“Were you watching the whole time?” With my feet pressed into the ground, I moved the merry-go-round, back and forth, back and forth, to keep my brain as numb as my heart.
“No. Claire called me ten minutes ago. She figured your mom would have left by then.
“What are we doing, Jill?”
“Sitting.” Even though I was sitting, it was like the ground shifted underneath me, tilted just off center so everywhere I looked was crooked.
“At the park by your old house? At night?” He brushed my cheek with his thumb. My tears were gone, but there was no hiding they’d been there.
Sean bent down in front of me. I wanted to take his hand and tug him next to me, rest my head on his shoulder and listen to his voice and the way his laugh colored his words when he told a joke, let everything else fade away in the warm night air.
But I couldn’t. I was caught in this swinging between wanting and desperately not wanting him to tell me what had happened the night he almost kissed my mom. The night he maybe did, and I just didn’t know.
The back and forth was making me physically ill. When I stayed silent, Sean leaned back. I couldn’t look at him when he started to speak.
“What you said this morning. Is that what you really think? What you’ve been thinking all this time?”
You almost kissed my mom.
He waited for me to look at him. I didn’t open my mouth, but I didn’t have to. Sean’s face lost all expression then. And when he started talking again, his voice was little more than breath.
He told me what I already knew. He was alone with my mom, my very unhappy mom, the night she left. It was innocent enough at first. She always flirted. He said he didn’t. He made sure I understood that fact. Like it mattered somehow.
It didn’t.
She’d asked him a lot of questions, and it was like his answers didn’t matter. What did he think of her new dress? Her new necklace? Did he notice that she’d highlighted her hair?
Apparently my dad never noticed anything.
He’d told her about the text I’d sent explaining that I’d be late to meet him at the house.
And she’d wanted to see.
She’d sat on the arm of his chair and leaned in to see his phone, but then she’d stayed there, leaned closer.
I pulled my legs up, wrapping my arms around them as tightly as possible. I found a seam on the merry-go-round and dug my thumbnail underneath it.
Then she’d wanted to know what he thought of her perfume. She’d swept her hair behind one shoulder and bared her neck.
I tried to stop listening.
I knew that she’d started toying with the button on his shirt.
I didn’t know that she’d told him that when my dad worked late, it was usually hours before he got home.
The merry-go-round shifted and Sean was sitting next to me.
He said my name twice, refusing to continue until I looked at him.
I looked. His words didn’t change the past. He’d stayed right in that chair. He could have left.
But he hadn’t.
When I asked him why, he didn’t answer.
A dot of blood bloomed dark and red against my skin when my thumbnail tore. It was almost pretty until it smeared. Until it throbbed. Until I pressed my thumb into the hard metal seam and the hurt zinged up my arm, adding a different kind of pressure behind my eyes.
Sean was really smart. He’d tutored me in a bunch of subjects last year. He was probably going to be valedictorian. But he hadn’t left that night with Mom. He’d sat there. He’d stayed.
