“All right.” Her voice sounds sad. Or maybe it’s pity, and I don’t want Sam’s pity. I want her to like me, but if she feels sorry for me, it’s too late for that.
“Call me if you need anything,” she says, “or if you want to talk.”
“Thanks,” I say. I won’t.
I say good-bye, slide my keys out of the ignition, and go inside.
After dinner, I tell my parents I’m working on the mural and retreat to my room. That, of course, is a lie. I’m never working on the mural again. Head down, I stuff clothes into duffel bags so I won’t have to look at it, but still, it’s screaming at me, rushing around me, sucking me down.
So my obsessions are off-limits—I’m not thinking about Reed, I’m not thinking about my mural—which leaves my parents and what I’m going to tell them. When I’m going to tell them. What they’re going to do.
Tomorrow morning, Mo and I will move my stuff over; then I’ll come back and do it later in the day. That’s it. The way it needs to be.
I jingle my bracelets, but they sound different. Hollow and sad. I look down. I can’t even remember the point of wearing them anymore. It started as a reminder. I wasn’t going to be the kind of girl who got pressured into doing anything I didn’t want to do, ever again. I was going to stick up for myself.
But what are they really? What are they now? A reminder of being weak, of feeling bad about myself, but I’m not that girl anymore. At least now I’m doing what I want to do. I just thought being my own person would feel better than this.
I notice my hands are shaking as I pack my toiletries, so I stop and eat the last half of a box of stale Junior Mints from my purse. There won’t be space at Wisper Pines for all my books and pictures and the meaningless crap that’s sprawled over my dresser and desk, so I’ve packed a single box of keepsakes that I can’t live without: the music box Dad brought back from a business trip in Chicago, the stuffed giraffe Mo won for me at the state fair, my picture of Lena. The rest is meaningless: Mardi gras masks I used to collect, hair ribbons from ballet recitals even though I quit ballet in eighth grade, tacky pottery I stopped painting years ago. I won’t miss it.
I pile the duffel bags of clothes in the walk-in closet. My art supplies take up nearly as much room, but I can’t leave them, so I cram boxes with brushes, blank canvases, and paints, and push those into the closet too. Thanks to the mural upheaval, everything is already floating in the center of the room, and my parents won’t notice that I’m halfway gone if they take a peek in here while I’m asleep.
They do that. Still. I’m the most frequently checked-on eighteen-year-old in the free world, and I hate it, but they need it, and starting tomorrow, they won’t have it anymore. One more thing to hate myself for.
I hear Mom leave around the time the light in my room is changing from pink to yellow. From my window I can see her walking to the car, sun hat in hand.
Maybe if I’d felt anything other than guilt over the last couple of days, I’d notice it especially right now. The sourness in my mouth, the ache like my breastbone pushing in toward my spine—they’re there, but they’re the same. I survived yesterday without vomiting or suffering a collapsed lung, so today’s guilt likely won’t kill me.
I call Mo. “She’s gone.”
“You want me to come help load up your car?”
“Sort of.”
He pauses. “I’m not sure what that means.”
“It means I want you to come help me load my stuff into your car. I’m not taking mine.”
He inhales sharply. “You already told them? I thought you were going to wait until we’d moved you out! I can’t believe they won’t let you take the car!”
“Deep breath. I haven’t told them anything.
“But . . .”
Another pause, this one long enough for me to swing my legs out of bed, stand up, and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is straw. I look like a sparkler.
“But it might be kind of hard sharing a car,” he says.
“Why? We go to the same school. And after that we’ll be in New Haven or Cambridge or wherever you decide to go to college, and I’ll be sitting in an apartment all day painting ugly, childish watercolors. What are we going to do with two cars in Cambridge?”
“I guess . . . I hadn’t thought about it. With everything going on, I didn’t think about the two years part. We didn’t talk about college.”
I pull on a pair of jeans. “There’s lots we haven’t talked about.”
“What about art school?”
I hate the awkward edge to his voice. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“I’m sure there are lots of art schools in Massachusetts and New York. Have you looked into any of them?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it right now. Are you coming?”
“Yeah.”
I make turkey and Swiss sandwiches so I don’t have to watch Mo heft my life out to his car. From the kitchen I catch a glimpse of his skinny brown arms, mostly knuckles and elbows, wrapped around cardboard, and I have to think of Reed’s arms. I can’t help it. Reed’s are thick and solid as trees, and his shoulders are broad, probably one and a half Mo’s. It’s not like Mo’s bad off—he’s tall and coordinated, which is what makes him a good basketball player, I guess.
I spread mayo on Mo’s sandwich, slice an avocado for mine, and add sprouts to both, getting lost in the smallness of each task. Feeding us. Basic. Not thinking too much.
“It’s all in,” Mo calls from the entryway.
“Almost done.” I scoop crumbs into my palm and glance around the kitchen. I’ve eaten in this room for eighteen years, done my homework at that table, carved my height into that door frame. “Let’s go.”
Mo drives, and I look around the car.
“It’s no Explorer,” Mo says, eyeing me. “But there’s no payment.”
“Speaking of payment, how are we paying for anything? Or everything?”
“We’ll be okay. My dad’s putting money in my account.”
“But not for a lawyer,” I point out. “Or for basketball camp.”
“Those are specific punishments, though. He’s not paying for a lawyer because he doesn’t think I need one. And he won’t pay for basketball camp because he’s pissed I got married. If you need money for clothes or art supplies or whatever else, just tell me.”
I look at Mo, and feel the overwhelming desire to kiss him. On the forehead, maybe. I’m not going to take him up on the offer if I don’t have to—I don’t want Mr. Hussein’s charity any more than he wants me to be the mother of his grandchildren—but knowing Mo would go begging for me quiets a little of the nagging ache in my bones. I’m not entirely alone.
We arrive at Wisper Pines and Mo drags my bags up to the apartment.
“So, what next?” he asks. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
I sit down and Duchess crawls onto my lap. “Sort of. Not really. My mom thinks I’m at work.”
“Work.” Mo flops down beside me. “Are you about to get fired or something for all the skipping?”
“I quit.”
“What? Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I had to.” I picture the pain on Reed’s face, remember his white-knuckled grip on the counter.
“Why?”
Beneath my hand, Duchess’s body tenses up and her fur bristles. “What’s the matter?” I whisper, but she’s hissing at Mo.
“Don’t you think we should have talked about it or something?”
I snort. “Are you saying I needed your permission to quit my job?”
“No, I just . . . I . . .” He’s flustered and annoyed, and I can feel the cat’s muscles beneath my fingers. She’s
