Page 62 of The Art of Us

“Anyway. She said that unlike some people she knows, herword matters. So I’m giving you the message. The other part of the message is that she doesn’t want to talk to you, so don’t call her.”

Kal’s heart plummeted into his stomach and then tanked into the floor from there. “What have I done?” he said.

He hadn’t exactly been asking for an answer but Cooper gave one anyway. “The words she used were ‘betrayal of trust.’”

“Very helpful.”

Cooper made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I got you, man. Dude, I’m starving.” Cooper morphed from one conversation to another like he hadn’t just punched a hole in Kal’s emotional life raft. “All that drama meant no clams. I went hungry and expecting to eat. Stupid Rowan messed up my dinner.”

Kal couldn’t focus on Cooper’s hunger pains. He was trying to see around the blind panic in his own head. Ireland knew that he’d told not just one secret butallher secrets. What must she think of him?

“Did she mean like she didn’t want me to call tonight, or she didn’t want me to call ever?”

“It sounded kinda like ever. Can I be real for a minute though?”

“I don’t know. Can you? Talking about being hungry doesn’t feel very real.”

“Tell that to my stomach. Anyway, she might be mad right now—and the night was pretty ugly—but someone needed to tell the truth about that guy. I begged Mara to let me tell what I knew, but she was worried about dragging her family through something, so I backed off. This is her deal, right? It’s not my place to get into it without an invite, or at least, that’s what I thought. But whatever happens now, the truth is out. Truth isn’t a bad thing.”

“I hope you’re right, ’cause it’s looking pretty bad at the moment.”

“I feel that. Don’t call her tonight. But definitely call her tomorrow.”

They hung up, and Kal agonized over the different ways he could apologize so Ireland knew he meant it. “I never should’ve told Wasden.” It didn’t matter how many times he said it out loud; hehadtold. The truth was out.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, he decided that though he couldn’t call her, he could write to her. He spent the rest of the night crafting an email. He told her everything—from the first time he saw her taking the pizza, to following her into the woods and seeing where she was living, to watching her sketch and admiring her kindness for other people. He told about the skeezy things Rowan had said about her and other girls and how he worried that she was going alone to the woods, where no one was waiting up for her to know if she made it home safely or not, and that was why he had told about that.

His telling about Mara was more complicated. But Kal tried to explain. He apologized over and over, hoping that one of those apologies stuck. After that there was nothing to do but hit send, turn out the light, and go to sleep.

He didn’t sleep.

He thought about all the ways he could’ve explained better or where he explained too much. He finally got up and went downstairs to forage for food. His grandpa was there. “Good morning,” his grandpa said.

“Is it?”

“Come walk with me, and I’ll show you.”

Kal went walking with his grandfather. The frigid air made his nose run, but it cleared his head.

His grandpa talked about his grandma and asked about how things were going with Ireland. Kal figured he had nothing to lose by talking now, so he told everything. His grandpa was a good listener.

When Kal was done talking, his grandpa said, “You should have asked her what she wanted to do.”

“I know that now.”

“Give her time.”

That phrase made it sound like maybe, in time, she’d forgive him and everything would all be okay, but Kal wasn’t so sure. He waited all day but heard nothing back from her. Every time he considered writing or calling her, he put his phone down and walked away. He had to respect her choices. That was what his grandfather told him. What Cooper told him. What his mom told him. Kal was pretty sure if he explained the situation to the guy at the checkout counter in the grocery store, the advice would be the same.

That night, she wasn’t at Geppetto’s. On Sunday, she was still radio silent. On Monday morning, he waited for Mara’s car in the student parking lot, but the little Fiat with the eyelashes on the headlights never made an appearance.

Rowan wasn’t in school either. But the rumors about what had happened between him and Mara were on every whisper in the whole school.

“Police showed up and now he’s in juvie.”

“He’s transferred schools.”

“No. Mara’s transferred schools.”

---