up into my mouth. I said, my voice lower, “Here’s the deal. I’m going to do summer school to finish high school, and then I’m going to go to college. If you let me move out now, I will actually talk to you guys after I hit age eighteen. Or you can call the cops and force me to stay and I will sleep in that bed and follow all your brand-new rules, and then, when midnight rolls over on my birthday, that room will be empty and I will never come back. Don’t think that I’m joking. Look at my face. You know I’m dead serious. And don’t talk to me about the law, Dad! You hit Sam. Tell me what side of the law that’s on?”
My stomach was a disaster zone. I had to will myself not to say anything else, to shove words into the empty space.
There was complete silence at the table. My father turned his face away and looked out the window at the back deck, though there was nothing to see but blackness. Rachel pet the kitten furiously and it purred as if it would split its ribs, loud enough that it filled the room with the sound. My mother’s fingers rested on the edge of the table, her thumb and forefinger pressed against each other as she moved her hands back and forth, like she were measuring out invisible thread.
“I’m going to suggest a compromise,” she said. Dad glared at her, but she didn’t look back.
Disappointment sat in my chest, heavy. I couldn’t imagine a compromise that would come anywhere near to being acceptable.
“I’m listening,” I said, voice flat.
Dad burst out, “Amy! A compromise? You can’t be serious. We don’t need that.”
“Your way’s not working!” Mom snapped.
Dad leveled a glare at my mother, charged with so much anger and disappointment.
“I can’t believe you’re going to condone this,” he said.
“I’m not condoning. I talked to Sam, Lewis. You were wrong about him. So now it’s my turn to talk.” To me, she said, “This is what I suggest. You stay here until you turn eighteen, but we treat you like an adult. You can see Sam and you won’t have a curfew as long as you” — she paused as she came up with her conditions on the spot — “keep up with your summer school and seem to be keeping up with your academic goals. Sam can’t stay here overnight, but he can stay here all day long for all I care, and we’ll try to get to know him better.”
She looked at Dad. His mouth worked, but he just shrugged. They both looked at me.
“Oh —” Mom said. “And you still talk to us after you turn eighteen. That’s part of it, too.”
I pressed my fingers against my lips, my elbows leaned on the table. I didn’t want to give up my nights with Sam, but it was a fair compromise, especially when I hadn’t seen any way to a compromise. But what if I shifted? I couldn’t move back in until I was sure that I was stable. That had to be soon. Maybe now? I didn’t know. Cole’s cure would come too late to be useful.
“How do I know you’re not going to try to change the rules on me again?” I asked, stalling. “Sam is not negotiable, for instance. I’m keeping him. Forever and ever. I should put that out there right now. He’s the one.”
Dad made another face but didn’t say anything. Mom, to my amazement, nodded a little. “Okay. I said we’d try. And not stop you from seeing him.”
“And no more punching,” Rachel put in. I shot her a look. I felt it was a bit of cheating, waiting until the conflict had mostly subsided to fulfill her referee duties.
“Right,” Mom said. “Grace, what do you think?”
I glanced around the room: From here I could see the kitchen and the breakfast area, and it made me feel weird. I had thought this would be the last time I came here. That it would be a big fight and I would slam that book shut and never see it again. The idea of coming back to this house and climbing back into my old life was simultaneously relieving and exhausting. I thought of Sam’s dread of shifting again after he’d thought he was done and understood it infinitely.
“I … I have to think about it,” I said. “I want to sleep on it.”
“Can’t you sleep on it here?” Mom asked.
Rachel shook her head. “No, because she has to take me back home, anyway. Referee says.”
I stood up, making it not an option. I didn’t understand why my stomach still burned with nerves after the worst had gone by. “I’ll think about it and come back to talk about it.”
Mom stood up then, too, so fast that the kitten started and hissed in Rachel’s arms, a tiny sound like a sneeze. Mom came around the table and hugged me again — a tight, weird-fitting hug that made me realize I couldn’t remember the last time, before this night, that she had attempted it. I wasn’t exactly sure where to hug her back, now that the time had come. She seemed all boobs and hair, so I just — squeezed in a general way.
“You will come back?” she said into my ear.
“Yes,” I said, and really meant it.
Dad stood up and gave me a draping shoulder-hug, as if possibly he knew he’d also find me all boobs and hair if he tried for a better one.
“Here’s your cat,” Rachel said, and handed my mother the kitten.
“Thank you for bringing her back,” Mom said. I couldn’t tell if she was talking about the cat or me.
Rachel shrugged and hooked arms with me. “It’s what I do.” And with that, she towed me out of the house and back into the car. My parents stood at the doorway and watched the car, oddly forlorn looking, as we backed out and headed down the road. I felt giddy and ill.