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Analise didn’t know what hurt more. The truth of his words, or the fact he’d said them. Her release was loud and messy. She smothered her face and hiccupped, “Let me out at the . . . next . . . exit.”
Taylor cussed at himself in contrition. He pulled off the freeway and whipped into a gas station. Analise opened the door. He grabbed her arm. “Don’t. Please. I’m so sorry. I was trying to say you don’t have to avoid being friends with people because you’re ashamed that you don’t have any money—or that you don’t live on a fucking lake, or have rich asshole parents who buy their kids off and don’t give a single shit about them!” He let her go and slammed a palm against the steering wheel.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said, pausing.
“I know some things,” he said to his hands. “I’d be your friend. If you let me. I know where you live. I know your mom works at GoodYear, and you don’t have a dad who’s around, and none of that matters to me. You don’t gossip, you’re unbelievably kind to everyone—I mean everyone—and every single guy at school thinks you must have some mysterious older boyfriend, or that you’re a lesbian. Dave hasn’t asked you out before now because he was too arrogant to risk getting rejected.”
Analise’s tears stopped. She wiped her cheeks and sifted through her purse for a Kleenex.
Taylor leaned his head back against the seat. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated.
“I’m just sensitive. The doctor said it might be from the concussion.”
“Great. It’s even more my fault.”
She gave him a wan laugh. “It’s okay. I like that you’re honest.” She thought of Ulla. Unlike some people in my life.
He faced her fully. “Can I still take you home? Please forgive me.”
“It’s okay.” She closed the door and fastened her seat belt.
Taylor drove, appearing to contain endless questions behind his tight, closed mouth. Analise glanced at the dashboard clock. She would probably beat curfew by a full thirty minutes. “What did you mean by, ‘rich asshole parents who don’t give a shit about their kids?’”
He exited the freeway near her neighborhood. “My parents. My mom, she’s okay. But I don’t know why she stays with my dad. He doesn’t care about me, never has. I used to think it was normal for dads to never hug or say, ‘I love you,’ all that sentimental bull. He’s always traveling. I think he’s cheating on my mom, but I don’t think she cares. So I’m not even sure who I should be more pissed at.” Taylor finally arrived at her house and cut the ignition.
“You’re an only child?”
He frowned, nodding. “Alone.” The word fell straight from his heavy eyes and into her, opening guarded places. When she nodded back, his face relaxed, the silent understanding passing between them.
“Where’s your dad?” he asked.
Analise stared at her hands.
Taylor kept his eyes on her. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me.”
“I don’t even know his name, or what happened. My mom, she—I think it hurts her too much to think about him, let alone talk about him. At least that’s what my great-godmother says.”
“Don’t you think she owes you the truth?”
She shrugged, looked out the window, and saw a pair of loud men on the sidewalk, shuffling across the street in front of the Jeep. Their conversation dimmed out of earshot as a car passed by.
Taylor’s tone was gentle when saying, “Have you ever had a stepdad or anything?”
“No.” She hesitated and then said, “My mom’s the lesbian. Not me.”
Analise expected shock, but Taylor only leaned forward. “Oh. Really?”
“Don’t say anything to anyone. I mean, it doesn’t bother me—”
“It doesn’t bother me either.”
“I think it must have bothered some people,” she spoke to the window. “She’s had a couple of girlfriends, nothing serious. Makes me even more confused about what happened with my dad.”
“Yeah.” A silence fell over them, but one that brought comfort. As if sensing she needed a change in topic, he asked, “Do you like being called Isa?”
She laughed in surprise. “How do you know my nickname?”
“I heard your mom cheer at a cross-country meet. Is she from Sweden?”
