Vice Principal Mendes leans forward. “Perhaps Sweet Pea doesn’t feel like she has space to express herself and her feelings about the divorce, and so she’s taking it out on her friends. Publicly.”
Mom turns to me. “Is that true, Sweet Pea?”
I don’t even know how to answer that. All those words basically sounded like one giant, jumbled-up math equation. “Am I in trouble?”
Mom turns to Mrs. Young for the answer. “Vice Principal Mendes and I discussed it and we think it would be best to send her home for the rest of the day, give her some space to think on her actions. But she’s welcome back tomorrow. Luckily, she already did her presentation. She can come in early tomorrow to finish her essay questions and multiple choice.”
“But my brain can’t even think before eight a.m.!”
All three adults turn to me with anot our problemlook on their faces. Even Mrs. Young.
“Fine,” I mutter.
Mom spends the whole drive home on the phone, rearranging the rest of her day’s appointments. As she hangs up from her final call, she pulls into the driveway but doesn’t immediately turn the car off.
“Do you want to talk about what happened today, Sweet Pea?”
I shake my head.
“Are you and Oscar fighting?”
I shrug. “It’s silly. It’s just a misunderstanding.” I think about how I did basically tell him to ditch me in my letter to him, so maybe I deserve this.
Mom’s phone vibrates where it sits in the cup holder. She picks it up and reads the incoming message, smiling for a moment before realizing,Oops, I’m supposed to be having a heart-to-heart with my clearly upset daughter.
I sit up a little higher and take a peek at her phone.Sam. Her boyfriend. “Are you serious?” I throw my hands up in the air. “Are you seriously distracted by your boyfriend right now? At this very moment? You’re supposed to be the parent!” I remind her.
“Sweet Pea, baby.” She goes to put a hand on my knee, but I flinch away.
“Do whatever you want. Call your boyfriend, for all I care. Tell him you love him and want to have a million babies,” I say. “I’m going to Dad’s.”
“But it’s not his night,” she says, like going over there on any day that doesn’t belong to him is somehow as preposterous as rainbow-colored unicorn poop.
“I don’t care whose night it is.” I grab my backpack and get out of the car, slamming the door behind me before she has a chance to stop me.
I hoof it over to Dad’s house, passing Miss Flora Mae where she sits on her screened-in porch. I shake my head. That’s a whole problem I can’t even think about right now.
I walk right into Dad’s house like it’s my house because it is. This is my house.
“Dad?” I call.
I hear some kind of muttering and catch Dad sweeping aside some papers as I walk into the kitchen.
“Sweet Pea! You’re supposed to be in school!”
I give him a quick recap. “I got in trouble. Mom picked me up. And now she’s giggling with her boyfriend while I’m trying to talk to her, and I just can’t even look at her right now.”
“You got in trouble? Why didn’t you call me?”
I shrug. “The school called Mom.”
“Well, why didn’t she call me?”
My fists clench as I groan. “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask her.” It’s like they want to be a family when things are warm and fuzzy and easy, but what about when things are hard and no one is happy?
One single paper falls loose from his teetering stack on the kitchen table and I get to it before he does.
It’s a watercolor painting of a bright-white storefront with a royal-blue sign. The sign reads “DiMarco Hardware and Art Supplies.” The windows are painted for fall with pumpkins and falling leaves.
