My mother hears that I’ve written about the worst thing that ever happened to me, and her first instinct is containment and control, not listening to my voice. I shouldn’t be surprised, but some part of me hoped it’d be different.
“My professor thinks it’s good, Mom,” I say. “She called it the best freshman writing she’s read in a decade.”
“Just be careful, dear,” she says, and the warmth in it is so thin I could snap it with my fingers.
I sigh, and try again anyway. “Mom, things have been hard here. There was a boy, and it didn’t work out, and some of the Harrison stuff came back.”
Silence again. She’s choosing the response carefully, when all I want is for my mother to hear the unedited draft of me and find a way to be okay with it. Because I tried it her way — the Halden Girl way — and it just hurt more.
“I’m sorry to hear that, sweetheart,” she says, finally, in the measured voice she uses when she’s buying time. “But you’re okay?”
I know what happens if I tell her I’m not okay: the right people will get the right calls, my family will manage the crisis the way we managed the last one, and nobody will ask what I actually need.
But I’m done with that.
“I’m fine, Mom,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, relieved.
The wall goes back up on both sides, and we are back to normal again: composed, fond of each other in ways that never quite survive the translation from feeling to language, but still keep up appearances.
We hang up, and I stand in the quad with my phone against my thigh thinking about the two conversations I justhad. Moreno read six pages of my worst moments and saidthis is worth building on. My mother heard three sentences of the same truth and asked if it was wise.
The thought comes over the wall, and it brings the rest: the door closing soft, his face when I said Nina was right, and how he didn’t argue, just stood there searching for a response that wasn’t another solution.
His voice, quiet, after he said he loved that messy version of me and I answered I know — two words that had nothing to do with managing and everything to do with seeing, and I threw them back because I couldn’t separate the boy from his biggest tendency.
I told him he would carry me the way my parents did, and I meant it, and I was right about the pattern. But standing here after Moreno’s office and my mother’s voice, I notice something I didn’t expect.
My mother heard the crack in my voice and rebuilt the wall. Rowan heard the crack in my voice and stayed. He got it wrong, going to Franklin, submitting the complaint, the whole response built for everyone except me — but he was trying to help.
Now, I need to know if he can understand, because Rowan’s version of wrong was closer to right than anyone else has managed.
Ivy doesn’t ask if I want to go out.
She just puts my jacket in my lap and says, “We’re leaving this building because it smells like sadness,” and by the time I’ve formed the beginning of an objection, she’s already pulling on her boots and telling me we are above moping in a dorm room.
The bar on Thurston has sticky floors and a jukebox that only plays if you hit it at a specific angle, which means the music cuts out every four songs until someone smacks it back to life. But it’s loud enough to drown out your thinking about your life.
And tonight, that’s perfect.
Ivy orders a dark beer because she has opinions about IPAs the way other people have opinions about politics — loudly and without invitation — but I stick with a Coke because my fake ID isn’t as good as hers.
I give her the version of today I can manage: Moreno’s office, the validation that landed a year too late but also felt just in time, and the call with my mother. I leave out the musing about Rowan, because I’m still working it out.
And then the booth fills without warning.
Two girls from one of my classes — Margot and Priya — slide in, all smiles and perfume and the energy of people who have decided I’m worth knowing again. It’s like a piece of choreography.
The arranged warmth.
The casual arm-touch.
The little signals that say I’m safe, you’re safe, we’re in this together.
“Sloane! Oh my God, we haven’t seen you inforever.” The forever does a lot of heavy lifting, because what Margot means is,we saw you plenty, we just pretended we didn’t.
“Are you coming to the Pi Sigma thing Saturday?” Priya jumps in. “Margot, didn’t you say that?—”
