“You’re very welcome,” he replied with a grin. “Damsel in distress and all.”
I rubbed my toes against his biceps and stretched. “My dad’s not home till ten,” I said.
Grant pushed his hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t wanna make a bad impression on him.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He has a total fetish for schedules. He’s practically a robot. He’ll never even know you were here.”
“How long’s your dad lived here anyway?” Grant said, his hand on my calf.
“About six years,” I said. “Why?”
“Oh, I guess I was just thinking it’s funny I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “Here, let’s clean up.” He gingerly moved my leg and picked our dishes up off the coffee table.
“I’d never been here before,” I said, sighing as I walked to the sink to rinse the dishes. “My dad and me … we didn’t talk for a while after the divorce.” I stared out the window at the spot where the sun turned the whole sky purple as it sank past the Appalachians. “This is the first time we’ve seen each other since Mom and me left.”
“How come?” Grant said, loading the dishes into the washer as I handed them off. “Were you mad at him?”
“Kind of?” I said. I wanted to change the subject, but there were some things I’d wanted to talk about for years that I’d only ever plastered in chat boxes to strangers on the Internet, and now I wanted to say them out loud. “But it was more than that. In a way … I was the reason my parents got divorced.”
“Really?” Grant said. A dozen Internet friends and support-group members had reassured me that it wasn’t my fault, that divorce was never the child’s fault, and I had hated them for it. “That sucks.”
I sighed. “You’re the first person who didn’t just feed me a platitude when I told them that,” I said. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he said, shrugging. “Sometimes bad stuff happens that a few nice words can’t fix. I get it.” He reached out for my hand. “But if you don’t mind me askin’, how exactly do you think you made ’em divorce?”
“I had a problem when I was a kid,” I said, feeling my throat start to close. I felt like a liar again. “Raising me was so hard that my parents were stressed out all the time, and they disagreed on basically everything about how to help me.” I took a deep breath and dried my hands before taking his. “I’ve seen their wedding photos, though, and I’ve looked through old albums. They were happy before I was born, and then they weren’t.”
“Damn,” Grant said. “That’s rough. You know just because you may be the reason for it, that doesn’t mean it’s your fault, right?”
“I forget sometimes,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Thanks for reminding me. That’s why I came here actually: I needed a fresh start.”
The room grew quiet. Grant was staring at me, clearly thinking very hard about something. I tapped my foot, afraid of what those thoughts might be. “I’ve been talking so much, but you haven’t told me about your family. Are your parents still together?”
“Sorta,” Grant muttered, his mouth stretching into a flat line. “Listen, my family ain’t very interesting.”
“Come on,” I prodded. “You can talk to me about it.” I flashed him a teasing grin and drew closer. “If you want, we can count it as one of your secrets.”
“We don’t have to play this stupid game though,” Grant said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Everything doesn’t have to be all deep and dramatic. Don’t you just wanna talk about normal stuff and have fun?”
“I do,” I said. I reached out to take his arm. “Look, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Grant said, pulling me into a weak hug and shaking his head. “I’m just not ready to talk about family stuff, all right?”
“Why not, though?” I said, looking up and brushing a strand of black hair out of his eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not that, just—why can’t you just leave it alone?” He moved away.
I took a step toward him just as a key turned in the lock. We both froze, eyes wide, as Dad walked in looking tired and grumpy, his tie already loosened.
“Hello,” Dad said, his voice cold as he shut the door behind him.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, my eyes darting from him to Grant and back again.
“Hi,” Grant said, holding out his hand for a shake. Dad looked at the hand and then looked at me.
“Are you going to introduce us?” he said.
“Right!” I said. “Dad, this is my … friend, Grant. Grant, this is Dad.”
“Grant,” Dad said, finally reaching out and giving him two firm shakes before turning to set his briefcase on the kitchen table.
“I’ll, uh,” Grant said, zipping up his hoodie and giving me an awkward look as he backed toward the door. “I was just, you know, on my way out.”
“Okay, yeah,” I said, mouthing the word “sorry” while my back was turned to Dad.