When I come down the stairs on Monday morning before work, my mother is in our living room, talking to a man I’ve never seen before. He has reddish-brown hair and a goatee.
“Thank you so much for dropping in so early. I don’t get off work until five, so it had to be this morning,” she is saying.
Yesterday, the last time I saw my mother, she couldn’t get out of bed, but today she looks put together and alert. Her hair is pulled into a tight bun, and she’s wearing work clothes.
“Morning,” I say, and she spins around to look at me.
“Oh hi, honey. This is Chase. He’s going to be doing our repainting,” Mom says.
“We’re repainting?”
Mom frowns. “I was sure I mentioned that.”
Chase gives me a nod of acknowledgment, and the two of them go back to discussing colors while I head into the kitchen to get some breakfast. I’m in there still, eating a banana, when Mom comes in.
“You look nice,” I tell her, and she looks down at herself and smiles.
“Thank you.”
Now that she’s closer, I notice that she has small dark circles around her eyes and she looks tired, like she’s not fully inhabiting the role of Mom 2.0 yet. Maybe more like Mom 1.5.
“Are you okay? After yesterday, I thought—” I’m used to us not acknowledging her dark days, but for some reason, I can’t stop myself today.
“You thought things were back to the way they were?” she asks, and she looks sad. She reaches forward and touches my cheek. “I just had a bad day. Those are normal, but we’re not going back there,” she says. “I promise.”
I’m surprised by the way my eyes fill at her words and even more surprised when I feel myself reaching forward and hugging her tightly. I want to tell her how happy I am to see her up and about today, how scared I was yesterday when I saw her in bed again, but the words won’t come.
Somehow, though, from the way she squeezes me back, I think she knows.
I’m feeling good, happy even, when I get to work. But my mood takes a swift turn when I see Luke. He’s chatting to Rouge and a couple of other leaders outside the art cabin, and he doesn’t see me, but I feel my body going hot with rage even as I head in the opposite direction. The words he said in Mel’s kitchen last night come storming back to me, and they infuriate me.
You’re welcome to fuck whoever you’d like. This is just for show, remember?
As if I’ve let myself forget for even one second that we’re pretending. As ifhehas let me forget it, with the way he barely looks at me when we’re alone.
In the rec room, I noisily arrange chairs around the four round tables we’re using for this morning’s first activity.
“Is everything okay?” Willow asks me.
“Dandy,” I say, and keep pulling plastic chairs off the stack and setting them down around the table.
“What’s wrong? Is it Luke?” she asks, stopping in front of me. “What did he do?”
“Nothing,” I say.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I thought we agreed no more lies.”
My lips twitch with guilt. If Willow only knew all the things I haven’t told her, she would be completely done with me. My not telling her about a stupid fight with my pretend boyfriend would be the least of her concerns.
“You’re right. Sorry,” I say.
“So what are we mad at him for?” she asks, hands on her hips.
“He just made this comment ...” I look to Willow and see that she’s waiting for me to continue. I can’t think of anything to say on the spot, so I give her the version closest to the truth. “Like, he doesn’t care what I do when we’re not together.”
I’m hoping it’s ambiguous enough that she’ll let it go, but Willow’s smart, and her eyes widen. “You guys aren’t exclusive?”
“Um,” I say, wondering how I walked into this. “I don’t really know.”
