Even with hearts in her eyes, Mom has always been able to focus on me and my needs—a bond we’ve developed being each other’s only true companions for all these years. I can practically see her floating on air as she kisses Connor goodbye a while later, shuts the door, and turns to me. Before I can say anything, she wordlessly points to the couch, herwe need to talkexpression settled firmly on her face.
Once we’re both seated, she places one of her warm hands inmine and squeezes gently. “All right,” she says, determination set in her jaw, “out with it.”
Even though it’s fruitless, I try for deflection. “Out with what?”
She answers me with another level stare, arching one eyebrow—the universal mother’s code for daring me to lie to her again. With Sherri Austin, it’s a warning you don’t want to receive twice. So, I don’t—instead, I take a deep breath and steel myself to get this over with.
“I’m fine,” I say, willing myself to believe it’s true. “Just been in a bit of a funk with everything after coming back from Hawai?i.”
“Because of Jack?” The happy, rosy glow on her face dims a little bit, replaced with a cloudy expression of concern.
I shrug. “Yeah.”That’s part of it, at least.
She sits up straighter now, giving my hand another squeeze, her focus snapping to attention. “Then let’s talk about it, pea. What’s on your mind?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I mumble down into the couch cushions as I pull one of our throw pillows onto my lap. Which, of course, immediately clues her in to the fact that there is very much something to talk about, and that activates her mother Spidey senses in a way that makes it clear she is going to be persistent andnotlet this go.
“Olive Amelia Austin.” Her tone is firm. “I understand that as a mother, I’m supposed to give my teenager a little bit of agency and privacy, but in this particular moment, I can tell that you’ve been bottling something up inside. So what you’re going to do is tell meright now,or at the very least tell me that there’s nothing I should be concerned about, and then I promise I’ll let it lie. But you’re not going to get off this couch until I hear an answer fromyou either way.” She crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at me, pursing her lips in what I’m sure she thinks is an intimidating interrogation tactic, but coming from my usually so bubbly and sweet mother, is more comical than anything.
Still, I don’t laugh, because I don’t have a death wish. Instead, I just sigh. “You have nothing to worry about, Mom. Nothing’s wrong like that. I promise.”
Dissatisfaction crosses her face, but she’s true to her word, shrugging and patting her knees as she moves to stand up. “Well, all right, then. You know where to find me if you need me and decide you want to talk.”
But as she tries to get up and move into the kitchen, I don’t find myself breathing the sigh of relief that I thought I would at her leaving me alone. Instead, I feel a tightness in my stomach, an urge to keep talking. After keeping things bottled up fordays,the pressure is becoming unbearable. And while my mother is still mymom,it’s been just the two of us for so long, so in a lot of ways, she reallyisone of my best friends. She really is someone that I feel like I can talk to.
“Wait,” I hear myself saying, my voice sounding tinny and far away even to my own ears.I guess we’re doing this, then.“I mean, there is, uh, kind of something that I wanted to talk about, if that’s okay.”
She pauses and sinks back into her seat, the delight written clearly on her face before she schools her expression into something more serious and motherly. “Of course, pea. What’s going on in that brain of yours?”
Everything,I want to moan, but I simply settle for “This funk feels kind of bad, Mom. But I know you’re happy with Connor and everything, so I don’t want to be a downer, especiallyafter it seems like you guys had a really good date. And he seems really nice.”
She smiles warmly and reaches over to squeeze my hand, that lovesick glow still on her face. “Thank you, pea. I’m glad you think so. I like him a whole lot.” She gets serious again. “But he’s not the priority right now. What’s going on with you?”
I shake my head, determined not to dim her glow even further. “Just because it feels like my life is in shambles right now doesn’t mean that you have to stop feeling happy and in love, Mom. It’s the same thing you used to tell me, whenever…” I trail off, not willing to finish the sentence. We both remember all of the couch-ridden days when she gave me the same speech when I was feeling guilty about going on a date with Tyler in the middle of her emotional turmoil.Your life doesn’t stop just because mine’s having a bit of a hiccup.Even though it felt like it always did.
“Don’t be silly,” she scoffs, waving her free hand like I said the most ridiculous thing in the world. “I’m your mother. Talking to you about what’s going on in your life is my job, and it’salwaysgoing to be my most important priority. So, what about the whole Jack situation are you finding so hard to get over? Let’s talk through it.”
In an effort to appease her and to get her off my case, I open my mouth and let the words start tumbling out, careful not to let the real problem—the feelings stirring in my heart for Tyler—slip. “With everything that happened, and the way Jack was lying to me…it hurt. A lot. And then the rest of the time I was in Hawai?i, I realized I didn’t really miss him at all, and I’m not sure if that’s because I’m trying to lock away the hurt so it doesn’t crush me, or because it means we were never really agood match at all. And it’s a lot to think about.” Okay, so not atotallie—all valid things that I’ve definitely been feeling in the past few days.
But Sherri’s mom-tuition is strong today, because she nods sagely and reads right through me. She opens and closes her mouth a few times, seemingly mulling over her response, before she speaks. “Do you think Tyler’s the one?”
Her question takes me aback and I yank my hand from hers, feeling flushed. How could my own mother ask me that when she’s been through upward of twenty instances of “the one” already, and everyone left her behind? How canIeven believe in it after everything I’ve seen with both her and me?
I can’t help but sputter out a response, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “What? Theone? Isn’t…isn’t it a bit early to think that? We’re not even out of high school yet! And he hasnothingto do with any of this.” The lie doesn’t sound the slightest bit convincing as it falls out of my mouth. Not even to me.
To her credit, Mom takes my overreaction in stride, nodding calmly. “Listen, pea, I’m sorry for putting you on the spot and asking you that, and you don’t have to give me an answer, but that’s absolutely something you should think over and find an answer for in your own heart. Because if you know someone’s the one, you should go for it, no matter what it takes.”
One thing I’ve learned by growing up with Sherri Austin as my mother is that you have to know when to throw in the towel and realize you’ve been caught. “Okay, so let’s say Idothink Ty’s the one—which I’m not actually saying, so don’t get any ideas.” At this, a smile quirks at the corner of her mouth. “What if…what if I’m wrong?” What I don’t say hangs in the air between us—what if I end up chained to this very couch nursingmy very own heartbreak, wallowing in the feeling that the greatest love of my life just walked away?
It only takes Mom a second for the realization to dawn on her face. “Oh, pea. Is that why you’ve spent your whole life pushing people away?” She reaches forward and envelops me in a hug that smells like vanilla perfume and the mint tea she always drinks.
“I don’t pusheveryoneaway,” I mumble into her shirt. “You’re still here.”
Her laugh vibrates against my ear. “That’s because I’m your mother, silly. You are my greatest gift—you couldn’t push me away if you tried.” She squeezes me tighter. “And you better not try.”
“I won’t,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes and soaking the fabric of her shirt.
Mom rocks me for a second, rubbing my back. “Your life isn’t my life, Olive. Just because things don’t work out for me sometimes doesn’t mean they won’t work out for you. It doesn’t mean that you should push people away first because you’re afraid of getting hurt, because that’s the number one way to guarantee that you stay lonely. I don’t think you even realize how shy and withdrawn you were before you met Tyler—I practically had to drag you out of the car to go to those silly team-bonding dinners that your field hockey team has.” Her eyes crinkle in the corners at the memory. “But once you met him, that all just…melted away for a while. You let yourself be happy and outgoing. You made new friends. You let yourself beseen.” She squeezes my hand for emphasis. “Pushing people away now to avoid the hurt is just going to ensure that you don’t let yourself get back to that version of Olive again, and truthfully, that’s a damn shame.”
