“Mom—”
She raised a hand. Stop. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s been a long, bad night. Just get these people out of here. Now.”
Layla was instantly in motion, going over and giving Spence a hard enough shake to finally wake him up. “Wha—” he mumbled.
“Come on,” she told him. Then she walked over to the board, hitting the intercom. “Speed it up, fellas. Time to go.”
Eric, his back to us, sighed. “We’re moving as quickly as we can. This is delicate equipment.”
“Go faster,” she snapped, then dropped her hand. Hearing this, they all stopped what they were doing and looked at us, finally seeing my mom. Mac’s eyes went wide. It was strange to see him surprised. The next thing I knew, he was heading our way.
Oh, God, I thought, both grateful and terrified as he came through the door. Layla was busy with Spence, so it was just me there with my mom when he joined us. “Mrs. Stanford,” he said. “This isn’t . . . Sydney was just doing me a favor. I shouldn’t have put her in this position. It’s my fault, totally. I’m sorry.”
He said this so genuinely, so truthfully, that I felt something inside my heart shift. Each time I thought I’d felt all I could for him, there was more.
I slid my hand down his arm, wrapping my fingers around his. “You don’t have to say that,” I told him.
“I want to,” he replied.
“I’m sorry, but who are you?” my mom snapped.
“Mac,” I said. “Layla’s brother. My friend.”
“Boyfriend,” another voice said, from outside the door. Ames. “Either that or just a guy she makes out with in parking lots.”
“What?”
I turned, slowly, to see Layla frozen behind me. She was looking at our still-joined hands the same way my mom had the bottle, as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.
“I saw them,” Ames said to my mom. “I wasn’t going to tell you, figured Sydney would. But I guess now you know.”
“Now I know,” my mom repeated. To Mac, she said, “Is that your alcohol?”
“No,” he replied. “It’s not.”
She looked at me. “I want these people out of here, Sydney. Do you understand me?”
“Mrs. Stanford—” Mac said.
“Do not talk to me.” She kept her eyes level, dark and furious and solidly on mine. “Just get out of my house, and take your friends with you. Now.”
Mac kept my hand in his a moment longer. Then he unfolded his fingers and let me go.
As they’d come in and set up, there’d been constant conversation: directions of equipment placement, discussion of Eric’s agitated disc, all the back and forth of a group of people trying to get something done together. While they packed up, no one spoke. I knew, because I was listening as I stared into my mom’s eyes, still focused on mine. After so long in my own invisible place, I was squarely in her sights. Just not the way I’d wanted to be.
Distantly, I was aware of everything else that was happening: Layla brushing past me without a word, tugging a stumbling, sleepy Spence behind her. Eric’s and Ford’s quick, cautious looks. How surprisingly light Irv’s large hand felt as it touched my shoulder briefly. And, finally, Mac, the last one to leave us. Only then did my mom look away from me, her eyes following him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. I was not punished yet, had no idea what would happen next. But already all that space left in my heart, open after being clenched tight for so long, was narrowing. When the door shut behind them, I felt it close.
CHAPTER
19
WE WEREN’T in a courtroom, and nobody asked me to rise. But I still knew a sentencing when I saw it.
My mom, sitting across the table, cleared her throat, then looked at my dad. It was seven a.m. the next morning; a half hour earlier, he’d come into my room and told me to wake up, get showered, and come downstairs. The first part was easy, as I hadn’t slept all night. This, though, was going to be hard.
“Sydney,” he began as I crossed my legs tightly under the table, “I don’t think we have to tell you that we are very, very disappointed in you right now.”
I said nothing. I knew I wasn’t to speak yet.
“Your mother specifically told you that your friends could not use the studio,” he continued. “Still, you invited them to do so. You are underage and know the rules of this house. Yet there was alcohol here, and you were drinking.”
I couldn’t help it. “I only—”
He held up his hand, but it was my mom’s glare that stopped me midsentence.
“You know how concerned and worried we both are about your brother and his situation. It’s frankly unfathomable to us that you would choose to add to our burden, to this family’s burden, with this kind of behavior.”
“I wasn’t trying to burden anyone,” I said quietly, studying the tabletop. “I just wanted to help a friend.”