She wrinkles her forehead again. “Then what is it?”
I know I have to tell her everything I haven’t said out loud all weekend. I have to say the things I had on the tip of my tongue, but shoved back down my throat. I have to tell her all the things I’ve only thought. But it’s hard to get the words out.
“It’s just … How can you tell me, like, how do you really know, that I’m not going to be like him? It could happen, right? Fifty percent of me came from him.”
Brenda looks at me. She looks at me hard and she looks at me long. “You are not like him.”
“Yeah, right.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and stare at the door of the apartment in front of me. There’s a sign hanging on it that says LIFE IS BETTER AT THE BEACH.
Brenda taps me on the chin so I’ll look at her. She holds her hand to her chest. She presses it firmly to her heart. “Your heart needs comfort and reassurance. Give it that. Don’t be a victim. Be a survivor.”
I shake my head. I try to undo the bad thoughts in there. I want to jiggle them loose and leave them on the ground in front of me. I don’t want to be a victim.
“Look behind you,” Brenda says. “Look how far you’ve come.”
I’m afraid to turn around. I’m afraid it will look so far away that I’ll want to run back inside and slam the door. But I do what Brenda says. I turn around. I look up the stairs. They are steep and there are a whole bunch of them. My front door is standing wide open. The Santa Ana winds blow in. I can picture the kitchen curtains with the light blue sailboats on them floating up into the air. The other thing I see is that it is a long way back up there. For me, at least. For someone who’s been holed up in an apartment at Paradise Manor for the last six months, sitting here at the bottom of these stairs is a pretty big deal.
“Are you proud of yourself?” Brenda asks.
“I guess.”
“I want you to own it, Morgan. Are you proud of yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You should be.” She writes a note down. I picture it on the page. Morgan is proud of herself.
“I might’ve made a mistake, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I might’ve pushed Evan away.”
“Why?”
I gnaw on the corner of my thumbnail. “I was trying to keep him out of the drama.”
“Let’s not call it drama, okay?”
“Okay. What should we call it then?”
“Oh, we could call it lots of things. But drama isn’t one of them.” Brenda crosses her feet in the other direction. “What is it that you’re afraid Evan will do?”
Seriously? “Well, he could decide I’m crazy and never talk to me again.”
“Does Evan strike you as someone who would do that?”
“Well, no. Not really.”
“Do you like it when people tell you what to do and make decisions for you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why do you think it’s okay for you to do that to Evan?”
Why does Brenda always have to be so smart?
“I think if Evan decides being friends with you is more than he can handle, he can make the choice for himself,” Brenda says. “But it’s not really fair that you make the choice for him. Unless you feel this relationship is potentially bad for you. Do you think that?”
“No. My mom even said she saw part of the old me coming back.”
“Exactly.” She writes down a note. Like she’s really getting to the meat of things. “Be honest with Evan. Tell him what’s bothering you. Then let him decide. My feeling is he’ll say he’s okay having a friend who’s going through some stuff. And you’ll feel better knowing he’s okay with it.”
chapter twenty-four
I decide to wait for Evan at the bottom of the stairs after Brenda leaves. I’m afraid I’ll chicken out if I don’t wait outside for him. Hopefully he’ll come straight home from school so I don’t have to sit out here forever. Because the stairs get more uncomfortable the longer I sit on them. I shift from butt cheek to butt cheek every few minutes as an hour passes by. I look at the water in the swimming pool and remember what it feels like to jump into it. I never hesitated to jump into the pool on hot days. It was the only good thing about Paradise Manor. After I scooped all the leaves out, I loved to leap in, swim to the bottom, and pop back through to the surface. It was one of the best feelings in the whole world.
And it hits me that I actually miss it.
I miss swimming.
At exactly that moment, Evan comes through the front gate. My heart rate speeds up and my palms get sweaty because I’m going to apologize. But then my heart sinks. Because Evan’s not alone. He has Taylor Schneider with him. She only lives a few blocks from here, so it makes sense that they go to the same school now. And have probably fallen madly in love with each other.
She’s blond.
She’s cool.