Far from the Tree(48)
“Wait, no, let me see if I can follow your train of thought,” Rafe said, sitting back in his chair. “I’m taking AP Psych at school, so don’t worry, you’re in good hands.”
“Great,” Grace said. “My brain feels super safe right now.”
Rafe just waved away her concerns, staring at her for almost thirty seconds. Grace hadn’t realized how long thirty seconds actually was.
“You’re worried that the adoptive parents you chose for Peach are going to split up,” Rafe finally said. “That’s why you’re asking all these questions. You’re not worried about Maya, you’re worried about the baby. God, I’m so going to get a five on this AP test. I’m going to clobber it.”
Just hearing the name fall from Rafe’s mouth made her eyes fill with tears. “That’s it,” she said, her voice wobbling.
Rafe, however, went from looking triumphant over his future AP test to looking absolutely horrified. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I made you cry. Ohhh, shit, this is not good.”
“No, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Grace said, waving him away, but Rafe was already climbing out of his side of the booth and coming over to hers. “It’s fine, it’s just . . . no one’s ever said that name before. I’m the only one who calls her Peach.” She used one of the paper napkins to wipe at her eyes, suddenly mortified. This was probably why she had a hard time staying in touch with her friends. She didn’t want them to be there for the all-too-frequent waterworks.
Rafe was sitting next to her now, his thigh pressing against hers. No boy had been this close to Grace since the night she and Max had had the sex that produced Peach, but she didn’t scoot away from him. “I know I’ve told you this before,” Rafe said gently, “but I am terrible when girls cry. I’m awful. I’m going to really screw this up, so do you think you could stop crying before it ruins our beautiful friendship?”
Grace was laughing even as she kept wiping her eyes. “No, you’re fine, it just got me,” she said. “That’s all. I’m fine, really.”
Rafe seemed dubious, but he let it go and just handed her a fresh napkin instead. “Feel better?”
Grace nodded. “It’s just that I basically had one job as her mom, you know? I had to pick her parents, and I thought I did a really good job, but—what if I didn’t? What if fifteen years later, Daniel and Catalina split up and it ruins her life?”
“Why does it have to ruin her life, though?” Rafe said. “My parents split up—it didn’t ruin my life.”
“I don’t want anything to be hard for her,” Grace admitted. “I just want to say that I did the right thing for her, that’s all.”
“You did,” Rafe said. “You know you did. And nobody has an easy life, Grace. Not me, definitely not you. I mean, you had a baby at sixteen, right? But your life’s not ruined.”
“I don’t have any friends,” Grace said, and now she was crying again. “Nobody texts me or calls me or stops by to say hi. I don’t run cross-country anymore with Janie—”
“You ran cross-country?”
Grace nodded. “Varsity. But now I spend all day with my parents and they act like I’ll break if they say the wrong thing to me—”
“I mean, to be fair, you are sort of breaking because I said the wrong thing to you.”
“—and I had to find parents for my baby and I did it all wrong and Max was fucking homecoming king!”
People were starting to look over their shoulders at her. “She’s fine,” Grace heard Rafe say. “Contact lenses. The worst, am I right?” Then he leaned so that he was blocking people’s view of her. “Look,” he said. “You know what nobody cares about the day after homecoming? Who was homecoming king. Like, anyone who introduces themselves as ‘homecoming king’ after the actual homecoming dance is a complete asshole, so don’t worry about that.” Then he paused. “Max was the dad, right?”
Grace nodded, reaching for another napkin.
“Okay, so that’s one problem solved. As for this baby—”
“You can say Peach—it’s okay.”
Rafe looked dubious. “As far as her, her life’s not going to be easy. As long as she’s living it correctly, there’s going to be hard times for her. And anybody who cares this much about the kind of parents she has probably picked a pretty good set for her.
“Now, as far as friends, you’ve got me, right? I mean, we’re eating lunch together. Pretty sure that’s what friends do. And the only reason I don’t text or call you is because I don’t have your phone number.” Rafe raised an eyebrow. “You do have a phone, right? Your parents aren’t forcing you to communicate via carrier pigeon, are they? Because that might be why no one’s calling you.”
Grace smiled, looking down at her half-eaten sandwich on the table. “Cell phones are fine,” she said. “We’re not pioneers.”
“Well, great then. Just give me your phone and I’ll text you and you’ll text me back. Wham bam, thank you, ma’am. Metaphorically, I mean. I’m not going to wham bam you.”
Grace looked at him. “Do you talk a lot when you get nervous?”