Page 88 of The Do-Over

“Like she was out too late the other night?”

Thanks, Mom.

“Like she’s sad.” Todd tilted his head and said it like it was extremely impossible. “Like she’s been crying. You sure you’re okay, kid?”

I nodded. Something about the unexpected concern in his voice made me feel more shattered than I already felt.

“Em?” Now my mother tiltedherhead. “Everything all right?”

I nodded again, but my vision blurred with tears, my eyes too full to keep them all inside.

“Emilie.” My mom sounded truly bewildered by the sight of my tears. “Honey?”

The endearment did it. I crumpled into a sobbing mess at the kitchen table, blubbering into my spaghetti and meatballs while my baby “brother,” Potassium, stared at me like I’d lost it.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I took a sip of my Americano and said to Rox, “My mother, the woman who gave away my guinea pig when I was seven because I forgot to clean his cage, actually ungrounded me.”

“Aw, I forgot about Dre.”

I sighed. “RIP to Dre, the guinea pig my mother gave to the Finklebaums next door, who proceeded to immediately lose him in their backyard the very next day.”

“So, I don’t get it.” Rox took off her glasses and looked at them, wiping something off one of the lenses. She was one of those people who looked good in and out of glasses. Her skin always looked perfect, whether she wore makeup or not, and she looked good in any hairstyle. Since I’d known her she’d had braids, dreads, short hair, long hair, blond hair, pink hair, and an Afro, and she looked good in them all.

I ran a finger over the logo on the cup and wondered if perhaps it was time for me to changemyhair, too. All of a sudden, my usual aesthetic felt wrong for me.

Rox said, “You actually deserved to be grounded this time—no offense—andnowshe’s being lenient?”

“Well, no.” I sat back and felt a little shaky, still. “It’s more like she decided to be a human mom. I had a bawling meltdown at dinner last night that started because of Nick but then morphed into the latest situation with my parents.”

“Which is?”

I told her about my dad’s promotion and my parents’ fight. “The good thing about my meltdown was that I was already so blubbery that I blurted out my honest feelings about who I want to live with.”

She asked, “And that is…?”

I groaned. “Both of them.”

But for once, my mom had actually listened. She’d hugged me and then we called my dad on speakerphone. I didn’t know if ultimately it would change anything, but he’d promised to talk to Lisa and explore all possible options.

And that mattered a lot.

Rox said, “I’m glad it happened, then, because you needed to tell them. It’s about damn time.”

I swirled the drink in my cup and said, “Agreed.”

The pathetic part was that I’d wanted to tell Nick about it. He’d been so amazing when I told him about my parents when we were on the rooftop downtown that my heart thought he would appreciate it. I mean, he’d had empathetic tears when I’d cried about it, for God’s sake.

It was just a playdate, I reminded myself, the memory still stinging.

Rox looked at her phone—probably a message from Trey—and said, “Did Chris tell you that Alex took him to dinner after they went shopping last night?”

“No.” Chris’s dreamy love story was the only thing getting me through all of this. “Was it good?”

“That boy called me at one a.m. and talked for an hour about Alex. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I watched over Rox’s shoulder as the barista yelled“Carl!”for the third time and I said, “I want them to never break up.”

---