Lilliam and I exchange an aren’t-they-so-cute look.
Joey laughs. “Promise not to hate me after, though,” he says, looking at Preethi.
She furrows her brow and nods again, but slower this time.
Joey rubs his hand down his face, embarrassed by whatever he’s going to say but still willing to say it. He sucks in a deep breath. On the exhale he says: “I cheated at school.”
“That’s not so terrible,” Preethi says.
“I didn’t just cheat on one test. I cheated oneverytest,” he clarifies. “I used AI foreverything. For a whole semester. School found out after a while. The worst part was my parents were loving my grades. It was the only thing they didn’t fight about.” He looks down at his feet. “Anyway, school said they wouldn’t kick me out if I agreed to go to therapy, so here I am.”
Lilliam and I both watch Preethi, waiting to see how she’ll react. It takes a few seconds, but she reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. Lilliam and I exchange another look.Phew.
“I shoplifted,” Lilliam suddenly says.
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. “Sorry,” I say.
She smiles and waves me off. “Trust me, I know it’s ridiculous.”
“What’d you steal?” Joey asks.
“Ten thousand dollars’ worth of wallets and jewelry.” She makes crazy-eyes at the memory, like,What can I say?
Gray slaps his forehead. “Ten thousand dollars?”
“It’s not much, considering it was from Saks,” she says with another grin. “There’s a picture of me in cuffs and Chanel.”
“No way,” says Joey.
Preethi just stares open-mouthed.
“Safe Harbor was not my parents’ first choice, but the Farm was full.” She glances at Ms. Waters. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Ms. Waters says, somewhat bemused.
Lilliam points a finger at me. “You go next, Isabel.”
Ms. Waters gives me a look:You don’t have to do this if you don’t want.
But something in me wants to tell them. “I still can’t believe that I did this,” I sigh. “After they told me they were getting divorced, the thing I kept thinking about is: When did everything go wrong? They used to be so happy,” I say. “They used to have this light in their eyes. I sort of got obsessed with figuring out the exact moment when the light left.” I dread saying the next part, but I know I can’t not. “They’re both big analog photography people. They print photos and put them into albums. I went through all our old pictures to study our faces through the years. Eventually I realized it was easierto compare if I cut out all of our faces and put them on a timeline. I started with my parents’ wedding photos.”
Even Gray gasps.
“I went through everything with a pair of scissors. Later Mom told me that she didn’t have the negatives. So, oh well.”
“Oh my God,” says Lilliam.
“But why?” Preethi wails.
“I honestly don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “At the end of it all, I came to the very scientific conclusion that the light left my parents’ eyes when I was nine.”
“I get it,” Gray says. “I took apart my bike once to figure out how it worked. Every last piece. This is that.”
“Huh,” I say.
He smiles suspiciously. “Huh what?”
I almost say,You might be right.Instead, I say, “Shut up and tell us yours already.”
