Mallory wipes her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. “Because you’re right. I’msupposedto be perfect. It’s what I’ve tried to be my whole life.” She takes a shaky breath. “You think Mom left because you were too hard to love, but she left me too. I wasn’t perfect enough to make her stay. I’m afraid that when everyone learns I’m not as perfect as they think, they’ll leave me too.”
I always thought Mallory was stronger than me, almost unfazed by Mom leaving, but that isn’t true. She just hid it better. She’s as broken and hurt as me.
It kills me because she deserves to be happy.
I jump closer and wrap my arms around her. “That won’t happen.”
“You don’t know that. I’ve done some terrible things, Emma.”
“So have I.”
“Not like me. I’ve done things you’d never do,” she says.
“I doubt that.” I’m a walking disaster, and I find it very hard to believe she could ever do something worse than I have.
“I—” She bites her lip as her eyes dart around the room and sits down next to me. Her hands are clasped tightly in her lap and her gaze falls on them.
Myles steps away, heading for the exit. I wonder if he’s trying to be respectful of whatever Mallory is about to say. Does he know?
“I’m struggling with school,” she whispers.
I hear the words, but they don’t make sense. Mallory has never had a hard time with school. She has the awards and grades to prove it.
“What do you mean?”
She peers up at me, and I don’t see my strong older sister. She’s fragile, and I can tell by the way she’s looking at me she’s afraid to tell me what she’s done.
“You can tell me,” I say.
She wipes her cheek again. “I’m so tired. I cook and I clean, and I don’t have time for all of my homework. I thought I could do everything after Mom left, but I can’t.”
Mallory does everything. She sets out breakfast, takes care of the laundry and house chores, and even makes sure the fridge is always full. We don’t ask her to, but we don’t stop her either.
“Are your grades dropping?” I ask.
She shakes her head, grimacing. “That’s the problem. I’ve been so tired this year, I started copying other people’s homework.”
No, she wouldn’t do that. “What are you talking about?”
She covers her face with her hands. “Dad refinanced the house to send us to Cardale after Mom left. He can barely keep up with the payments, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. Once I started copying homework, I couldn’t stop, and I hate myself for it.”
What she’s been doing is wrong, but I can’t be mad at her. Not when she’s falling apart in front of me. If anything, it makes me feel less lonely because we aren’t as different as I thought. We’re both human. We both make mistakes.
I throw my arms around her, squeezing her tight. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ll help you.”
She hugs me back.
We’ve spent so much time focusing on our differences, I think we overlooked how much we needed each other. We’re both just trying to navigate a world without our mom.
37
MYLES
I’ve never seen this much sadness in Emma. She’s always been so good at hiding her pain, masking it with jokes or distractions, that I didn’t realize how deeply she was hurting. The way Emma was talking about herself breaks my heart.
