every time I thought of what happened at the museum, I burst into tears, so I told my dad I had a stomach virus.
That night I sent Eph two texts, called him twice. The second time I got a computerized message telling me the user’s mailbox was full.
On Thursday I woke up to Ford bumping my head and purring.
I didn’t pick up my phone.
I told my parents my heart hurt. I could tell I was pushing the limits of playing hooky, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t getting out of bed ever again.
On Friday morning there was a knock on the door, and my mom didn’t wait for an answer, but entered the room and wrinkled her nose at the smell, eyeing the dirty piles of clothes on the floor.
Ford meowed loudly. Traitor.
“I’m not going to school,” I said from under the covers.
Her head was tilted sympathetically, but her arms were folded across her chest—a strategic pose of both understanding (I’m here with you) and no-nonsense parenting (nothing was getting past those arms).
“Ellen called me late last night. I’m sorry you and Eph had to see that with George.”
I closed my eyes, focused on the lack of colors behind my eyelids.
“Have you talked to Eph?”
I shook my head, miserable. “I think I lost him.”
I felt her weight as she sat on the edge of the bed, smoothed the hair on my forehead. “Honey, do you remember the day you punched Eph at school and broke his nose? You were little kids and he lifted your skirt in front of everyone?”
I opened my eyes. “Yeah, his nose is still crooked.”
“Do you remember what happened after?”
I didn’t remember what happened, could only recall the stream of red coming down from Eph’s nose, the animal noise he made.
“The principal called me, and I came down to pick you up, and you wouldn’t talk to me. You kept crying and crying.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I thought maybe you were crying because you were so embarrassed. I kept telling you that it would be okay, that people change, that friendships change, and that if you didn’t want to talk to Eph or be his friend for a while, that would be okay.
“And you started crying harder. Your face was all red and your shoulders were shaking so hard that it scared me, Pen, so I had you lie down, and I stroked your back to try to calm you down. I was really mad—I couldn’t believe Eph had embarrassed you like that—but I was trying to be calm for you, and I kept rubbing your back.”
I remembered the soft press of my mom’s hand against my back, her whispers in my ear. It’s going to be okay.
“When I finally got you calmed down enough to talk, you told me you were sad, but not because Eph embarrassed you or because you got in trouble for hitting him. Pen, you were upset because you’d hurt Eph. You said it made you cry to see him cry. And you were afraid he wouldn’t want to be your friend anymore.”
My breath caught, hurt blooming in me again.
“Things change, Penelope; people change. Sometimes you get hurt. And sometimes you’re the one doing the hurting. You know, I look at George and Ellen . . .” She started chewing on her lip, and I realized I got the habit from my mom. “They’re both hurting so much. But I have to hope that the love they’ve built through the years, and the memory of that love, will be enough to get them through, whether they stay together or not. I hope that even with all this craziness and change, something of what they had remains.”
Her voice caught at the end, and that’s when I saw that she was crying.
I froze.
I’d never seen my mom cry. Even when my grandparents died, she always had a parent face on, never once letting me see her break down or not be my mom. But there she was: not just my mom, but a person of her own, someone who chewed her lip and worried about people and loved her friends so much that seeing them hurt made her hurt. It was weird and vulnerable and kind of scary, learning your parents weren’t just parents—that they were also people with breakable hearts.
The realization filled me with a crush of love, so I pushed myself up and hugged her shoulders, trying to hold my mom steady and safe, the way she’d always held me.
After a few