The Best Possible Answer(54)
“I thought so, too.”
I step into the room and I know instantly that it belongs to a girl. A teenage girl. Someone about my age. The clues are obvious: a black-and-white pillow on the bed that says Believe in Yourself; block letters of the word L-O-V-E and then her name, E-L-L-A, hanging on the walls next to a Stanford pennant. This room has the most photos. They’re collaged on the wall in the shape of a heart. I scan the photos and see her—his other daughter. She’s older than I am—there are pictures of her in her high school graduation cap, one where she’s holding her brother when he was a baby, and other photos of her standing with my dad—our dad—she’s wearing a Stanford shirt, pointing to it with one hand and flashing a peace sign with the other. He’s beaming with this huge, proud smile. The smile that I haven’t seen from him in months.
We find the stairway to the third floor, which leads to Paige’s bedroom suite. Including the bathroom and a huge walk-in closet and adjoining seating area with vaulted ceilings, the upstairs room is the length of the house, and about the size of our entire apartment at Bennett Village.
I sit down on a wooden bench at the foot of their king-size bed.
“You okay?”
“Yes.” I take a deep breath and a laugh escapes my chest. “No. Did you ever have the wind knocked out of you?”
“Yeah. I fell ice-skating when I was ten. It hurt like hell.”
“Happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I fell down some stairs. I thought that was my low point.”
Evan sits down next to me.
“He’s been holding out on us. He said I couldn’t go to this summer program because he couldn’t afford it. But he could have. This place shows me that he very easily could have.” I think about Ella’s room. “Or maybe he couldn’t because he has to pay for Stanford.”
Evan nods. “What do you think you’ll do now?”
“Tell my mom?” It comes out as a question, not a statement, but the minute I say it, I know it’s what I have to do. “She needs to know, right?”
“Maybe she already does?”
I look at him. The truth of what he just said hits me hard. “I hadn’t thought of that. I bet you’re right. I bet she knows already.” I drop my head in my hands. “What is my life? I don’t know how to deal with any of this.”
“I think you’re actually dealing with all this really well.”
“What?” I laugh. “No. I don’t think so.”
“I don’t see you running into any swimming pools with all your clothes on.”
I consider his point. I’m not dizzy. I’m not hyperventilating. I’m not falling into an Episode. I’m in shock—yes—but I also somehow feel an odd sense of calm. Like now that I have answers, at least I understand my life with a bit more clarity. I lift my head and look at him. I lean into his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around me. “Thank you for being my friend today.”
“Of course,” he says. “And plus, you’ve helped me.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you’ve convinced me not to get back together with my ex.”
“Ha.” I look up at him. “Glad I could be of service.”
He smiles at me. “It’s the right decision. I’m really into this other girl anyway.”
I smile back. “She sounds like a keeper.”
“You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”
And just like that night in seventh grade, and that day under the umbrella, I lean in. And I kiss him.
He returns this kiss. It’s soft and careful. The tension in my body releases at the touch of his lips on mine.
But then he pulls back. “No. Not again. Not like this.”
“I’m so sorry.” I stand up. “Sammie’s right. I do make everything complicated.”
“It’s not that—it’s just—this isn’t the right place or the right time—”
“You’re right.” I want to love someone like you, I think. I want to trust someone like you. Someone honest and kind and nice. But I’m in my father’s other house. “My life is a mess, and I’m broken, and you deserve someone who’s not.”
He tries to explain himself, but I tell him I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I just want to leave.
He makes it worse by listening to my request and not saying anything else and thus proving, once again, what a good friend he could have been if only I hadn’t messed it up by kissing him again.
*
I can’t go to Sammie’s, I can’t talk to Evan, and the last place I want to be is home with my mom and Mila, but unless I want to be homeless on the street, it’s the only place I have.
I throw my dad’s keys to Geneva Terrace in a garbage can on Clark Street, and then I make my way back through the rain to Bennett Tower, back to my real life, which is nothing but a lie.
By the time I get home, I’m soaked.
My mom and Mila are home. They’re both at the dining room table, but oddly enough, my mom’s not at her computer, and Mila’s not sitting in front of the TV. They’re in the middle of a Jenga game. Mila looks over the wobbly tower and smiles when she sees me. “I’m winning.”
“There are no winners in Jenga,” my mom says with a laugh. And then she looks at me. “Get yourself in the shower and come play with us.”