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“Mom,” I whispered, beginning to pace down the hall. “What’s going on?”
As soon as I was starting to enjoy myself for once, as soon as I was just beginning to fit in, drama had to ensue. No—this wasn’t drama. This was my mom, and my family. It wasn’t just about me. Not anymore.
Which made things ten times harder.
I heard a deep sigh from the other end of the line, then a few seconds of silence before she spoke again.
“You know Elliot,” she said, as if it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t. “You went to school with him, correct?”
I echoed her sigh. “Yeah.”
“Then you know about his family, what they’re like,” she replied carefully, a little calmer. I knew this couldn’t be easy for her. “Look. Before I became involved with your father, I’d already been, well… married to Frank Lancaster.”
Fuck.
I saw where this was going.
“Byinvolved, you mean…” I took in a trembling breath. “You cheated. Onhim. On… Frank.”
On Elliot’s dad.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Yes,” she whispered, sounding so tired, so defeated. “Look, honey, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before, it’s just… I didn’t know you were close to his son. It just makes things more—”
“Complicated?” I snapped, and bit down on my tongue.
I couldn’t help it. The confusion, the angst, was turning to pure, boiling rage. Now, everything made sense. And the truth hurt.
I still didn’t know how much she really knew. If anything, my mom only knew what Vivian had told her, which was that I’d gotten in a car with her ex’s son and didn’t come back until hours later. Of course, my bitch-ass roommate didn’t have the whole story—she didn’t know that I’d spent the majority of that time hanging out in Tara’s room, not with Elliot.
But it didn’t matter.
“There’s a lot of history between us,” my mom continued. “I didn’t know that his son was going to school so close to you. I just think… it would be better if you transferred.”
My breath hitched in my throat. Now, the tears didn’t bother me. I was truly frozen. Stuck. I felt nothing.
Numb.
“Why?” I breathed. “That… doesn’t make sense. I went to school with the kid for four years.”
“I know, honey, I know, it’s just—” I waited her to finish, and could’ve sworn I heard a sniffle before she continued, “whenyou were in school, you weren’t involved with this boy. You had friends at Woodman. I didn’t want to uproot your whole life there just because of something that I’d done.”
I snorted.
“Mom,” I muttered, “I don’t think you know as much about my life at Woodman as you think you do.”
“Well, instead of holing up everything inside, maybe you could’vetoldme.”
We became silent, and it was torture. She was right. I could’ve been more open, could’ve been more honest. But she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know about being laughed at every day, teased, groped,tripped. I didn’twanther to know.
It would’ve been too much.
“Anyway,” she said, testing the waters once again, “you’ve worked too hard in high school to be put into a situation where, well, you might become a target. Classes haven’t started. If you transferred, you could take the semester off and start again in the spring somewhere else. That’s all I’m saying.”
I had to press a hand against my mouth to keep from spitting out in laughter.A target.I was already a target. Been one from the start.
Right.
