“I was so mad…” I start, and can’t finish. Finally I cough out, “I would have hurt him. But not … not like…”
“There’s a difference between wanting to hurt someone and actually doing it,” Dad says.
“Is there?” I burst out. “Because the end result’s the same.” He tries to argue, but I have to release the thought that’s tormented me since my first day back at school. “I mean, Carson didn’t intend to hurt Raychel, but he did and I don’t … I don’t see how I’m…”
Mom stands up abruptly.
I look up at her through my tears. “Mom. I’m so sorry. I—”
She doesn’t look at me. “There’s a difference between being a murderer or a rapist and just an asshole,” she says over my head. “Your actions contributed to an accident. They weren’t the incident itself.” She stands there, pinching the bridge of her nose. “But I’m still pretty damn upset to realize I raised an asshole.”
Dad squeezes my hand. I stare at my reflection in the blank TV screen and realize Mom hasn’t been taking sides at all. She’s just stuck with me as a teammate.
RAYCHEL
Against Dr. R.’s advice, I try to call Mrs. R. Friday night. I leave a message, but she doesn’t respond.
Asha does, though, and so does Keri. They both come over to keep me company, which is a little awkward at first because they barely know each other. But they’re both so mad on my behalf that they buddy up within an hour. “Like, are you kidding me?” Keri gestures with the nail polish brush in her hand, and I almost tell her not to spill the jar until I realize that bright pink with sparkles would only improve our couch. “The least she could do is answer your phone call.”
I shrug. I’m not a fool—Andrew and I knew all along that sneaking around was wrong and we’d have to apologize. I just never imagined I’d have to do it alone, much less that Mrs. R. wouldn’t let me. “She did lose a kid,” I say. I don’t explain the rest—that Dr. R.’s probably told her Matt’s role in that. As angry as I am, I’m not ready to hear our friends condemn him for it. “I doubt she’s feeling the most rational right now. But I can’t make her listen.”
“You shouldn’t have to. She’s the adult here.”
“It’s Matt that really gets me,” Asha says, handing me the bag of M&M’s. “Where does he get off treating you that way?” She looks at me almost apologetically. “To be totally honest, I’m kind of glad it happened this way. Matt has never really liked me, so—”
My mouth falls open. “What?”
“Come on, you know he doesn’t.”
“He’s never said that to me.” But he does roll his eyes a lot when she’s around.
“He’s not, like, mean to me,” she says. “But if it weren’t for Spencer, we definitely wouldn’t talk.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I’ll be surprised if he even stays in touch with Spencer once he leaves for school.”
“Really?” I shake my head at the polish she holds up. Not red. I have enough nightmares about blood as it is.
“Look, don’t ever tell Matt I said this,” she says, putting the bottle down. “But Spencer’s take was always that Matt—he means well, you know, but kind of in the way that like … old hippies and guys on the Internet mean well.” She grabs a bottle of gold glitter from Keri and starts painting the nails on my left hand. “Like, they ‘don’t see color’ and think girls should be equal but ‘boys will be boys,’ as if those aren’t huge problems themselves. You know?”
“Yeah … I guess so.” I never really thought about it like that. “It goes with his taste in music.”
She points at me in agreement. “But it’s always little stuff,” she says. “Not quite worth calling out because you don’t want to make a scene, or you know he doesn’t mean it ‘that’ way.”
Keri nods enthusiastically. “Or they’ll say you’re ‘overreacting.’ Even when they’re the eighty-seventh person to tell you that all Asian girls look alike.”
Asha makes a puking noise. “Or ‘You should be smart since you’re Indian.’”
“Oh my god, same, except Chinese, and I’m freaking Korean.” Keri pretends to fist-bump Asha, careful not to smear anything.
“You seem plenty smart to me,” I say. Whereas I feel exceptionally stupid at the moment. “God, if I say shit like that, you’ll call me out, right?”
Asha laughs. “Do you not remember the collards joke?”
I blush hard. Once I suggested that the theme of her and Spencer’s wedding should be collards and curry. To be fair, lots of people eat collards in Arkansas, and Spencer’s mom happens to make the best. But yeah. It wasn’t funny, and she let me know in a hurry. I still feel terrible about it.
“Not to be rude,” Keri says, “but it’s not really our job to tell you. I mean, I totally would, but just like … don’t expect it of people, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say immediately. “Yeah, for sure. Okay.” I think about all the times I’ve let sexist jokes go because I didn’t have the energy to argue at the time. Or Matt’s homophobic meathead joke at the blood drive.
“Anyway,” Asha says, “I’m not saying Matt is a horrible dude. He wants to do the right thing. He just … screws it up a lot.”
Keri laughs. “Rosa hates him because every time she suggests something for StuCo, he has some other ‘save the world’ idea that makes her feel shallow.”
I snort. “He’s good at that.”
“Speaking of,” Keri says, reaching for a bottle of top coat. “Have you seen Rosa’s new car?”
She starts describing it to Asha, but I zone out, overwhelmed by how much I’ve missed. So many things I should have known about so many people around me. I can’t stand to think about all the things I’ll never learn about Andrew. But I thought I knew Asha. I definitely thought I knew Matt. And I always hated that Matt thought he knew everything.
Turns out we’re both pretty clueless.
MATT
After our discussion, I move past my mom in silence, never knowing when one innocent comment might set off a squall. But there’s still something I have to discuss with my dad. I catch him sweeping the driveway while Mom’s at the store on Sunday. “What’s up?” he asks, brushing dead leaves away from the garage door.
I don’t even try to ease into it. “I got into Rhodes.” The email came Friday afternoon.
Dad leans on his broom. “Are you going to accept?”
“That was … kind of the point.”
He studies me. “I thought actually facing the decision might change your mind.”
It has made me reconsider, but I don’t want to admit that. “So you think I should stay?”
“I can see it both ways.” He starts sweeping again. “You have a lot of problems to face here, and I’m never a fan of running away from those. But on the other hand, having something of a clean slate could do you good.” The leaves join a growing pile. “Sometimes you can’t put the pieces back together, even if you get them picked up.”
“That’s deep, Dad.” I really just want him to tell me what to do.
“How do you plan to tell your mom?” he asks.