I’d wanted to stay with Mel and my friends and pretend the whole stupid election didn’t exist. Now that I had Dean, I couldn’t see him, and I was being sent back to school, where Mel wouldn’t want to talk to me and had probably turned the others against me too.
And the worst part was that, without my phone, I had no way to let Dean know what was going on. He was probably wondering why he hadn’t heard from me, inconsolable without my rambling messages to keep him entertained. The longer I went without talking to him, the more likely it was he was gonna think I hated him, and by the time I was able to tell him the truth about what was going on, it’d be too late.
I screamed into my pillow until my throat was raw, and when I sat up to breathe, my mom was standing in my doorway with her arms crossed in front of her. “By all means, mijo, give it another good scream. Get it out of your system.”
I threw my pillow to the side and turned my back to her. “Leave me alone.”
“So it’s still like that?”
“Yes. It’s still like that.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” she said. “I’m not the one who lied to his parents, took advantage of their trust, and then was too much a fool to use cash instead of the credit card his parents gave him for emergencies. You’ve only got yourself to blame for this mess.”
I kept my back to my mom and didn’t say anything, hoping she’d leave. It’s not like she was wrong. Using my credit card had been an amateur mistake, and I should’ve known better. But I didn’t regret seeing Dean. If I had it to do over, I would’ve done it and not thought twice.
“Did you meet Mel in Boston?”
I shook my head. “No. Mel was probably in school. Besides, I’m not talking to her.”
“Was it a boy?” Mom asked.
“No!”
“Are you sure? Eight dollars is a lot of money for one coffee.”
“There’s no boy.”
“You think I don’t remember what it’s like being seventeen and feeling impatient for your life to start, but I do.”
“Sure, Mom. Whatever.”
Mom was so quiet for a minute that I thought I’d finally gotten rid of her, but I heard the squeak of my desk chair and knew, instead, that she was just settling in. “Your grandma hated my first boyfriend. I snuck out to see him, she locked me in my room. I climbed out the window, she nailed my window shut.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “He turned out to be a creep and you realized Grandma was just trying to protect you and you wished you’d listened to her all along.”
“No, Dre. I married him.”
I turned around so fast I nearly fell off the bed. “Wait, so it’s okay for you to sneak around and whatever, but I’m being punished for it?”
“It wasn’t okay when I did it,” she said. “And it’s not okay for you either. But I do understand.”
“Look, I’m sorry I skipped the college tour, but Boston’s only, like, thirty minutes away, and it’s not like I stayed the night or anything.”
“I certainly hope not.”
“Besides, I’m old enough to go places on my own.”
Mom nodded. “I thought you were. That’s why your dad and I allowed you to go. We trusted you to be responsible, and you weren’t.”
I wanted to tell my mom about Dean because I thought if I did, she would understand. I’d already known Grandma had taken a long time to warm up to Dad, so I thought she’d understand why Dean and I had snuck around. But it was too risky. She might tell Dean’s mom, and I couldn’t betray him like that.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it was important to me. You know I’m telling the truth.”
It felt like Mom was looking into my soul in the way that only a mother could. “I want to believe you, Dre, but I can’t trust you if you keep lying to me.”
“I won’t lie anymore.”
“We’ll see.”
I hung my head, trying to look contrite. “Dad’s pretty pissed, isn’t he?”
“I’ve always been a little jealous of how close you boys are,” Mom said. “I’m glad, but sometimes, especially when you were younger, it was like the pair of you lived in a world I wasn’t a part of.”
“How come you never said anything?”
“Because how could I? I love you both, and I wasn’t going to make either of you feel bad