“Oh, just this and that,” she says vaguely. “Luke’s out for a run.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’m here to see you.”
She smiles at me. “Actually, I’m glad we have some time alone. There’s a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about.”
My heart sinks.
She knows.
She knows that Luke and I have been faking, that deep down he still secretly hates me, that deep down I still secretly hate myself. She knows what I did.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I still remember the talk we had up in my bedroom last year. Do you remember?”
“Of course,” I say, not sure whether to be relieved about the direction this conversation is taking. I remember feeling that she loved me when she told me I had always just fit with them. I remember the courage and certainty it had given me for the next few weeks, foolishly believing that I wasn’t a bomb waiting to detonate on everyone I loved.
“I know everything blew up in our faces after that,” she says, using the perfect metaphor. “That you found it too hard to be around me and Luke anymore once Ro was gone.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat.Is that what she thinks?That I found it too hard to be around them?
“I know how much you miss him.”
“I do.” Just saying so nearly makes me crumple with sadness after a year of not being able to talk about him with any of the people that matter most. I miss Ro so much every day, it’s like a physical ache. I miss our shed meetings, miss hiding out with him in the dark. I miss the way he made me laugh, the way he frustrated me. I miss playing mixed doubles with him, even though I hated it. I miss eating cinnamon rolls with him, miss tracing the calluses on his palm to tell his fortune.
I miss my best friend with everything inside me.
“I hope you know I don’t hold it against you,” Mel says now, and for a second I think she means she doesn’t blame me for what happened the night he died, but then I remember,she doesn’t know.
I swallow. “Hold what against me?”
“Your staying away all this time. I’m just so relieved that you and Luke figured out a way to move forward.”
I nod, unable to speak.
“I’m also still not asking you to look after him, because he’s a big boy. He can look after himself,” she says. “Not that anybody needs my permission or anything, but will you remind him that he’s allowed to be happy?”
“How?” I ask.
Mel narrows her eyes at me. “I love you, but we’re not discussing the methods you’re going to use to keep my firstborn happy.”
I give an embarrassed laugh. At least she hasn’t figured out the truth.
“And you’re allowed to be happy too, you know,” she adds.
I can’t meet her eye. “Thanks, Mel.”
“No, don’t ‘thanks Mel’ me,” she says firmly. “I mean it.”
She looks me dead in the eyes. “You and I are lucky that we found our people relatively early in life. Sure, shit happens. Gary turned out to be a cheating SOB, but he’s still the reason I found two of myactualpeople—my two boys.” Her voice breaks. “Naomi is my people, if there ever was a people.”
I laugh.
“And Luke and Ro and I, we have always been your people. And we always will be. My big, dysfunctional blended family.” She’s joking, but it reminds me of what my mother said a couple of weeks ago, about the way her family refused to accept Dad because of the color of his skin. If Mel and Naomi and Ro and Luke and I could form our own little unit despite all our differences, how sad is it that my grandparents were willing to lose their only daughter rather than take in the person she loved?
“Did you know that Mom’s parents cut her off because Dad is black?”
“No,” she says. “How do you know that?”
