“Words mean things,” I say, and take a bite out of my slice. “It’s okay, though. Thanks.”
She nods and quietly eats the rest of her pizza, still patting away the grease every once in a while, but not making a big deal of it.
I wonder what Oscar is doing right now and if his night is half as awkward as mine or if Luis is farting on his head at this very moment.
After we watch a few episodes ofStranger Things, the only show me, Kiera, and Dad can all agree on, Dad heads to bed and leaves me and Kiera on our own. We change into our pajamas and Kiera wraps her braids into a silk polka-dot scarf; the two of us sprawl out in the living room—me on the big couch and her on the love seat—and flip through channels before landing on a mesmerizing infomercial about a portable snow-cone machine.
“When did you know your parents were gonna get divorced?” Kiera asks.
I roll over onto my stomach, so I can face her. “When they told me.”
“You mean you didn’t know? You didn’t see it coming?”
I shake my head. “Not even a little bit.” I can’t disguise how glum it makes me feel. I want Mom and Dad to behappy. I just wish it involved them being together. “My mom’s a therapist, andshedidn’t even see it coming.”
“My mom always talks about how smart your mom is.”
I can’t stop myself from smiling. Sometimes I get so used to Mom just being Mom that I forget how smart and good at her job she really is. Even if I don’t love this idea of identical houses, she helps lots of people in Valentine.
“Afterward, though,” I continue, “when she thought about it, she could see that something was missing for Dad. Sometimes I think Dad would have just kept things the way they were and that he’d be happy to live with us if him and Mom could just be, like, roommates.”
“If I were your mom, I’d think that’d be even worse.”
I nod along, even though I can’t help but secretly wish that things had played out that way. Because I’m selfish and I don’t care if they’re in love. I only cared that they were together. For me.
“Wow,” says Kiera, her voice breathy. “I almost think that might be worse than all the fighting my parents are doing. I don’t know what’s gonna happen with them, but if they do split, maybe I’ll at least be relieved that they won’t be having nonstop screaming matches across the house.”
“My turn to ask a question,” I say.
She shrugs. “Okay.”
I swallow back my fears. Part of me doesn’t want to hearthis answer, and the other part is too chicken to ask. “Me and you. What happened?” I shake my head. “It was like one day you woke up and decided I wasn’t friend material anymore.”
Kiera groans so low that it almost sounds like a growl. She sits up. “I’m trying to think of a way to say this without sounding like a jerk.”
“Well, that’s not great.” Regret and nerves take hold of me. This whole night is about to turn sour really quick.
She looks to me with something that feels like pity, but it’s not mean-spirited or gloating. Just like she plain old feels bad. “You were my best friend, okay? But things started to change. Not things! We! Us! We started to change. I wanted to make more friends, and it’s like all you cared about was little-kid stuff. How was I supposed to stay friends with you when all you cared about was little-kid stuff?”
“You liked plenty of little-kid things too. And why is that even a bad thing, anyway?”
“I don’t know, Sweet Pea. I wanted more friends. You never really liked letting people into our circle.”
“If by ‘more friends,’ you mean prettier friends. Skinnier friends.” Something about saying it out loud stings more than I expected.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re pretty, Sweet Pea.”
“That’s not the point! It shouldn’t matter if I am or not.For the record, I don’t think I’m ugly, but it was like you started caring about lip gloss and boys and popularity, and maybe I wanted to care about those things too. Or maybe I didn’t. I don’t know.”
“I’m not saying it was the right thing to do or trying to make any excuses, okay? Really, I’m not. But, like, Sarah Beth, Claire, and Kassidy didn’t really click with you, okay?”
I cringe at their names. Sarah Beth, Claire, and Kassidy, her older friends, who are in secondary school now. All three of them went out of their way to let me know how unwelcome I was. Playing pranks on me in the middle of the night at sleepovers and having private conversations in Kiera’s closet after everyone had pretended to go to sleep, leaving only me on the floor of Kiera’s room in my sleeping bag. “Well, where are Sarah Beth, Claire, and Kassidy now? Huh?”
She winces. “We’re still friends.”
“They weren’t at your birthday party.”
“They’ve been busy with eighth-grade stuff,” she mutters. “It’s different there. Anyway, you were so busy with Oscar!”
