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

She produced a container of lip balm from the depths of her purse and looked up at me.
    “Whoa,” she breathed. She stepped toward me, squinting to get a better look at my undoubtedly blotchy face. “Hey. What’s going on?”
    “Let’s find me something to wear and then I’ll tell you. Okay?”
    I riffled through Tessa’s walk-in closet until I found a dress that I’d almost borrowed once before. Shopping in Tessa’s closet was difficult for two reasons. Her miniature clothes rarely fit totally-average-down-to-my-size-eight-shoes me. And, secondly, Tessa’s sense of style only really worked on her. There was a sort of bohemian feel to her wardrobe, effortless and comfortable. Even though most of her clothes and accessories were expensive, she thought exposed labels were tacky. This was part of the reason why she’d never quite fit in with the popular crowd, no matter how many times they’d tried to recruit her.
    The dress still fit snugly, a bit too tight in the chest, which was why my mother hadn’t let me wear it out earlier in the summer.
    “That looks good,” Tessa told me when I emerged from the closet. She leaned back on a pile of pillows on her bed, crossing her arms. “I thought you didn’t like that dress.”
    “I like it. My mom just wouldn’t let me wear it that one time.”
    “ That is cute,” Tessa cried, gesturing at the dress. “Why didn’t your mom like it?”
    “Too skimpy,” I said, making air quotes.
    “ Ew! It is not! That is rude of your mom to say!”
    I snorted. Only Tessa could turn parental restriction into a personal offense.
    “Whatever,” she said, shaking her head. “Tell me what’s going on.”
    I took a deep breath. “My parents are dating.”
    She pursed her lips. “That’s okay, right? I mean, they’ve been divorced for a long time now. You had to figure that they would eventually start—”
    I held up my hand to stop her, as my mother had done to me just minutes before. Stringing together the next sentence was like jamming mismatched puzzle pieces together—forced and awkward and wrong. “My parents are dating each other .”
    “Wait, what ?” Tessa gawked, sitting up.
    “Dating each other,” I repeated. “Day-ting.”
    I held up both my index fingers and touched them together, as if this somehow symbolized “when one’s divorced parents date each other.” The American Sign Language linguists would have to make up a whole new vernacular for my screwed-up family life. Tessa’s eyes boggled in confusion. She was there when my parents separated and divorced. She’d heard me complain about the arguments and even heard a few in person, from the confines of my bedroom during sleepovers.
    “Well,” she said after a few moments. “That’s … pretty weird.”
    I threw my hands up in the air. “I know! God! Everything is going to happen all over again. They’ll both wind up unhappy, again , and Cameron and I will have to live through it again .”
    Tessa twisted the ends of her hair, apparently not ready to offer advice. And suddenly, it all struck me as so absurd that I started laughing—but not the laugh of a person who was cracking up. The laugh of a person who was just plain cracking.
    “Are you …,” Tessa trailed off. “Is this a weird joke?”
    “Nope!” I said, gasping for air as I wiped under my eyes. My nitrous-oxide giggling continued. “This is so real. It’s totally fine. My parents are dating each other. Whatever! It’s okay!”
    “It will be okay.” She looked me right in eyes. “It will.”
    My laughter dropped off.
    This was not the first time Tessa had sworn to me that everything would work out. After Aaron’s funeral, I went to change into my pajamas when it hit me that the funeral wasn’t happening. It had happened. There was nothing left to do. There was only his unending absence. I fell to my knees on the carpet in my half-unzipped black dress, hysterical, and Tessa pulled me into her arms. As I sobbed, she