Jude made her way to Zach’s room. At his closed door, she paused. She would not batter him with questions or bury him under advice. This time she would just listen.
She knocked and got no answer. Knocking again, she announced herself and opened the door.
He was in his game chair, wielding the black remote as if he were a fighter pilot, which, on-screen, he was.
“Hey you,” she said, coming up beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to beat this level.”
She sat down on the black shag rug beside him. This room had been decorated once by a professional and redone over the years by Zach. Expensive chocolate-colored wallpaper had been covered by movie posters. The bookshelves were an archaeological display of his childhood: a graveyard of action figures, a tangled heap of plastic dinosaurs, stacks of video game cases, a dog-eared copy of Captain Underpants, and the five Harry Potter novels.
She wanted to say, Can we talk? but to a teenage boy (or most any male), one might as well say, May I please rip out your spleen?
“Let me guess,” Zach said. “You think I’m doing drugs? Or spraying graffiti? Maybe you’re worried that I’m a girl trapped in a dude’s body.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. “I am so misunderstood.”
“You do worry about the weirdest shit. I mean stuff.”
“Do you want to talk about Amanda? Or how you feel? I’ve been through a few broken hearts in my time. Keith Corcoran in high school almost ruined me.”
He put down the controller and looked at her. “How did you know you loved Dad?”
Jude was pleasantly surprised by the question. Usually she had to pry this kind of conversation out of her son. But maybe he was growing up, or maybe he’d actually been hurt by Amanda.
There were so many things she could say, memories she could share, and if she were talking to Mia, she might have done just that. But this was Zach. She didn’t want to ruin this moment by talking too much.
“The first time I saw him, I knew. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. When he said he loved me, I believed him, and I hadn’t believed anyone since my dad. Until Miles … and you kids, I used to worry that I was like my mother. Your dad reminded me what love felt like, I guess, and when he kissed me for the first time, I cried. I didn’t know why then, but now I do. It was love and it scared the bejesus out of me. I knew I’d never be the same again.” She smiled at her son, who for once was soaking up every word. “Someday you’ll meet the right girl, Zach. I promise. Only you’ll be grown up and she’ll be a woman, and when you kiss her, you’ll know you belong with her.”
“And she’ll cry.”
“If you’re lucky she will.”
*
In the next two weeks, Lexi learned about keeping secrets. When she was with Zach, her love for him was overpowering, a wave that knocked her sideways so hard she couldn’t tell which way was up. Later, when she was with Mia, guilt smacked her just as hard. Mia knew something was up with Zach, but it never occurred to her to look to Lexi for answers.
That was the worst of it, the broken trust. More than once Lexi had almost blurted out the truth, desperate for absolution, but she hadn’t done it, hadn’t opened her heart to her best friend. And why not?
Love. She couldn’t deny Zach anything, it seemed, and he wasn’t ready to tell his sister about them. Lexi wasn’t even completely sure why; she just knew that Zach was afraid to tell Mia, and if Zach was afraid, Lexi was more so.