“Look,” she told me. “I don’t know what this whole ‘time-out’ phase with Ethan is about, but you’ll work it out. You two are like me and Andres. Meant to last. Don’t give him up just because you think you’ve outgrown him. You don’t outgrow love at first sight.”
“What if it wasn’t? Love at first sight, I mean?” I responded, which made her balk.
“What are you talking about?” She gaped. “Of course it was!”
“I’m not sure anymore,” I said quietly. “Maybe it was just that I wanted a version of what you and Andres had. I wanted someone to hold hands with and crush on.”
“Wait, do you really mean that?” she asked.
I was about to say more, but then I heard Mom calling my name from outside.
Tilly blew me a grumbly kiss and left to go get Andres so they could hit the beach.
As soon as they were gone, I got ready to help Mom open the parlor. But first, her eyes lasered in on me.
“Okay, Malie,” she said matter-of-factly. “Talk to me. You haven’t been yourself all week. Are you missing Dad? Is it something with Tilly? Or Ethan?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” Just keep repeating it until she believes you.
She restocked the display freezer with a tub of vanilla gelato. “Sometimes I wonder if it might have been … easier on you, if we’d moved back to Hawaii when your dad did.”
“What?” I gasped. Never, in the three years since the divorce, had she said that before.
“You would see your dad more, and Tutu. Maybe you wouldn’t have gotten so focused on dance. It wouldn’t have been your only way of coping.”
“I never used dance to cope,” I countered.
“I know you think I can never understand how much you loved dance, but …” She smiled sadly. “Malie, parents have dreams, too. Things they hoped for in their lives. Some of mine came true. Especially in you. Other dreams … Me and your dad. What I wanted for all of us together as a family … It didn’t work out the way I planned.” She pressed her hand against my cheek. “But have I messed up too badly with us? You and me? Have I put too much responsibility on your shoulders? With the parlor, and—”
“Mom, no.” I hugged her. “I’m happy here. And the parlor’s doing so well now—”
“It’s doing well, but who knows for how long? Mr. Sneeves is fickle, and everyone’s replaceable.” She turned from the freezer to focus her full attention on me. “That’s why I never wanted dance to become too important to you. When you love something that much, and make it your whole existence, you’re bound to be disappointed by it. Someone else will come along who dances better, or you’ll get an injury, and then what? Then you have nothing to fall back on.”
“So … it’s better not to take the risk at all? I’ll never believe that, Mom. I’m going to start a batch of ice cream,” I added quietly before escaping to the kitchen.
I collapsed onto a stool by the ice cream maker just as my phone buzzed with a text from Ethan.
I stared at the text. First Tilly, then Mom, now Ethan. Why did everyone seem to want to talk these days, when that was the last thing I wanted to do? Still, Ethan was right. We did need to talk, and it wasn’t fair for me to put it off any longer.
Heart hammering in my throat, I replied to his text, telling him I’d meet him in front of the conservatory after school. Then I slipped on my apron and fairy wings, and got to work.
I spotted Ethan from a block away, standing outside the conservatory, scribbling in his notebook. Nostalgia flooded me. Ethan’s hair was mussed, and his shirt hung crookedly because he’d mismatched the buttons. How was I going to tell him what I knew I had to? How could I cause someone I cared about that kind of hurt?
He glanced up and our eyes met. “Hey, you,” he said, like he always did. But today, his voice was constricted, his face flushed. He motioned to a sidewalk bench. “Um … should we sit?”
“Sure.”
We sat down with a foot of space between us, and neither of us made a move to close the gap.
“I wanted to—” The words came out in unison from both our mouths. We stopped, laughing awkwardly, and a sadness pricked my heart. It was like we were suddenly strangers.
“I’ll go first, if that’s okay,” Ethan said, and I nodded gratefully. He clasped and unclasped his hands in his lap, then straightened. “I’ve been thinking about how, well, weird things have gotten between us lately. At first I blamed you. I told myself it was because you were so focused on your dancing.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand. “I know it wasn’t you. You weren’t doing anything different than you’ve always done. I wasn’t, either. But things changed.”
“Or … maybe we changed?” I offered.
“Yeah. Maybe.” He nodded with relief.
I leaned my head against his shoulder for a second. “Being around you was always so easy. I never wondered why there wasn’t more of a—”
“Spark?” Ethan finished for me. “I didn’t even realize it was missing until …” His voice trailed off and his cheeks flushed darker.
“Eve?” I lifted my head to glance at him as his eyes widened. “It’s okay. I thought there might be something between you two.”
“There’s not! At least, not yet.”
“But you want there to be?”
He hesitated, looking pained with guilt. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “But I can’t stop thinking about her.”
He looked frustrated and lit-up all at once, and I couldn’t help laughing. “I get it.” It was exactly how I’d been feeling about Lanz. “And I’m not mad, or upset even. You and Eve seem great