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I look at her out of the corner of my eye, her lips pursed as she stares at the road, her beautiful clothes and jewelry the image of perfection. Not a blemish. Barely a wrinkle. Not a single dry patch on her hands or a pore on her face visible from where I sit. I want to ask her about the pregnancy. I want to know if it was my father’s. I want the stalemate in our lives to end.
But I don’t want the unknown, either. Not all change is good.
So, I stay quiet.
She clears her throat. “You’re being safe, right?” she asks, seemingly resolved to the fact that I’m sleeping with someone and now wants to make sure I’m not an embarrassment. “We’ve had this talk. I’m not raising any more babies. Don’t be careless.”
“I know.”
I don’t know if I’m relieved that she hasn’t caught my scent yet or disappointed. She thinks I’m sleeping with Callum. I wish I could tell her the truth. I want to tell someone about this excitement I feel every time I look at Liv. I want to share it with someone.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she broaches all of a sudden.
I squeeze my eyes shut behind my glasses, almost breaking into a laugh because the words are on the tip of my tongue.
When I don’t respond, she slows the car, and I turn, watching her pull over to the curb on quiet Levinson Lane, under the canopy of some Spanish moss.
God, just go. Please.
She puts the car in Park, and I feel her twist her body toward me to speak. “Sex is a big deal,” she says, “no matter all the images you see on TV and in movies that try to prove otherwise.”
Yes, yes. We’ve had this talk. Years ago. Just go.
“Sex isn’t just two people being physical, Clay. Young women, especially, can get attached and emotionally invested very quickly. It’s important we feel connected to the people we’re physical with.”
Mm-hmm. I nod.
“And it’s very easy to be hurt when we believe they feel the same and we find out they don’t,” she continues.
“You don’t need to worry,” I tell her, gesturing to the road ahead. “Can we go now?”
I don’t look at her, but I can tell she’s studying me. “I want to know things, okay? If you’re excited and falling in love, I want you to know you can talk to me and share it with me.”
My jaw flexes, my throat swelling.
“Is he making you happy?” she asks.
I draw in a breath. Jesus.
“Is he gentle? Does he make it special?”
I bite the corner of my mouth. I want to tell her how good Olivia Jaeger feels. Yes, Mom. She’s gentle. And I love it when she’s not gentle, too. She makes it special. I don’t want to be anywhere else when I’m with her.
She threads a lock of my hair through her fingers. “You’re stunning, you know? Anyone would be lucky to have you.”
As long as it’s a young man, right?
I open my mouth to say it. To tell her it’s a girl and not a boy, and maybe I’ll lie and tell her I’m just experimenting. I mean, maybe I am.
I could tell her Liv means nothing and we don’t date, but I like what she does to my body and it’s nothing to worry about. But I catch sight of my brother’s picture hanging on the rearview mirror, and I close my mouth again.
One kid dead. Another who’s… Not normal.
Yeah, her whole world will fall apart. She’s hanging on by a thread as it is. My family is hanging on by a thread. I don’t want to put something out there that I can’t take back.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I whisper. “Just go.”
She stares at me.
“I’m not going to get pregnant,” I blurt out. “I promise.”
I know she’s hurt I won’t talk to her, but if she knew, she’d wish she didn’t.
After a moment, she sits back in her seat and pulls away from the curb, driving us to my grandmother’s.
My mother won’t eat after five o’clock, so these dinners with my grandmother happen early in the afternoon and every week now, given that I’m so close to the ball and getting my ducks in a row for college. Mimi likes to be kept abreast of everything.
Tucker opens the front door before my mother has a chance to and steps aside for us to enter. I swipe my phone from my school bag before he has a chance to take it for me, and then I follow my mom into the foyer.
“Good afternoon,” I hear Mimi say.
My mom embraces her, their lips not quite touching each other’s skin as I shiver in the cold marble room. I look around, inhaling the scent of talcum powder and lavender that always pervaded this house, like my grandmother was ninety when she’s only sixty-five.
