I… what?
She takes a few steps closer and wraps her arms around my elbows, the rain running down her face.
“I’m sorry it’s another thing I didn’t tell you. It’s just… things were so good between you guys and you were so set on keeping it that way. When you told me not to make you choose, it didn’t feel fair to tell you. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
I shake my head at her. “No. No, if she knew she would’ve told me. She would have.” Unless…
“It didn’t go well. It was a few months after we started dating and you tried to come out to her, but she basically denied it. Said there’s no way you could know that at your age. She thought you just hadn’t met the right boy yet, and something about how labeling yourself like that could ruin your life before it even got started. But you always thought with the Church and everything, she was worried about how it would make youlook, how it would make your family look. So you never told her about me. That’s why your relationship fell apart. You didn’t just drift apart, Stevie. She couldn’t accept you.”
Tears roll down my cheeks, mixing with the rain as I think about every time I’ve felt guilty the past two months about how things went down between me and my mom. Every time I thought it was all my fault… because sheletme think that. How could she let me think that? It’s like Savannah and Rory all over again but a million times worse.
I can feel the pieces of me that want to fall apart, but I take a deep breath. As pissed as I am at my mom right now… I need to focus on Nora. Nora, who no longer has a mom at all. She needs somewhere to stay tonight. She needs me to hold it together.
I reach out and hold her head in my hands and she presses her forehead into mine.
“I know where you can go.”
CHAPTER 34
BY THE TIME WE GETto Ryan’s house, it’s almost 10:45, which means that I only have about half an hour before I have to leave for home if I’m going to make curfew. Nora changes into some of Ryan’s clean clothes since even her duffel bag is completely soaked through, and I towel off my spaghetti dinner uniform as best I can.
She climbs onto the queen-sized bed in the guest room and I kneel on the area rug right next to her.
“You could’ve told me,” I whisper as I rub my thumb gently over her forehead, where the skin is beginning to turn shades of blue and purple.
“I never wanted you to know,” she replies, looking away from me.
“You mean, you never told me? Even before?”
She shakes her head and closes her eyes, tears rolling sideways across the bridge of her nose.
Even though I’m still a little damp, I climb up onto the bed behind her and wrap all my limbs around her, my entire body engulfing her as she sinks back into me.
Sobs begin to rack her body and I hold her tighter, buryingmy face in her neck. My chest is aching for some sort of release, but I don’t let myself cry.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay. I love you. I love you. I love you…” I whisper it over and over into her ear. I don’t know how long we lie there for, but I hold her until she stops crying, until her breathing deepens and I’m sure she’s asleep.
These last few weeks she’s felt so strong to me, like my safe place, but right now it feels like without me, she might just crumble away into nothing. So even though my curfew must be approaching or even past, I stay awhile longer.
Eventually I carefully slip my arm out from under her and manage to climb back onto the floor without stirring her awake. I pull the quilt up over her shoulders and give her one last gentle kiss on her forehead before heading out into the hall.
Ryan is sitting at the kitchen counter when I get downstairs, like he’s just been waiting to make sure everything is all right.
“Thanks for letting her crash here,” I tell him, leaning my elbows on the granite.
“Stevie, what happened?” he asks, concern painted across his face.
I let out a sigh.
“Is it okay if I let her tell you herself tomorrow?” I ask, unsure of what exactly she’d want me to tell or keep under wraps.
“Sure, but…” He walks around the counter to stand beside me. “Areyouokay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I reply quickly, but the second I look overat him, tears that I’ve been holding back all evening finally spill over. He pulls me into a hug as I cry into his shirt.
How many times has her mom hurt her?
I think back to my first time meeting Nora at the farm, the bruises on her arm that she brushed off as if they were nothing.
