He gets in his car, slams the door, and leaves.

I’m left standing alone in my front yard, in the dark, full of information I’m not sure I wanted and feelings I’ve never allowed myself to confront.

My knees feel weak. I don’t even have the energy to walk back to the house to think about everything that happened tonight, so I just lower myself to the grass, right where I’ve been standing since Jonah pulled away.

I drop my head into my hands, feeling the weight the day brought with it. Everything that happened with Clara at the school. Everything that happened with Jonah in the kitchen. Everything he just said. And even though there’s a part of me that needed to hear all that from him, it doesn’t change anything. Because it could never work between Jonah and me, no matter how long Jenny and Chris are out of the picture. It would make us look like the bad guys.

Clara wouldn’t understand it. And what would we tell Elijah when he’s older? That we all just switched partners? What kind of example is that?

Nothing between Jonah and me is a good idea. It’ll be a lifetime of reminders that I so desperately want to forget. And now that he threw everything out there that he’s probably been needing to say for seventeen years, I want him to take it back. I want to go back to yesterday, when it was easier. When he could bring Elijah over without all the awkwardness that will be between us from now on.

I feel like he said all that hoping it would solve something, but for me, it only created an even larger wedge. And I don’t know that it’ll ever get better.

We were teenagers. We weren’t in love. What we experienced was attraction, and attraction is confusing, but it’s also not worth uprooting Clara’s life over.

I glance up when I see headlights turning in my direction.

Clara.

She parks the car, and when she gets out, she doesn’t immediately say anything to me. I’m not even sure she notices me until she pivots at the sidewalk and comes to sit next to me on the grass. She pulls her knees up to her chin and hugs them as she stares out into the dark street. “I’m worried about you, Mom.”

“Why?”

“It’s late. And you’re sitting alone in the dark in the front yard. Crying.”

I reach a hand up to my cheek and wipe away tears I hadn’t even acknowledged yet. I blow out a breath and look at her. “I’m sorry about today. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Clara just nods. I’m not sure if she’s accepting my apology or agreeing that I shouldn’t have said what I said.

“Were you with Miller tonight?”

“Yes.”

I sigh. At least she was honest with me.

“He’s not a bad person, Mom. I promise. If you’d just get to know him.”

She’s defending him, but I get it. When you’re sixteen, you ignore all the warning signs. I blow out a breath. “Just be careful, Clara. I don’t want you making the same mistake I did.”

Clara stands up and wipes the back of her jeans. “I’m not you, Mom. Miller isn’t Dad. And I really wish you’d stop referring to me as a mistake.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

I have no idea if she heard that, because she’s already walking into the house. She slams the door behind her.

I’m too exhausted to run after her. I lower my back to the grass and stare up at the stars. What little I can see of them, anyway.

I wonder if Chris and Jenny are up there somewhere. I wonder if they can see me down here. I wonder if they feel bad for what they turned my life into.

“You suck,” I whisper to Chris. “I hope you can see us right now, because you’ve ruined a lot of lives, you fucking prick.”

I hear footsteps in the grass and sit straight up, startled. I clasp my hand around my throat and release a breath at the sight of Mrs. Nettle standing a few feet away.

“I thought you were dead,” she says. “But then I heard you call the Lord a prick.” She turns around to head back toward her house. When she reaches her front door, she waves her cane toward me. “That’s blasphemy, you know! You should probably start going to church!”

Once she’s inside her house, I can’t help but laugh. She really hates me.

I push off the grass and go inside. When I get to my bedroom, I look at the letters and cards spread out over my bed. My hands shake as I count them. There are nine total letters and three cards.

I want to know what they say, but I don’t. I’m confident they’ll only upset me more, and I’ve had enough for one day.

I stick them in the bottom of my dresser and decide to save them for a better day.

If that ever comes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CLARA

It was a long weekend. Lexie and Miller both worked late shifts. Other than sitting with Miller during his break Saturday night and spending two hours on the phone with him last night, I haven’t seen him. I haven’t seen much of my mother either. After Friday night’s weirdness, she spent all day Saturday on the computer applying for jobs. I spent most of Sunday in my room catching up on homework.

I’m later than usual when I get to Jonah’s class. I’m the last one to arrive before the bell rings, so I’m surprised when Jonah approaches my desk and kneels in front of it. He usually doesn’t pay me individual attention in front of other students.

“How’s your mother?”

I shrug. “Good, I guess. Why?”

“She didn’t return my texts this weekend. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

I lean forward, not wanting anyone else to hear what I’m about to say. “I came home Friday night, and she was sitting in the front yard, crying. It was weird. Sometimes I think she’s on the verge of a breakdown.”

He looks concerned. “Did she say why she was crying?”

I look around, and everyone is talking, not paying attention to us. “I didn’t ask. She cries more than she doesn’t, so I just stopped asking her about it.”

The bell rings, so Jonah returns to his desk. But he seems distracted as he starts to explain the lesson for the day. He looks tired. He looks like he’s over it.

It disappoints me a little. Sometimes I feel like being an adult is so much easier than being a teenager, because you should have it all figured out as an adult. You’re more emotionally mature, so you can handle crises better. But seeing Jonah right now as he tries to pretend he’s not distracted, and watching my mother try to navigate her life as if her will still exists, is all the proof I need that grown-ups might not have their shit figured out any more than we do. They just wear more-convincing masks.

That disappoints me.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I wait until Jonah’s back is to the classroom before pulling my phone out and setting it on my desk. I swipe the screen and read Miller’s text.

Miller: I’m off work today. Want to work on the video submission?

Me: Yes, but I really don’t want to be around my mother right now. Can we do it at your house?

Miller: Sure. Come over around 5. I need to take Gramps to the doctor at 3 so I won’t see you after school.

Miller is on the porch waiting for me when I pull into his driveway at ten after five. He jogs toward my car and hops into the passenger seat before I even have time to get out.