“I think I get it now. Not all of it,” she added with slightly furrowed brows. “I don’t talk to you about weight issues and stuff because you can’t even begin to understand what that’s like for me—and I am glad because it takes so much energy and fight, and every day I have to think about calories and food and my weight and insulin and it’s exhausting.” She finished in a gust of breath like even talking about it taxed her. “You’ve never had to safety pin your jeans because the button wouldn’t reach. You’ve never had to wait until the late bell in a class before getting up because you knew odds were you’d get stuck in the desk. You’ve never had to listen to perfect strangers make comments in a restaurant about what’s on your plate.”
“Claire,” I said, in a soft voice. “I never knew any of that.”
“Yeah, because I didn’t want you to, just like you don’t want me to know all the stuff with your mom. And you’re right. I can’t relate, and even though I know you’re happy that I don’t have to, it must be nice to have someone to talk to about crummy mothers.”
My heart gave a funny lurch and my smile was small but sure. It was…Niceprobably wasn’t the right word, but yeah. “I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about all that,” I said.
“And I’m sorry I can’t talk to you about your mom. I’m even happy that with Daniel, you have someone hurting in the same way that you can talk to. But, Jill,” she said, shifting back to a point I’d wrongly hoped she’d forgotten. “Anything that happens between you guys is going to only hurt more in the long run. I mean, what’s the best possible scenario here?”
There wasn’t one.
“You guys start, what, dating? Is your dad going to go for that?”
I didn’t need to answer that.
“So then you don’t tell him. You sneak around. You lie.”
I shook my head. I wouldn’t do that to Dad. I couldn’t.
“Okay. Then you wait. Will it be better when you’re eighteen and he’s twenty-three? Will he wait? Will you? Because if the answer is yes, then okay. End of lecture. I won’t say another word.”
My headache came charging back. “Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to make everything into big-picture terms?”
“Because everything is big picture. You know that.”
“No,” I said. “Not yet it isn’t. I tell you about a guy and you jump two years into the future and ask me what that looks like. How am I supposed to answer that?”
“When you liked Sean you could. How many times have we planned your wedding, a dozen?”
“This is different.”
Claire leaned toward me. “Why? Why is it different?”
“Because it is. I just met Daniel. I’m still getting to know him. And he’s got all this stuff going on, and…”
“And what? You were in love with Sean for years.”
My cheeks were wet before I realized I’d started crying.
“Sean will come around, you know. He probably already—”
“No. I don’t care anymore. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Maybe until you can say it without tearing up. And I was right there watching you watch him with Cami at the movies the other night. I see you every day running with him. I’ve been watching you two for months get over whatever it was that happened, and you’re almost there. I can tell, even if you can’t, that he’s already there. So don’t get distracted by something it doesn’t sound like you can fix anyway.”
* * *
Daniel’s Jeep wasn’t in front of his house when I got home late after dropping Claire off. But instead of going inside, I sat in my driveway with the engine idling and the overpowering scent of chlorine that lingered on my hair and skin. The pool from the night before had smelled sweet by comparison. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Daniel; the water droplets on his eyelashes, and I remembered that flare of panicked excitement I felt as he leaned toward me.
And then my mind lurched forward and all I could see were scars.
My fingers twitched, and pain, as vivid and real as I’d ever felt, suffused my body as I remembered each and every one.
Claire was right about that. There was nothing I could do to fix what had happened to Daniel, what was still happening to him, but that didn’t keep me from wanting to try and hoping he’d come back so I could.
Just as I was about to pull into the garage, a gray Suburban stopped in front of Daniel’s house. The driver got out and walked to the passenger side. When he opened the door, Daniel got out, took two steps, and crumbled onto the sidewalk.
CHAPTER 22
