stupid, though. Why wouldn’t you want us to help? There was no reason for your mom to go behind your back. I told her you’d figure it out, and that she should have been honest from the start.”
Not at all why I was quiet, yet my eye ticks. “Why didn’t you tell me the plan?”
She fiddles with her button again. “Your mom asked me not to.”
Once again, I wish there was separation in my life between my mom and my friends.
“She didn’t want you to think she didn’t believe in you.”
She doesn’t believe in me, and obviously, Sylvia doesn’t, either. “So you all had a big meeting about me and didn’t feel I should be invited?”
“That made you sound whiny. Everyone was here, hanging out, and you weren’t. It’s not like we were sent a coded message and had to stay up late at night with our decoder rings figuring out when we could meet in private to discuss you. Why you weren’t here? I don’t know, but don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been pulling back from everyone since you broke your arm. And neither Miguel nor I believe the whole you-broke-your-arm-on-the-pool-deck.”
I bristle with the correct accusation. “I was lying in pain on the pool deck, wasn’t I?”
“Miguel and I had been doing laps together all day and we never saw you there.”
“I had just gotten there.”
She levels her pissed-off glare on me. “You’re lying.”
She’s right, I am, and I look away, back to my sister.
“What’s going on with you, Sawyer? You used to be like your mom, the life of the party, and now it’s like you turned yourself off.”
Grades, swim, Mom, Dad, Lucy, jumping, not jumping, AA, moving, money, brain tumors … “I can do the project.”
“I never said you couldn’t. We expect you to take part of the project…” She trails off, and my skin twists around my bones. I shouldn’t have continued this conversation. There are some things better left unsaid. “It’s just that there are times that the project is going to move super fast. It’s better that you’re with me and Miguel so we can plow forward and do those parts of the project and then you can do the other parts.”
The easy parts, she means. I work my jaw. Who wants to be told they’re a charity case? To have so many people talking behind my back makes me feel like crap.
“Please don’t look like that, Sawyer. You have to admit that this is a huge project and that you struggled all year to keep your English grade up last year. None of us want to watch you go through that again. Your mom wants the best for you. We all do.”
By not even letting me try to rise to the challenge. “This decision was never yours or my mom’s. It should have been mine.” I stand, put the diary in my back pocket and Lucy glances over at me with the movement. “Ready to go home?”
Lucy takes off her water wings like that’s what she’s been praying for me to say and starts up the pool stairs. I grab a towel, but before I step toward my sister, Sylvia scurries to her feet and catches my arm. “Don’t be mad at me. I told them you’d be angry, and it’s the reason I’m talking to you about this now. If we would have talked to you about this from the start, you would have understood.”
Would I have? “I’m not mad.”
“You are, and I understand why, just don’t be mad at me, okay?”
Hurt flashes over Sylvia’s face, and that makes the annoyance grow that I have to, once again, suck up my emotions to make someone else feel better. But she’s been my friend since I moved to this town, and she’s had to deal with enough people’s animosity and judgment so I swallow down my anger. “I’m not mad at you.”
She nods like she’s accepting my answer even if she doesn’t believe it. “Mom said something about lighting the bonfire. Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We can roast marshmallows with Lucy. I know how much she likes that.”
Mom laughs loudly again, and my skin crawls. I need to get out of here because I’m tempted to confront Mom about her lack of faith in me, but I know that’s the worst route to take. Yet Sylvia’s looking at me with expectation so I do my best to soften the blow. “It’s late, Lucy’s had a long week