Izzie looks between us, conflicted. “Go,” I tell her quietly. However bad this is for me, I can leave. I can walk out the front door and never look back. Izzie can’t. At least not yet. I don’t want this to be bad for her after I’m gone. I should have thought about that before I came. As usual, I was only thinking about myself. But some part of me thinks my mother knows this, that part of me thinks she’s using Izzie as a buffer. A shield. “It’s okay.”
Izzie nods, her face tightening. As she walks away, she reaches out and touches my hand, our fingers grazing. I’m electrified and heartsore. As we touch, I feel the scrap of paper I’d given her. My number. The Green Monstrosity. Clutched in her hand.
Put it in your pocket, I think. Before she sees. Oh, Izzie. Hide it.
She doesn’t.
But Mom (Julie, I think. She’s not my mother—she’s only Julie, Julie, Julie) doesn’t see it, and as soon as Isabelle is within reach, she grabs her and pulls her close… but not at her side. Or behind her. She puts her in front of her, her arm around Izzie’s chest. Her daughter is now between us. She takes a final drag on the cigarette, then flicks it in the sink.
Things might have changed, Izzie had told me, but it’s nowhere near where it should be.
She’s never going to be what you need.
The kite! my mother had once said. Ty, look how high the kite is!
“I don’t have money,” Julie says. Her voice is still flat.
I laugh—I can’t help it. It comes out as harsh as I’ve ever heard it. It grates in my ears. “I don’t need money,” I say. “Especially from you. You think I came here for the twenty bucks you probably still keep in the flour tin in the back of the pantry?”
Recognition flickers across her face. “Old habits die hard.”
That much is obvious. “Anything left?” I ask.
“What?”
“The money you got for trying to break up my family.”
Careful, I warn myself. Careful.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says.
“Okay, Julie.”
“What do you want, Kid?”
Kid. Kid. Kid.
I shrug, trying to keep my anger in check. “You know, I thought I knew. I really did.”
“But?”
“There’s nothing here.”
“Not for you,” she says.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why everything? Why did it happen the way it did?”
“Ask your brother.”
I see red. “I’m asking you.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”