“So,” my mom says. She sounds remarkably calm—calmer than I’ve heard her since this whole thing started, actually, her dark hair pulled neatly off her face. “Do you want to talk about it now, or do you want to talk about it later?”
“Later,” I mumble into the pillows.
To my surprise, she nods.
“Okay,” my dad says. “We love you.”
That’s when I start to cry.
Both of them are across the room in a second, like I’m a toddler who fell down learning to walk.
“Sweetheart,” my dad says, while my mom sits down beside me on the mattress, “what the hell happened?”
I take a deep breath, the whole sad story spilling out of me all at once: the email from Brown and the call with Kalina, the visit with Gram, what I did to Bex’s car.
“Everything you guys did. The SAT tutors. Those stupid piano lessons. Everything Gram wanted for me. I blew it all,” I tell them.
My mom shakes her head. “You didn’t blow anything.”
“Really?” I ask tearfully. “Honestly, name one thing I haven’t totally ruined in the last couple of months. Brown. My friendship with Chloe. Gray. And it’s all my fault.” I swipe at my face with the back of my hand, angry and embarrassed. “All of this is my fault.”
“What?” My mom shakes her head, baffled. “No, sweetheart. That’s not true. How could any of this possibly be your fault?”
“Because I had a crush on him!” It comes out like a keen, high-pitched and humiliating. “I did! And I did hang around all the time, and it did give him the wrong idea, and—”
“Hold on a second,” my mom says, wide-eyed. “No way. That’s not how this works, okay? That’s not how any of this works.”
She shakes her head one more time. “Sweetheart, do you know how many people get crushes on their teachers? Do you know how many teachers I had crushes on, growing up?”
“It’s not the same,” I insist. “If I hadn’t—”
>
“It’s the teacher’s job to set the boundary,” my dad says firmly. “Because the teacher is the adult.”
Logically, of course, I know they’re right. Bex and I weren’t equal partners in some doomed flirtation; he was the authority figure, and I was a kid in his class. But looking around at the total wreckage of my life right now, it’s hard to make myself believe it.
“Still,” I say—shrugging half-heartedly, unconvinced. “I should have known better.”
“He should have known better.” My mom puts her arms around me then, gathering me close and stroking a hand through my hair. “And he did know better. And all of this is so unfair.”
On that last point, at least, it’s difficult to argue, so instead I let her hold me, closing my eyes against a sudden wave of exhaustion.
“I hate him,” I mutter into her neck.
“I know,” my mom says, her grip tightening reassuringly. “I fucking hate him too.”
Thirty-Four
The first couple of days of my suspension aren’t actually so terrible. I watch a bunch of low-budget rom-coms on Netflix. I take myself on a long, winding walk. I heft Gram’s old The Silver Palate Cookbook off the shelf in the kitchen and fumble my way through the recipe for orange-pecan loaf, leave it on the counter for my mom to bring to her and the nurses in the morning.
That’s when the boredom sets in.
I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for a while. I will myself not to check my phone. I’m contemplating cleaning out my closet—which is how you know I’m truly desperate—when I hear the doorbell chime downstairs.
“Marin, honey!” my mom calls a moment later, the faintest hitch of surprise just barely audible in her voice. “You’ve got company!”
I’m startled too: seriously, is there anybody in my entire life I haven’t somehow alienated lately? I shuffle out into the hallway and down the steps, making it as far as the landing before I stop on the matted carpet. Chloe is standing in the foyer in a silky top and a pair of open-toed booties, hands shoved into the back pockets of her dark skinny jeans. Her eyeliner is as perfectly applied as always, but for the first time in a long, long time her lips are pale.