“Eva —”
“Seriously. I mean, I don’t have plans to marry the guy, but isn’t the point of being young trying to figure out who you want to be with? And how am I supposed to do that if I don’t get to be with anyone? I mean, it’s not like there’s a line of guys wanting to go out with me.”
This shuts them up. I don’t do it on purpose, but reminding them how lonely my life can be always stuns them into silence.
“Maybe what we really should be talking about is how you can forgive Michael Franklin and move on, rather than punishing the son for the sins of the father?” I turn to my dad. “That’s in the ol’ Good Book, isn’t it, Dad?”
And with that I get up and go to my room and shut the door. I’m done discussing this for the night. Maybe for the year. Maybe forever.
Later, my dad knocks on my door. I can tell it’s him by his gentle, thoughtful tapping. I suspect my mom would pound tonight. He peeks his head in and holds up his hands in a sign of surrender.
“Hi.”
“It’s just me. Mom is cooling off.”
“Good.”
He comes into my room and sits in the chair next to my desk. “Have you cooled off?”
“I don’t think I need to cool off. I’m the perfect temperature.”
“She’s just having a hard time, Ev. She still has a lot of complicated feelings about … everything.”
“No kidding.”
“She lost a lot that night. And I know we have a good life now, but it’s maybe not the life she planned. And Michael Franklin brings up those feelings all over again.”
“I get it, Dad. I do. But that’s between her and Michael Franklin, or God, or whoever. She can’t dictate my life just because hers didn’t turn out as expected.”
He nods. “She’ll realize that. Eventually. You just have to give it some time.” He moves on to a heavier topic. “But the scholarship, Eva … That’s a pretty big deal.”
“I wouldn’t have won it anyway, Dad. It wasn’t a sure thing.”
“That’s not the point.” He takes out the tiny wooden cross he carries in his pocket and rubs it between his fingers. “I wish I could send you wherever you want to go to college. But I can’t, Eva. Being a pastor and having five kids has made that kind of impossible.”
I feel a surge of embarrassment, for him and his honesty, and for my actions.
“You are a strong and smart young woman. That was a great opportunity. I’m upset that you gave up your chance.” He puts the cross back in his pocket. “I’m just … disappointed.”
My teenage rebellion melts away. I hate letting him down. How do I explain it was a selfless act, rooted in everything he cares about most? Before I can start, he pats my leg and leaves.
Chapter 36
Still no Zenn. But why no text? How long does it take to shoot out a quick text?
Charlotte tries to reassure me. Maybe he’s just freaked out by his feelings for me, she suggests. I give her a look.
“What?” she says.
“He’s a guy, Charlotte. And this isn’t a Nicholas Sparks book.”
“Guys can get freaked out, too.”
I’ve told Charlotte about the other night — I had to tell someone. She was appropriately stunned and excited, wanting to hear every detail. Considering that up until recently I had never even kissed a guy, the speed of my sexual progress is somewhat shocking. But I explained that I’m kind of like a puppy who has been in a crate all day while its owners are at work. When he kissed me, it was like he let me out and I have a lot of energy and affection to expend, lots of time to make up for. Charlotte and Josh still haven’t had sex, which surprises me a little. I guess I didn’t picture Josh as the patient type. But he keeps surprising me. I touched his arm the other day and his fractal felt almost … content. The fuzzy, drunken feeling was gone and the noise from his dad was drowned out by the pleasant glow that I know comes from Charlotte.
Funny how I was so worried about his negative effect on my friend that I didn’t think much about her positive effect on him.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to smother you,” Charlotte suggests.
“Maybe I was horrible.”
“He’s a guy,” Charlotte says, repeating my words back to me. “Isn’t sex like pizza to them? Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good?”
I punch her lightly in the arm. “You’re not making me feel any better.” But Zenn didn’t act like anything about the other night was horrible. His quickened breath on my skin, the intensity of his mouth on mine, the small, quiet, satisfied noise he made …
So I confess to her about the scholarship.
“Do you think he found out?” I ask her. “That I withdrew? He’d be really pissed …”
“How would he find out?”
I shrug.
“I’m sure he’s just busy, Ev. Didn’t you say he works, like, nine jobs?”
I’m sure that’s it. He’s swamped with work.
My mom and I are rather politely ignoring each other. Since I haven’t been leaving the house to see Zenn, maybe she thinks I’ve ended it. I know that’s what she hopes. And I know she’s still mad about the scholarship. Whether they think it was a good decision or not, it still feels like the right thing to me. Zenn needs it. I’ll survive without it. I treat my mom civilly, but not warmly. Even the kids are picking up on it.
“Is Mommy mad at you?” Essie asks me after my mom and I slip past each other in the kitchen without a word.
“A little,” I tell her.
“Did you do somefing naughty?”
I smile at her and run my fingers through her silky hair. “I gave something away that Mommy thinks I should have kept.”
Essie looks confused. “But it’s nice to give fings away.”
“Yeah.”
“Like if someone is hungry and we take food to the food panty.”
I laugh. “Pantry, Ess. Food pantry.”
She nods. “Pantwee,” she repeats.
“Close enough.”
Zenn finally texts me and apologizes. His phone crapped out and they don’t have a landline and it took him two days to get to the Verizon store to get it fixed. He skipped school to work because they’re late on their rent, and then spent two days trying to make up the work that he missed at school. He wants to see me but, in a rare incidence of maternal presence, his mom is hanging around the apartment. He can’t come to my house and I’m not brave enough to suggest we meet at the church again.