The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord Read Free Book Online

moments away from collapsing—into sobs or maniacal laughter, I wasn’t sure. “You were miserable . Neither of you were happy until after the divorce.”
    “I know it seemed that way.” She sighed, relaxing her posture. “And maybe it was that way. We needed some space and time to figure things out for ourselves.”
    “But … when? H-how?” I stuttered. “Why?”
    “We started speaking again regularly after … Aaron.”
    I winced, even though I was grateful that my parents dropped their hostility last year. Helping me cope became their mutual priority, and it didn’t go unnoticed—by me or my sister.
    My mom continued. “Then everything with your grandma’s health started to decline, and your dad just … understood.”
    My grandmother’s slow-but-steady memory loss had taken a toll on all of us, and I was glad my mom had someone to talk to. But it didn’t have to be my dad, of all people.
    I sat back, defeated. For years I was forced to sit front row while two people I loved started to hate each other. It felt like the discontent in our house could be absorbed, like cigarette smoke permeating the walls’ insulation.
    “I can’t …,” I said, my voice breaking. “I cannot watch it happen again.”
    “Oh, honey,” she said, placing her hand over mine. I retracted it. “It won’t. It won’t happen again. Not like that.”
    She couldn’t possibly know such a thing. I blinked over and over, but the tears pushed back at my eyelids. Perfect—my face would be puffy in front of the entire junior class.
    With watery vision, I stared at my mother, reliving it all: the tense silences that dropped between them like walls, the marked lack of eye contact during family dinners.
    “I’m not—it’s not …,” My mother tripped over her words before giving up with a sigh. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I thought you’d be happy.”
    Happy? My disbelief shifted into glowing anger that she’d sprung this on me now, after hiding it all this time. I could already hear the gossip, ricocheting against the lockers and tarnishing what should have been my year, my fresh start. I would be demoted to an even weirder reputation: the Girl Whose Divorced Parents Date Each Other.
    “I’m going to go to Tessa’s,” I said the moment it popped into my head.
    “I thought she was picking you up at seven.”
    “Well, I’m going over there now.”
    She looked startled, clearly caught between exercising parental authority and allowing me some space to process her news.
    “Okay,” she said quietly.
    But I was already out the door. I wondered how long it would take her to call my dad and report my reaction. The very thought of that conversation made our familiar house feel foreign and off-kilter.
    I shut the door behind me and made my way across the street, down the slope, and across the tiny stream to the neighborhood that backed up to mine. It was this same in-between space where I met Tessa when I was seven, a few weeks after each of our families had moved to Oakhurst. I was reading Anne of Green Gables at the base of the hill when I saw a tiny blond figure splashing in the stream farther down. The path, like our friendship, had become worn in over time. Now, nine years later, I could have walked the path to Tessa’s with my eyes closed, and it hadn’t failed me yet.
    “Hey,” Tessa said, glancing up for a moment as I walked in the side door. She looked back down, digging through her purse. “I was just leaving to get you.”
    She stood next to the kitchen table, wearing a summerdress and tall wedge heels that closed the five-inch height difference between us. Her blond hair fell forward, halfway to her waist. Tessa McMahon didn’t even own a blow-dryer, and her apathy was rewarded with teenage-years Taylor Swift hair. Because life is not fair.
    “Can I borrow something to wear?” If I was going to face all of my classmates after what had just happened, I needed to at least look confident.
    “Of course. Aha!”