“Can I come in?”
“No.”
“Aw, come on, Rumple,” I said. She didn’t respond, so I started knocking again. She ignored me, so I started knocking to a beat, playing a little hip-hop rhythm on her bedroom door until she finally flung it open and glared at me again.
“You are so annoying,” she stated, but she left the door open as she went back inside and sat down at her computer desk.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Emailing my mom.”
“Oh.” I didn’t really have much else to add, so I fidgeted until she finished typing, sighed, and looked back at me. I tried to give her the most sincerely apologetic look I could conjure up. “I wasn’t trying to piss you off.”
Nicole’s eyes dropped down to her plate, and she pushed some of the fruity-looking bits around for a minute.
“I’m not mad at you,” she finally said.
“You aren’t?”
“Not really,” she said. She poked around at some of the green morsels on her plate. “It’s just been a rough day.”
“So why did you have to leave before practice was over?”
“I really don’t want to talk about that.”
“Oh.” I scratched at the back of my head. “Um…well, who are Ron and Timmy?”
“Really, Thomas,” she said as she looked back to me, “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied though I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t okay at all. If anything, I wanted to know even more now. I guessed I would have to do my own digging. I continued to scratch my head a bit more and then looked back to see her wiping her cheek. “Hey…”
She shook her head and waved at me dismissively as I took a step toward her.
“Really, Nicole…I’m sorry…” I didn’t know what else to say. I hadn’t meant to piss her off or make her sad. What had I done? What was I supposed to do now? “I feel like I just tipped the ball into my own net. What did I do?”
“It’s not you,” she said as she wiped away more tears. She stood up and seemed to be getting ready to clear her tray away when she suddenly turned to me, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and started crying.
I had no fucking idea what the game plan was. Was I supposed to make a move here, comfort her, like she had me? I didn’t even know what the hell was wrong.
My mind replayed everything that had happened since she got home—the smoking, the goofing off, the pizza—everything. I couldn’t come up with a particular thing that would actually make her cry. I thought back to school—she had been pissed that I had kind of arranged lunch, and given what Sheriff Skye had said, I guessed it made sense—she just wanted to make her own decisions. I was okay with that.
Would that make her cry?
I didn’t think so, but I really didn’t know.
After scouring my brain for any little tidbit to clue me in, I gave up and just put my arms around her. Her face was buried in my chest, and I just held her while she cried, wondering what the fuck I
did. After a few minutes, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and seemed to quiet down. I didn’t know what else to do, and she didn’t seem to be moving away, so I just kept my arms around her and waited. Eventually, she spoke again.
“Sometimes it just all gets to me, you know?” she said.
I had no idea what she meant, but I nodded anyway.
“I didn’t mean to take it out on you,” she whispered.
“It’s okay,” I replied.
“It’s not,” she disagreed. “I shouldn’t do that to you. I am still pissed at Dad, but you were just covering for him. I have no idea why you were, but—”