by Amy Spalding
“What are you doing?”
My mother is out of the bathroom and practically in the living room. I was way too focused on the screen to realize she was walking up behind me. Crap crap crap.
“What the hell are you doing in my email?” she asks, as I close out of it really really really quickly. “In what world is that all right?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“You’re sorry?” She shakes her head. “I asked you a question. Several, actually. I’d like an answer.”
I try to explain, but nothing comes out.
“This is my fucking house,” she says. “And I’d like to think at least here I have some modicum of privacy. Thanks for absolutely destroying that.”
Somehow, this is worse than anything I could have imagined.
“Is this what you do?” she asks. “Go through my things when I’m not around?”
I don’t know what to say because that is exactly what I did. “I’m—I’m really sorry.”
“No, this is the thing,” she says. “There is no fucking way you could have thought going through my private emails was all right. So don’t give me that. Don’t tell me you’re sorry for something that was never, ever acceptable. You know better than that.”
I start to apologize again. I start to say that I guess I did know better. But something dawns on me in a big bright flash: I don’t want to be quiet mousy Devan. The last thing I want to do is apologize over and over. “Not that it’s okay I snooped, but maybe you should have told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That you’re pregnant.” I say it like it’s a curse word. “It’s a totally crappy thing to keep secret. Especially from me.”
Saying it aloud somehow makes it feel like that’s even truer than it already was.
“Like, I can’t believe you would totally abandon me my whole life, until they forced you by law to take me in, and now that you feel like it, you’re going to be a mom to someone. Just not me.”
“That’s such bullshit,” she says.
“It totally isn’t,” I say, because it’s not. And calling out Reece Malcolm feels good. “I mean, you don’t tell me anything.”
There’s a burst of realization in this moment that I could stop. I don’t have to keep talking. I can apologize again and beg her not to be mad at me. I can go back to not realizing I even feel all of this stuff. But I don’t.
“I still don’t know why I’m here at all, if you didn’t want me why you even had me, if you ever asked Dad about me to make sure I was okay, if you’re totally going to forget about me now that you’re having a baby you actually want, why you dedicated your stupid book to me when you could have just been around for me instead.”
It’s the strangest sensation to realize as you’re saying things that you believed them for a really long time. You would think finally letting go would be a weight lifted, but everything is still pulling at me.
“Like, I think you’re a terrible person for that,” I say. “And I hate you for getting a second chance. You totally do not deserve one.”
I’m crying at this point so who knows if any of what I’m saying even sounds like words and not just unintelligible ranting. Who even cares.
“Is that all?” she asks. Utterly emotionless by now. I wonder if I did think she was a terrible person all along. I wonder if I hated her as much as I do right in this moment.
“I hate you.” I say it haltingly to test how true it seems on my lips. It doesn’t taste like a lie, but it doesn’t exactly ring true, either. Still, I think I’ve wanted to say it for a long long long time now, way before I even met her or knew who she was. “You couldn’t even come and get me. My dad died and you just sent your stupid lawyer. And he shouldn’t have brought me here because you don’t want me anyway.”
She’s staring straight down at the floor by now. I assume she’s hoping I’ll shut up soon so she can get back to everything else. Everything that doesn’t involve me. She finally has an excuse—a few, even—to send me on my way. “Maybe they shouldn’t have.”
“I—I, um.” I point to my wrist even though I’m not wearing a watch. “I should probably— I have my show.”
“Can you get a ride?” She walks down the hallway and slams shut her office door.
I get out my phone to call Travis. He agrees to pick me up, so I wait on the front porch, my heart pounding in my throat and ears and fingertips. Probably it’s dumb to even attempt going to the show tonight, but it’s our final performance, after all. I’ll get through it, and maybe it’ll be the last good thing that happens to me. Theatre has always carried me through before. There is no reason it won’t tonight.
When I get there, I touch up my face with a ton of powder and fake being in a good mood so I don’t have to explain anything to anyone. By the time I’m onstage and singing my part of the first “Merrily We Roll Along,” I’m Mary Flynn and not Devan Mitchell. Definitely not Devan Malcolm. Theatre is saving me yet again.
It’s a good show, too. Sai is totally on during “Franklin Shepard, Inc.,” and I feel all fiery and barely restrained at the end of Act I. During intermission while we’re dashing around changing into our costumes for “It’s a Hit,” Sai even glances my way and gives me a little nod. “Nice one.”
“You, too.” But that’s it. We’re back to not knowing each other. I wonder if after tonight we’ll ever speak again. I mean, who even knows where I’ll end up?
The second act is as solid as the first, and during the closing number, “Our Time,” I link arms—in character—with Aaron and Sai, and tell myself to hold on hold on hold on to this moment. If everything changes, I still have all of this. Next life change, next new school, I won’t be a timid mouse, and I definitely won’t ever be a wild squirrel.
Maybe I’ll be okay after all.
Mr. Deans tries to keep us after our curtain call (many solid minutes of crazy applause) to give us a speech about how much we’ve learned and grown and accomplished, but the cast party is planned at Liz’s place, since her parents are out of town, and everyone is inching toward the door and not paying attention. So he cuts us loose, and I run to the dressing room to switch the pajamas for a newish red dress, my red flats (while trying not to think about my mother buying them for me), and a black cardigan, before meeting up with Travis and Mira in the lobby so we can take off.
“Your mom,” Travis says to me, “is so cute.”
“Why are you talking about my mom?” I snap, instead of responding in any number of normal ways.
He rolls his eyes. “Because she just walked by!”
“Trust me, she didn’t,” I say. “Someone who looked like her did. Can we go?”
Mira nudges me as we walk out to Travis’s car. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Right.” She nudges me again. “Let me know if you’re not, seriously.”
“Thanks.” I won’t be spilling anything to Mira but the offer is still nice. Justine pushed me so hard to reveal my deepest thoughts but never even seemed to notice when I just needed her to be there for me. It’s kind of weird how Mira can read me so well. It’s even weirder that she knows to ask and then let it go.
Liz’s place is already pretty packed when we get there, clearly not limited to just cast and crew. Travis dashes off, probably to solve the Aaron Finley Sexuality Conundrum, but I hang near the front room. And despite Sai, and despite my afternoon and what I fear waits for me at my mother’s house, one thing I feel right now is wanted.
“I’m getting something to drink,” Mira says. “You want anything?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
People keep coming up to let me know how great I was, how much they liked the show or liked working with me. So I get drawn in. And that’s how I stumble upon Sai, even though I’ve been doing my best not to (and assuming he won’t be here anyway).
“Oh, sorry,” I say, because somehow we’re the only two in the little darkened hallway between the kitchen and the rest of the ho
use at the moment. (I was looking for the bathroom . . . maybe he was doing the same?)
“Sorry?” He grins like the last few days didn’t happen. “You didn’t even run into me.”
“Shut up,” I say. “Just—”
“Just what?” He leans in close close close. Our foreheads almost touch. “Good show tonight, Dev. Maybe your best.”
“You, too. I hate it that I seem to get my best right before the show closes.”
“Yeah, you started off pretty strong, though.” He leans in closer, slides his arms around me like we’re going to hug, but instead I close the remaining space between us.
And our lips meet.
Sai’s fingertips press into the small of my back. I wrap my arms around his shoulders like I’ll float away without his leverage. We kiss again, though to be very honest it’s tough knowing where one leaves off and the next begins. His hands trail up my back, cup around my face, pull me closer because somehow that’s possible. We’re still kissing. Again again again. It’s everything I’ve ever heard about kissing, too—not like kissing Elijah. Which was perfectly nice but. This is heat and hands and teeth and forgetting to breathe and deciding who needs to breathe anyway? Everything I taste see feel is Sai.
“Shit,” is what he finally says. Not exactly the first thing you want to hear after the best kisses of your life from the boy you’re maybe in love like with.
“What?”
“Just—” He steps back from me, rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. And I start to cry. “Dev—no. It’s not you. I’m just . . . I’m no better than my dad.”
“Nicole,” I say.
“She’s my girlfriend. And I just screwed up big. I said I’d never be like him and I am exactly like him.”
Normally I would comfort him. Normally I would say how obvious it is that kissing someone while dating someone else isn’t exactly on par with cheating on your wife. But I am not not not in the mood to comfort Sai, and I’m not sure I ever will be again.
“I’m going.” He stomps past me, and I spin around before I can stop myself. I think about my role in the show and how Mary Flynn’s life ended up crappy mainly because she could never speak up and admit how she actually felt to the people who mattered. No timid mouse, no wild squirrel, and definitely no Mary Flynn.
Saying every bit of truth to Reece Malcolm might have changed everything for me. It might have even ruined a lot of things. But even if I could go back to this afternoon, I’d never change that it happened.
“You’re such a jerk to blame me,” I say. “You didn’t have to kiss me. You didn’t have to kiss me multiple times. Go ahead and hate yourself if you want, but—”
“You know I could never hate you, Dev,” he says. “You’re my—”
“I’m your what?” I ask instead of letting him finish. “I’m not your friend because friends don’t lead friends on or blame them when they’re mad at themselves. And I’m definitely nothing more to you. I am going back to the party. You can do whatever you want.”
But of course that’s just an excuse to sound tough. In reality I find an empty room to slip off to. Maybe I can cry this all out and get back to life before anyone notices. I might not be a timid mouse or wild squirrel but I’m still me. My heart’s not heavy with unsaid words but, well, it’s still heavy.
Also I wish there were a way to forget how kissing Sai felt.
“Devan?”
Holy crap, I have to get better at looking out for people. Somehow Mira is already in here. “Oh my God, I thought I was alone.”
She laughs, but this snuffly laugh. Like she’s been crying, too. “Are you okay? If you say you’re fine I’ll hit you.”
“No, I am totally not fine,” I say. “Are you?”
“Nope. Lissa’s making out with Aaron Finley.”
“What? What about Elijah?”
Mira, unsurprisingly, can still roll her eyes when they’re teary. “Right? She only wants him when she can’t have him, I guess.”
It did at least solve the Aaron Finley Conundrum. “So Travis is pissed? And was mean to you?”
“No . . .”
“Oh. Do you like Aaron or something? I didn’t even—”
“Devan!” She smacks me, but not hard. “Have you seriously not figured out how pathetically in love with my best friend I am?”
“Totally not. Clearly.” But suddenly a lot of things click. “Does she know?”
“Hopefully not,” Mira says. “That’s the only thing that would make it more pathetic.”
“If it makes you feel better, I just kissed Sai. A lot.”
“Uh, that doesn’t make me feel better at all. Why does everyone get to kiss someone tonight except for me?”
“Afterward he wiped off his mouth,” I say, and Mira cringes. “And freaked because he’s still going out with Nicole. So I think I win.”
“Yeah, maybe you do.” She buries her head in her hands. “I’m such an idiot. I really kept thinking because she couldn’t actually get things to work with E that maybe . . . there was this chance. But if she’s making out with Aaron, it’s not about not being completely okay with guys, it’s Elijah-specific. Which means this was always hopeless.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “But it’s easy to get hung up on the wrong person. I’m like the biggest example of that ever.”
“I should have told you sooner.” Mira’s expression is soft for once. “Not that I was pining over Liss, just that I’m . . . I figured you’re from the Midwest, and—”
“Yeah, but I’m friends with Travis,” I say. “And I’m nice to the other guys in—”
“No, but, a lot of girls are like that with gay boys, but then they find out a girl’s gay, and they freak. But, still. You’re pretty much nice to everyone, and I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Yes,” I say. “You should have. But I get how it is to have this part of you that seems like no one could handle it if they knew.”
“If you ever want to talk about whatever that is,” she says, “you can. No judgment.”
“Ha!” I smack her this time. “You’re totally full of judgment.”
“You know what I mean.” She sighs and wraps her arms around her knees. “I always want parties to be fun, but I usually end up in some room crying about some girl.”
“Let’s go be social, then,” I say. “It’s less pathetic, and maybe we can try to forget how much tonight sucks.”
“You go be social,” she says. “I need to be pathetic for a while longer. But get a full report on Travis’s reaction to Lissa and Aaron, okay? It’ll make me feel better.”
“Hey, um.” I get up and hover in the doorway. “Do you think I could maybe spend the night at your house tonight? My mother and I had this huge fight, and, maybe—”
“Definitely. Let me know when you want to go. We can try to catch a ride or call my dad to pick us up.”
So I stay a while longer, even though I want to be pathetic, too. I sing at the top of my lungs along with everyone else, I sample the punch someone dumped a flask into, and I manage to let full minutes pass without thinking about Sai. Or my mother.
It’s a bad night. But in a lot of ways it’s a really good one, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Things I know about Reece Malcolm:
42. Maybe I was right about her all along.
We sleep in late the next morning, rare for me after performing and with so much on my mind. But it isn’t until Mira’s mom knocks on the door letting us know breakfast is ready that I open my eyes. Sleeping on the floor left me feeling a little broken, but at least it matches my mood. I hate easy mornings after awful nights. They’re such lies.
“I, um, I guess maybe I should go home?” I say to Mira after breakfast. It isn’t that I want to face my mother, but I can’t avoid her forever. Getting it over with seems the smartest option, and I want to know what’s next for me, the stuff I can’t control at least. “Is that okay?”
Mira a
sks to borrow her dad’s car, and her parents agree. So we take off for the house, and I know that later I’ll need to call her and explain a lot. It’s funny how safe Mira seems now.
When she drops me off, I wave and make my way as slowly as possible up to the front door. And I’m hoping to hide out in my room for a while, but as I walk in, my mother looks up from the living room sofa.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hi.” I take a deep breath, like I’m launching into a monologue or something. In really bad form. “So, um. I guess I should know where you want me to go, or if you need to call your lawyer or whatever.”
“You idiot.” She leaps to her feet and bolts across the room. And hugs me. I’m way too confused to react. “I mean—blah, blah, something comforting and nice.”
Somehow that actually makes me laugh.
“We had a fight,” she says. “A long overdue one.”
“You said maybe they shouldn’t have sent me here.”
“Yeah, and so did you.” She taps my nose with her fingertip. “You’re right; I am in no way a good mother to you. Which is exactly why I worry constantly I shouldn’t have told them to send you to me. It feels so goddamn selfish. I wasn’t ready to be a mother then, and—even though I’m aware that I’m not now—I want to be.”
“Right,” I say. With a glance to her still very flat stomach.
“Stupid,” she says. Somehow nicely. “God, sorry. Just—I don’t mean the kid. I mean you.”
“Seriously?”
“Totally seriously,” she says in the voice she uses whenever she makes fun of something I say. It’s really good to hear. “It was such a relief having you here when I found out I was pregnant. Brad and I kept saying, Well, Devan’s amazing so the kid should probably turn out fine.”
“Really?”
“I guess you didn’t get that far back in my email.” She sits down on the couch again. “Stay out of my stuff, all right? I don’t like this snooping side of you.”