But I don’t want to tell her that.
I can’t.
She wipes at her eyes, sips her water again. We’re silent for the next two minutes, and then I say, “I have to get ready for school.”
“Of course,” Mom says.
“I love you, and we’ll be okay,” I tell her, because it feels like the right thing to say. She squeezes my hand, then lets go.
I mean it when I say those words, but by the time I get upstairs, shock and weariness have given way to anger. No, not anger.Fury.
I’m furious that she screwed us over like this, that she’s going to make us the talk of the town for the next however many months. She’s blown up everything she’s worked for, everythingwe’veworked for. What was the point of it all, if she threw it away just for one short relationship? Some random guy I don’t even know.
I scrub hard at my skin in the shower, get dressed, come back down. She’s still sitting in the same spot. The water I got her is gone, but her wineglass is fuller than when I saw it last.
“Zadie,” Mom says, looking a little more like herself. “Why don’t you stay home today? Maybe we can come up with a game plan.”
She looks so small, so hopeful, and that, too, makes me angry.
She’s screwed us over, and I can’t even be furious and yell at her. I have to comforther.
“I can’t do that. People are going to notice if I’m not there.”
“Maybe they’ll think that you are ill?” Mom offers. “I can call the school. I can tell them you woke up with a sore throat.”
In eighteen years, Mom has never offered to let me play hooky. Unless I was actually sick, she’s never deemed one of my personal crises important enough for me to stay home and watch TV all day. Dad let me once, when my second-grade friends turned on me for a couple of days, and my mother flipped out. Went on a rant about how we had to deal with things, not just run away from them. Now, because it’s something that affects her, it’s worth staying home for.
“It’s fine,” I say, turning around to leave.
Then I stop.
“And, Mom? I think I want to take a gap year.”
I shut the door before I can see or hear her reaction.
I hadn’t planned to announce this. The thought hadn’t really even consciously crossed my mind, but as soon as I say it, I know it’s the right decision. The fact is that I don’t know what I want to do next. Knowing what other people think I should do next, even knowing the objectivebestthing to do next, is not enough. I have to make the decision based on who I am, what I want, and as Dad would say, what I love.
I wish having clarity on this one issue would solve everything, but it doesn’t.
The drive to school feels nonexistent. One second I’m getting into my car; the next I’m getting out of it.
I genuinely can’t tell how I got to school, but I pull down my mirror before I get out of my car. Since the autumn rain stopped a few days ago, the sun is bright again, good for light but not quite heat. I wipe the last few tears off my face, double-check my makeup, and paste the most natural-looking smile I can manage on my face. I’m wearing a vintage choker today, because it feels impossible to breathe.
All the way into the school building, every glance my way is a potential threat. Do they know about Mom?
I don’t think anyone knows.
At least for today, nobody knows.
When I get to my locker, my heart drops. Marcus is leaning against it, waiting. He gives me something that isn’t quite a smile or a frown. It’s a searching look, an appraising look.
I don’t meet his eyes.
“Do you need something?” I say as I wait for him to move so I can grab my books.
“We should probably talk about what happened…” he begins.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” I say.
