“Why are you getting mad at me?”
He opened his mouth then snapped it shut. “I’m not.”
I let a few seconds go, then glanced up at him. “It’s okay. You can tell me stuff. If you want.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Any kind.”
Like where you live.
“We just met,” Miller said. “And you’re a girl.”
“So?”
“So. Guys don’t talk about stuff with girls. They talk with other guys.”
“Friends talk to each other, remember? And besides…” I made a show of looking around and then peeked under the bed. “No guys here.”
He snorted a laugh. “God, you’re a dork. But kind of brave, too.”
“You think I’m brave?”
He nodded.
My cheeks felt warm. “No one’s ever called me brave before.”
A small smile flickered over his lips as our eyes met. The air between us seemed to soften and grow still. Kind of perfect, just sitting there with this boy on my birthday.
Then my mom threw open her bedroom door from down the hall with a bang, and her footsteps thumped down the stairs.
I flinched, and then Miller and I froze. A few minutes later, her voice rose and my father answered, both of them growing louder and louder, until they were in a full-blown shouting match. I could feel Miller watching me, and my face burned. My stomach tightened into knots around all the food I’d just eaten, making me feel sick.
“I can’t believe it,” Mom screamed from below. “Another one, Vince? How many more?”
“Jesus Christ, it’s after ten at night. Get off my back, Lynn!”
Their words became indistinct—Mom probably chasing Dad deeper into the house, waving some papers at him like I’d seen her do.
Humiliation burned right through the center of me. I drew my knees up and covered my ears, wishing they’d both drop dead. The green scent of pine needles and the spicy bite of salsa wafted over me.
I peeked one eye open. Miller had moved to sit beside me. He didn’t put his arm around me but sat close enough that we were touching. Shoulder to shoulder. Making contact. Letting me know he was there.
I leaned over, tipping into him, and we listened until my parents’ blow-up faded out. Mom’s footsteps thumped back upstairs. Her door slammed. Below, the den door slammed too, and silence descended.
“They fight a lot?” Miller asked in a quiet voice.
I nodded against the worn material of his jacket. “They used to love each other and now they hate each other. I feel like I was in a simulation of the perfect family, but there’s a glitch in the programming.”
“Why don’t they just get divorced?”
“I think there’s some kind of money situation. They don’t tell me anything, but I know they can’t split up until it’s fixed.” My eyes stung. “But I keep hoping the money situation will sort itself out and it’ll fix them too.”
Miller said nothing, but I felt his shoulder press into me a little more.
“We’re friends, Violet,” he said finally, looking straight ahead.
“What?”