Mom.
My stomach dropped.
Anyone could wait. Anyone but Mom.
“I’m sorry,” I said, already standing. “I really gotta take this.”
Elaine let out a sharptskwhile Charlene rubbed her temples. May gave me one of thoseI feel sorry for yousmiles.
Slipping into the hallway, I answered. “Hey, Mom.” Behind me, the voices started up again. “Everything okay?”
“Of course,Liebling,” she said. “I just wanted to check in and see how your trip is going.”
My thoughts crashed headfirst into a wall.
“My trip...?” I tried to remember our last conversation. Slowly, something cold and clawing built behind my ribcage. It felt like the early stages of food poisoning.
“Yes, your trip. With John.”
My stomach bottomed out completely.
Crap.
I had successfully erased from memory the part where I told Mom I had a boyfriend. And that we went on a trip. And that his name—his actual name—was John Kater.
“Mom, this isn’t a great time. Can I call you back?”
“Why?”
“I’m just busy at the moment, don’t?—”
“What are you doing?” she interrupted. “Should I be worried?”
“No, it’s—don’t be worried, please,” I said, leaning my head against the wall and cursing myself. She’d heard the urgency in my voice. There was no way this call would end quickly now.
“Are you having a fight?”
There it was—the tone that always led straight to a lecture about Tobias and his oh-so-stable, oh-so-successful life. Why did you have to screw it up? Look at him now.
“Everything is fine. It’s going well.”
“Is it, though?”
I flinched. John had appeared beside me.
“Is that him?” Mom’s voice crackled through the speaker.
Double crap.
I covered the mic with my hand. “Can I help you?” I snapped.
“Just checking if you’re okay,” he said, leaning a shoulder against the wall. The same way he’d leaned last night in the hall—an image I didn’t need right now. “You know, being so awfully ill and all.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re trying to get out of the group thing, aren’t you?”
He slid his hands into his pockets. “I’d rather be writing. But we’re all in this together.”
“So you stalk me in the hallway?”
