like he could breathe again. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” Ana said as they walked down the main drag. “That’s a huge step in your relationship with Grace and Maya. The last time we talked about them, you said you would never tell them about it.”
Joaquin shrugged. “It just sort of happened. I didn’t plan it.”
“Did you hurt the guy who called Grace a slut?”
“No, he just ran off. I just felt so . . .” Joaquin held up his hands in front of him, miming squeezing something. “It was the look on her face, you know? When he said that. She just looked so sad.”
“And that made you sad, too?”
“No. It made me angry.”
Ana grinned up at him. “Anger is a very—”
“—very valid emotion,” Joaquin singsonged. He had heard her say that phrase at least a million times. “I know, I know. It just feels fucking awful.”
“And how did it feel when your sisters weren’t angry with you for hurting Natalie?”
Joaquin didn’t know that there was a word to express that feeling. It wasn’t happiness, or relief, or bewilderment. It wasn’t confusion, either, or pity for them being stupid enough to trust him. None of those were right.
“In one of the homes when I was six,” he said instead, “everyone got bikes for Christmas. Even the foster kids, so that was a big deal. But mine was a two-wheeler and I didn’t know how to ride, so the foster dad put training wheels on mine. And I would ride up and down the street, and every time I thought I was going to fall, the wheels stopped me.”
Ana had stopped walking and was looking up at Joaquin. He didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.
“And I finally learned to ride, but I wouldn’t let them take the wheels off because I liked that feeling, you know? They caught me every time. That’s what it felt like with Grace and Maya. Like I was falling, but then I didn’t. They were there.”
And then Joaquin watched as—to his absolute horror—a tear slipped down Ana’s cheek.
“Oh, shit,” he said before he could stop himself. Joaquin wasn’t sure what happened when you made your therapist cry, but it probably wasn’t good. “I’m sorry. I am so—”
“No, no, it’s not . . . I’m sorry, Joaquin.” She lifted her sunglasses long enough to wipe at her eyes, laughing through her tears. “I’m just really, really proud of you, that’s all.”
Joaquin eyed her suspiciously.
“I really am okay,” she said, then readjusted her sunglasses. “I just want you to think about something.”
“Okay,” Joaquin said. He would have offered to train circus seals if it meant Ana would stop crying.
“I know you don’t believe it now, I know you might not ever believe it, but Mark and Linda are like those training wheels, too. What you described? That’s what parents do. They catch you before you fall. That’s what family is.”
Joaquin thought of Mark and Linda sitting next to him after a nightmare, easing the darkness away.
“Okay,” he said instead. He hoped that one day he would have the words to tell everyone how he felt inside, but okay would have to do for now.
“Okay,” Ana agreed. “I’m starving. Do you like frozen yogurt?”
“Okay,” Joaquin said again, then grinned and dodged away before Ana could punch his shoulder.
There was a strange car in the driveway when Joaquin turned the corner onto Mark and Linda’s street. He stopped skateboarding immediately, kicking the back of his board so he could pick it up by the front wheels.
It wasn’t his social worker’s car, but maybe she’d gotten a new one? Or maybe Joaquin had gotten a new social worker? Either way, he knew that it was there to take him away. He had seen many strange cars in familiar driveways over the years, all of them with backseats big enough for a boy and a trash bag filled with whatever stuff he could manage to grab.
Either way, Joaquin wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected Mark and Linda to keep him, not after they’d offered him a chance to be adopted and he’d turned it down. Who would want a kid that ungrateful? After all, Joaquin basically had taken food, money, and clothes from them for almost three years. He would want a return on his investment, too.
He reminded himself to grab his blue ribbon from the fourth grade art fair. It was always the first thing he packed.
“Oh, shoot!” Linda screamed when Joaquin started to walk