Page 109 of August
“If you get there with Wendy, the one thing I can tell you is the same thing I’ll always tell you regardless of who you’re doing that with, okay?”
“I don’t need to worry about pregnancy or anything, and neither of us has–”
“No, I don’t mean that. You are very smart, Adele; oneof the smartest people I know. And I know you live in that brain of yours. Following your heart is new to you. You liked Tucker, but justlikedhim, right?”
“He was fine, but I don’t think I was in love with him.”
“And with Wendy, does it feel different?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you talk to each other. You tell her how you’re feeling, what you want and need, and what you don’t want and don’t need. She should do the same with you. You talk. You communicate. I think that’s the most important thing. When you’re both ready to take that step, you make sure you talk first, okay? You allow each other that space to not make it perfect, to laugh if you feel like laughing, and to enjoy the moments you have together without putting pressure on it.”
Adele nodded and said, “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Mom.”
Adele then left through the back door, and Elisa headed through the house and up the stairs, hesitating a little before she knocked on AJ’s door.
“What, Adele?” he asked.
“Not your sister. It’s your mother.”
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
“I’m not ready to talk yet, Mom,” he said through the door.
“Honey, I know you’re upset about a lot more than what you saw yesterday. Can we talk about that and not about me? I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” he said, lying through his teeth.
“I know you’re not fine,” she replied.
“Mom, I don’t want to talk, okay? Can you just go, and I’ll call you or something?”
Elisa looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath because this beautiful human whom she’d brought into the world was testing her damn patience, but at the same time, she needed to give him space. He was a teenager and thought he knew it all, but he was going through massive changes on all fronts, and some of them were because of her.
“Okay. I was thinking of staying overnight.”
“In the guest house?”
“No, at a hotel,” she said. “If you wanted to grab breakfast tomorrow morning before I left, we could do that.”
“I don’t know, Mom. I have all this paperwork stuff to do, and I have to go to the doctor for my shots for school.”
“I thought we were going to do that next week.”
“I made an appointment myself. I just want to get them done.”
“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll just go home, and we can talk when you’re ready.”
“Yeah, cool,” he said.
Elisa smiled because that was his word of choice, and with that one word, she recognized her son for the first time during this conversation.
“What are you doing here?”
Elisa turned around, and when she saw her ex-husband standing at the bottom of the stairs, she quickly made her way down because she didn’t want AJ to hear whatever was about to be said.
