If you only knew, Darcy thought.
Willow had frozen, as if she were playing the old game statues.
Darcy reached out to take Willow’s slender wrist. “Come with me, Willow. I’ll make hot chocolate.”
Willow allowed herself to be pulled away from Susan. The three kissed each other’s cheeks and said good night. Susan went into her noisy house and shut the door.
“It’s too hot for hot chocolate,” Willow said as she trudged next to Darcy to her house.
“You don’t have to drink it,” Darcy responded calmly. She needed hot chocolate, preferably with a shot of rum in it. Making it would give her something to do while she thought about this mess, and it would allow Willow a chance to settle down. Sometimes sitting at a table, turning a spoon over and over, staring down at a cup of warm sweetness was exactly the thing that helped one’s poor confused brain to mend.
Willow sank into a chair at the kitchen table. Darcy gathered the box of Hershey’s cocoa powder, the sugar, the milk and carefully mixed them in a pan. She didn’t speak. She focused all her attention on the easy concoction, as if she were a scientist creating the world’s newest, most potent antibiotic.
It was quiet in the kitchen. As if she and Willow were serene.
But, Lord, this was a mess, and Darcy had no idea how to advise Willow.
She poured the hot chocolate into mugs, sprinkled the tops with miniature marshmallows, and sat down with her own mug.
Willow stirred her drink. Without lifting her head, she mumbled, “I can’t tell Boyz. That would be too gross. Besides, it would hurt his feelings.”
Darcy sat back in her chair, surprised that Willow was worried about Boyz’s reaction. Immediately, a sense of relief moved through her. So Willow cared about Boyz, and felt cared for by him, connected to him.
“Maybe,” Darcy suggested, “you could talk to your mother about tonight. Let her be the one to tell Boyz. Or not.”
Willow lifted her head. “Really?”
Darcy was quiet. This was such an odd situation. She wasn’t sure she should even be counseling Willow, and she remembered Boyz’s visit, his admonition to stay away from Willow, his belief that Darcy was befriending the girl for her own twisted reasons—to get his attention, to seduce Boyz. Plus, there had been that weird and unpleasant visit when he came to her house and suggested they enjoy each other and then forced a kiss on her. He was smug and offensive, but Darcy didn’t care about him. She cared about what would be best for Willow.
“Well,” Darcy said after a long silence, “whatever the reason for what you saw tonight, you need to talk to your mother.”
Willow met Darcy’s eyes. “Will you come with me?”
Darcy flinched. “Oh, honey, no.”
“Please?” Willow put her hands together, as if she were praying or begging. “I can’t do this by myself.”
“Willow, I’m sure your mother would be angry if I were there. This is a private matter, a family matter.” Darcy pushed back her chair and stood up. She walked to the sink and set her empty mug down. “I’ll go with you to your door,” she offered.
“No! Please come in with me!” Willow dissolved into tears, her shoulders shaking, her face turning scarlet. She pushed back her own chair and rose, her chest heaving as if she couldn’t get her breath. She gasped out the words: “I need you to be there to help me!”
“Willow—” Darcy’s sense of compassion streamed toward the girl.
“I can’t do it. I won’t do it! I’ll run away, I won’t go home, I’ll disappear and you’ll never see me again, and my mom will never see me again, and then you’ll have to tell her about tonight! Don’t think I won’t run away, because I will, I’ll go find Logan, I’ll have sex with him, I’ll do the heroin, because why not?—all the adults in my life don’t give a shit about me!”
“Oh, Willow.” Darcy moved toward the sobbing girl, meaning to wrap her in her arms, but Willow shoved her away.
“No!” Willow’s face contorted with anger. “Don’t think you can hug me like a kid and give me a Popsicle and send me away! I’m not a kid!”
“No, you’re not a kid,” Darcy softly agreed. Willow was not an adult, either, but tonight she’d been presented with some confusing adult behavior.
She stepped away from Willow and leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting for the girl to calm down. This was horrible, Darcy thought. Should she tell Willow that Boyz had warned her off hanging around with his stepdaughter? No. That would only confuse Willow more. And anyway, why should Darcy even give the smallest damn what Boyz thought or wanted? He was no longer her husband. He was a philanderer himself, and an idiot besides. If she tried to put herself in Willow’s position—and she thought she almost could, because she’d read so many of the YA books in order to talk to the middle and high schools about them—if she tried, she could guess how Willow felt. Sex was such a bizarre topic to talk about, after all, no matter your age. Beautiful words and angelic songs translated what, from the outside, appeared to be an awkward and even violent act, into the powerful, blissful, transforming experience it could be. Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” Or something like that. The body definitely had its own unreasonable reasons, too.
Could she explain this to Willow? But no. Willow didn’t need Darcy to quote a seventeenth-century French philosopher to her.
She watched Willow, who was standing her ground, fists clenched at her side, her face as ugly as fury could make it while tears flew down her cheeks.
“All right,” Darcy conceded. “I’ll go with you, Willow.”
“You will?”
“I will. But first you need to wash your face with cold water. It will make you feel better. Help to calm you down.”
“I wasn’t having a tantrum,” Willow said defensively.
“Oh, I kind of think you were,” Darcy told her. “And when you’re through with it, we’ll go over to talk to Autumn.”
“What if Mr. Brueckner is still there?” Willow asked with horror.
“Susan told us he was home, remember? Come on, now, let’s get it over with.”
She ran a clean dish towel in cold water and handed it to Willow. The girl obediently patted it over her face, and as she did, her breathing slowed. She touched her neck with the cool cloth and stood there for a moment, eyes closed, calming down.
“Okay,” Willow said. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”