“It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about this, Mom. Trust me,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’ve gone over it so many times in my head, played through every sort of answer I could give. No one will believe that I’m a virgin if my own dad and boyfriend and best friend can’t even have that sort of faith in me. But I don’t want people to think that I cheated on Nate. I don’t want people to think there’s a random daddy running around out there, some kind of meaningless one-night stand. How do I win, Mom? How do I make people hate me the least? Because that’s the best I can hope for.”
My mom kneeled next to my chair, wrapping her arms around me. She burrowed against my chest, not bothered by my tears streaming down through her hair.
“We’ll give it a few more days, Mina. We’ll both think about this over the weekend. We’ll come up with something. I know we will, Mina. We will.”
I wanted to believe her. She was my mom—she had always been able to solve every problem, to make everything wrong become right again. But this time I wasn’t so sure. Because this time, a solution might not exist.
Not without another miracle.
• • •
I couldn’t fall asleep after that, not as I kept replaying what my mom had said, brainstorming one impossibly lame explanation after another. At midnight I gave up and kicked off my blankets, quietly making my way down to the kitchen to heat up a glass of milk on the stove. I hadn’t resorted to that since I was little, afraid of monsters and ghosts and every little sound that came out of an old house at night, and it was always Mom or Dad heating the milk up then. It had worked, though, every time, whether it was the milk itself or just the idea of it that made it so effective. The warm mug cupped in my hands, the warm milk against my throat—I barely had time to swallow the last sip before I’d be passed out on top of the pillows.
As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, before I even flicked on the light, I realized that I wasn’t alone. My dad was sitting in a chair by the window, his silhouette dark and hazy against the backdrop of pale moonlight. I jumped in surprise, my hand smacking against the doorframe behind me as I started to spin back around. My dad started, his chair scraping against the tile floor as he stood.
“Mina?” he asked, his face turning toward me, though I couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I said, backing away toward the hallway. “I just wanted some warm milk. I couldn’t sleep, and I remembered how well that used to work when I was a kid.”
“No, it’s fine. Don’t leave,” he said, his voice sounding too tired and worn to hold any of his anger right now. “I was actually down here doing the same thing. The pot’s still on the stove. Sit down. I’ll heat it up for you.” He pushed his chair forward, motioning me toward it.
“No, it’s fine. I can make it,” I said, starting toward the stove.
“Sit down, Mina. I got it.” The gruffness I was used to hearing lately was back, and I was too exhausted to fight it. I sat down as he grabbed the milk carton and flipped on the small light over the stove, leaving the room still mostly in darkness. It was better that way, I thought, easier not to be able to see each other in too much light. I waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn’t. I listened instead to the tap of the wooden spoon as he stirred in slow, careful circles so that the milk wouldn’t scald at the bottom of the pot. I watched as he stuck the tip of his finger into the milk, cocked his head, and stirred for another minute or so before testing the temperature again and then, deciding it was just right, poured it into the same mug he’d used. He clicked off the burner, walked over to me, and handed me the mug.
“I hope this helps,” he said, his eyes looking out the window just behind me. “Good night, Mina.”
I wanted us to say so much more, but I just nodded as I took the milk, our hands brushing for one precious second.
“Thank you, Dad. Good night.”
I really miss you, I almost said, but the words caught in my throat as he disappeared down the dark hallway. Do you miss me, too?
I woke up the next morning with the sort of grotesquely ballooning eyelids and blotchy cheeks that made it obvious to anyone with eyes that I’d spent most of the previous night wide awake and drowning in tears. That, of course, only added to my fears that everyone was analyzing my every movement, speculating about what devastating secret could possibly be putting me through so much anguish. And so my Friday at school passed, as usual, in a blur of dodging glances in the hallway, head tucked like a defensive linebacker as I sprinted from class to class. I was desperate to avoid Izzy and Nate, and now Arielle Fowler was on that list, too—I could swear she had been staring at me during lunch again. But why? She’d certainly never shown any interest in me before. She’d barely ever acknowledged that I existed at all. What would she be saying now to all her sycophantic cheerleading and drama groupies about me? Just thinking about those cool, calculating blue eyes from across the cafeteria gave me the chills for the rest of the afternoon. The three-o’clock bell that marked the official start to the weekend did little to comfort me, not with a long closing shift at Frankie’s to get through first.
I had considered quitting countless times, probably twenty times a day, give or take a few—throwing in the apron and finding a new job that didn’t involve working in a crowded, claustrophobic room with everyone I’d ever known in the entire community of Green Hill. People staring at me, waiting for me, shouting out my name across the busy restaurant for more ice in their Coke or an extra side of ranch. Leaving would be the easy choice. But I needed to be saving money now, before I was too far along to be on my feet. The tips weren’t a fortune in the grand scheme of things, but they were still much better than nothing, and they were more than I’d make in any new job I could find in Green Hill.
And there was something more that kept me there, another reason to keep pushing through. There was a powerful, almost masochistic need to be connected to Iris. I was scared by the memory of her, terrified, really, but I still clung to it, wrapped my arms and legs around it like a little kid hanging onto her parent’s leg. I needed that memory as validation—the clear, definite moment that marked the beginning of my new, alternate existence. It’s not that I expected her to walk back through the front door—I had a sickening feeling that that was a one-time-only appearance—but I was desperate for more answers. There were so many questions and explanations that I needed to hear, and being at Frankie’s gave me a small seed of hope—as if by going back to the beginning, I could gradually start to unravel the middle and the end.
I drove straight to the restaurant from school and changed into my bright green Frankie’s T-shirt and my alarmingly tighter-than-usual jeans in the staff bathroom. I couldn’t stop playing over what my mom had said the night before, and no amount of sucking in made me feel safer or more invisible. Tucking in our shirts was mandatory, but I tugged the extra material out from my waistband, carefully bunching and scrunching, making a loose, billowy cloud of cotton to block what may or may not have been a conspicuous bump. As a secondary precaution, I tied my apron on above my hips a good few inches higher than usual so that it flapped down over my stomach. Slightly awkward-looking, sure, but better than the alternative.