A weary exhale sounded behind me. I also couldn’t bring myself to turn around.
“He can read people so well,” Mom said. “That’s likely what made him such an effective bully. He’d expose other kids’ insecurities and tear them down without lifting a finger. It probably made it harder for teachers to do anything, and knowing Robert, the less Tenor did, the safer he felt picking on him.”
Knowing Tenor, he’d probably taken it so Dad wouldn’t pick on anyone else. Didn’t mean Dad’s behavior was excused, or that it hadn’t affected Tenor long term.
“It’s reading people,” Mom continued, “that makes him charming. It’s why he’s so good at sales—when he can control his mouth,” she muttered. “I was like you. Overlooked. Bookish. An older football player giving me attention? I didn’t have a chance.”
I grunted and slid open the cabinet the garbage was in. Dumping my uneaten pasta inside, I refused to think about how good Mae’s lasagna would be right now.
I could see Mom’s point. Wasn’t that how I’d been with Brock? He had said the right things to seduce me, and then he had torn me down in a few words. But he had a stand-up job and, ugh, had played football in school. He’d given me attention and I’d continued going back.
“Like mother, like daughter,” I said sullenly. “Brock probably would’ve left me if I had gotten pregnant too.”
“You want to know why I never badmouthed your dad to you and why I encouraged a relationship between you two?”
Finally, I turned around. I hugged my arms around myself. “Why?”
“Other than because he wanted to be in your life when not many guys his age would’ve wanted that?” She gave me a pointed look. “Because he told me he didn’t have his shit together and he didn’t want to raise a kid who’d fail his or her way through school. He told me he’d get a job and make money, and someday, he could help financially, but he’d, in his words, ‘be a shit dad.’”
“His self-awareness is impressive,” I said impassively.
“I guess I thought so when I was seventeen. He’d at least said he’d sort of stick with me when my own parents hadn’t.”
I stared at the ceiling. None of this was Mom’s fault. I might make Dad self-reflect, but not enough to keep from insulting Tenor last Sunday. “The thing is, I’m sick of guys like Dad. They’ll tell me they’re going to do better, treat me better, and then they don’t.”
She turned in her chair, crossed one leg over the other, and put her hands around her knee. “Is that what Tenor did?”
“Yes.” I sniffed. “Sort of.”
When she didn’t speak, I dropped my arms and trudged back to the table. She’d also been messaging me to ask how I’d been doing since Sunday. When I had told her Tenor and I were over, she’d proposed dinner. I’d known she’d want to talk and I hadn’t backed out. I might as well talk.
“He never really committed. I should’ve seen the pattern. Everything was on his terms, and I went along with it, oblivious.”
“On his terms, or did you two just have similar interests?”
I scowled. “According to him, we don’t have the same interests. He didn’t bother coming to Bozeman to see how I live.”
She rolled her lips in. “Okay,” she said slowly. “So he’d come to Bozeman and you’d take him to your favorite bar?”
My frown deepened. “I don’t have one.”
“Your favorite hiking trail?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“The movie theater that you don’t go to because why pay that amount when you can just wait and watch the movie in pajamas? The coffee shop you don’t read at because it’s too loud? My house when I’m never home?”
“He didn’t want to meet you guys in the first place.”
“Ugh.” A shudder went through her. “Meeting the parents is the worst part of dating.”
“Is that why you broke things off with Daniel? He wanted you to meet his parents?” Did I date people like my mom? I didn’t... Did I?
“He wanted to quit the trail and expected me to drop out too.” She scoffed like I should understand how audacious the request was. “All that planning and he wanted me to quit.”
Tenor would never let me leave a trail alone and injured.
My heart wrenched and I rubbed my sternum.
