Someone had to defend her.
“Fine,” I cut in at last. “Yes. You’re not wrong. I was madly in love with Walker every single day of my childhood. Whatever the kid version of being in love is, I felt it for Walker. For years. And then”—I looked at my mom—“when Dad died ...” Just saying those words made my throat tighten a little. “When Dad died, and the Shaws looked after us, it got worse. I saw even more of Walker, every day, as he drove me home from school. And also because he was growing up, and he got all those”—I gestured at him—“arm muscles.”
We all looked over at Walker’s arm muscles.
Yep. Still there.
I took a deep breath and went on. “And mostly just because he was so ... sowarmto me. You know? The world felt so cold after Dad died—and Walker just warmed everything up like morning sun. I thought he was—honestly—the greatest guy in the world. I trusted him. Iadoredhim.”
I looked over and met Walker’s eyes.
Walker, for his part, looked down.
Now I got to the crux of it. “But it turned out he wasn’t a good guy, after all. Heseemslike a good guy. He has the trappings of a good guy. He’s so good at pretending to be a good guy that even now—even knowing everything I know—I still find myself slipping. But he’s not who I always thought he was. And I still can’t figure out how I could have been sowrong about him—how he could have been so heartless all along, and I never knew it. It makes me second-guess myself about every other person in my life to this day.”
The moms looked at each other like,That went dark.
Finally, Taffy said, “Heartless?” As if that didn’t—couldn’t—add up.
My mom just looked back and forth between Walker and me, unable to fathom what could have gone down between us. “I knew you grew apart, but ...”
But that’s when Walker decided to stand up for me. “She’s telling the truth,” he said, looking his own mom in the eyes. “I was heartless to her.”
Taffy gave a headshake of refusal.
Walker went on. “In the spring of our sophomore year, on the night before her birthday. I took her up to that garage by the Trust Bank building to show her the sunset up there. And then I kissed her.”
Oh, god. Were we sharingthiswith the moms?
Walker had kissed me a lot that night, to be honest. He’d kissed me forhours—through the sunset and beyond. The kind of whole-self, whole-body, wholehearted kissing you only ever do when it’s high school, and you’re infatuated, and you’ve never even had a taste of heartbreak.
When I went home that night, after being kissed like that, I thought I might perish from joy.
But did our mothers need those details?
I shook my head at Walker like,Too much.
But he didn’t care. “The next day was Lily’s birthday. And she told her friend—that girl with the pink streak in her hair—”
My mom frowned at me like,Who?
“Bobo,” I supplied.
“Bobo,” Walker added. “Lily told her she was going to ask me to the junior prom, and Bobo toldeverybody. This was, like, front-page gossip. Because I was, ya know, a jock, and Lily was—”
“Not in your league,” I offered.
Walker gave me a look. “Smart and bookish and cool,” he corrected. “And so I guess folks were curious to see what I’d say. And so when she came up to me in study hall near the end of the day, I already knew what she was about to ask. And I already knew what I was going to say.”
Hold on. He’d known what I was going to ask?
“Did she ask you to the junior prom?” my mom asked.
Walker nodded.
“And what did you say?” his mom asked.
“He said no,” I answered, suddenly wanting to de-escalate. We didn’t have to tell it word for word.
