“No problem. But you know, Joaquin just probably needs less people talking to him and more people listening to him.” Rafe nudged at her shoulder. “And you’re a pretty good listener, Grace.”
She nodded, not sure if that was entirely true but hoping that it was.
“So now I have a favor to ask you,” Rafe said, clearing his throat. “This is important.”
“Anything.”
“Can you please stop chewing on your straw?!” Rafe took her milkshake away from her, inspecting the top of the straw. “Look at this! How are you not bleeding to death right now?”
“Give it back!” Grace cried, but she was laughing as she reached for it. “I just have nervous teeth, that’s all!”
“Nervous teeth!” Rafe howled. “What does that even mean?”
“Shut up!” Grace said, but she was laughing, too, and when she made another swipe for her drink, she fell into him.
They both stopped laughing then.
Grace knew what she was supposed to do in the TV-show version of this moment: kiss him. She knew what she wanted to do: kiss him. And she knew what she couldn’t do, not just yet.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I—”
“I know,” Rafe whispered back, and he moved her hair out of her face in a way that Max had never done. “It’s okay.”
“I need you to know it’s not you,” Grace said. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s not like you’re hideous.”
Rafe grinned at her. “That’s what I’ve always wanted a girl to say to me. Thank you for making that dream come true.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said. His arms still wrapped awkwardly around her, he gave a gentle squeeze. “You want to sit up?”
“Not yet,” Grace said.
“You got it,” Rafe said, then looped his arm over her shoulders more comfortably. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
They didn’t, of course. Grace chose to believe Rafe anyway, as they sat together, lying in wait at the edge of the world.
MAYA
Nearly a week later, Maya still wanted to pound that kid Adam’s face in.
And she wasn’t too thrilled with Lauren, either.
She had flat-out refused to speak to her ever since the day Claire told her that Lauren had texted her about their mom. Lauren had pleaded with her, cried, begged, and finally even yelled, but Maya refused to open her bedroom door to her, refused to look at her, refused to acknowledge her in any way. “How long do you plan on freezing out your sister?” her dad finally asked her. “You only have one, you know.”
“That is no longer a true statement,” Maya said primly. “Can I go back to my homework now, please?”
It wasn’t any easier to acknowledge the missing person in their home, either. It wasn’t just Maya’s mom who was no longer there, but the space that her drinking had taken up seemed to hang over the house like a cloud, reminding Maya of all the time that she had invested in solving a problem that wasn’t even hers to fix. Lauren seemed to compensate by watching TV for hours at a time, housewives and fix-it shows and singing competitions flashing across the screen every time Maya came downstairs for a snack. Some of the shows looked interesting, but she felt so betrayed by Lauren, so shattered that her sister would go behind her back and talk to her ex-girlfriend. She had spent so long operating under the idea that secrets never left their house that she didn’t know how to handle it when any of them escaped, except to make her walls closer, tighter, hugging her in so that no one else would ever be able to enter.
The pressure finally exploded one night at dinner.
Maya had sort of known what she was doing. She sort of knew that it was a bad idea to bring it up this way, and she sort of wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go along with the plan in the first place. But she felt small and mean that day, felt like striking, felt like lashing out.
“So Grace and Joaquin and I think that we should look for our bio mom,” she said.
Lauren immediately choked on a bite of her salad and her dad had to thump her on the back.
“You do?” their dad said once they could hear themselves over Lauren’s coughing. Her eyes were red and watery, her napkin covering her mouth as she glared at Maya. Maya pretended not to see her.
“I think so,” she said, casually tearing off a hunk of bread. Her dad had gotten better with pulling dinner together. They hadn’t had pizza in nearly a week at this point. “You know, just to meet her. Learn about our story.”
“You have a story,” Lauren said. “It’s here, with us.”
“Maybe I have more than one story,” Maya shot back.
“Girls, c’mon,” their dad said. “My, are you sure you want to do this right now?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I? No time like the present, right?”
The hole at the table where their mother normally sat seemed emptier than usual.
“Well, it’s just . . . it’s been a really eventful couple of months. Your mom, finding Grace and Joaquin. Maybe you want to wait until things settle down a bit before you go on another adventure.”
“An adventure?” Maya glared at him. “Is that what you think this is?”
“Sweetie, no, I’m sorry. That’s not what I—poor choice of words, okay? I just think maybe you and your mom and I should talk about this.”
Maya laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She laughed for an entire minute before she finally got control of herself again. “Well, you know what, Dad? I would love to talk to Mom about this. There is literally nothing that I would love to do more right now than talk to Mom, but you know what? I can’t, because she can’t talk to anyone. And then it’s Family Day, right? Where we all go up to rehab and pretend that everything is fine?”
Lauren sat silent next to her, and Maya couldn’t help but wonder if she agreed with her.
“We are not going to pretend that everything’s fine—” her dad said.
“Really? Because this family is really good at doing just that.”
Her dad took a deep breath and pushed himself away from the table. “I need a moment, girls,” he said, then got up and left the room.
“What the hell is your problem?” Lauren hissed at her as soon as they were alone. “Seriously? You think Dad doesn’t feel bad enough right now?”
“Oh, really? You think? Why don’t you go text Claire about it? I’m sure your new BFF would love to chat with you.”
“Oh my God. Would you just get over yourself, My? I texted her because I was worried about you. You’re good with Claire. I actually like you when you’re with Claire.” Now Lauren was standing up from the table. “Would you quit acting like this whole family is trying to persecute you? You’re not the only one who had to dig wine bottles out of Mom’s closet, you know? You’re not the one who found her bleeding to death on the floor. But you’re the one who gets to have your little foot-stompy temper tantrum whenever someone does something that you don’t like. Well, too bad. I know you like to think that you’ve got this whole new family that you can just run away to, but you’ve still got a family here, too.”
“Oh, yeah, Laur?” Maya said, and now she was standing up, too. “Tell me something. When Mom and Dad said they were getting divorced, did you wonder if they would still want you?”