“Hi there.” It’s Sarah, of course, the last person on the planet that I want to see—well, second-last, after my mother. She is sitting at the water’s edge, poking a stick into the dirt next to her.
“What are you doing here?” I mean it as a curious question, but I admit it comes out a bit harsh.
She looks startled. “Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“I mean, I thought you’d be with your family.”
“Nah,” she says. “Jennifer’s at music camp, and my parents and Wylie are watching some movie about dinosaurs.”
“Oh.”
I sit down on the grass, kind of beside her but a little bit apart. It would be rude to leave, but I don’t want her to feel like she has to talk to me either.
Neither of us says anything for a while.
“So what’s up with you anyway?” she asks, poking at a bit of algae floating on the water.
I swallow. “What do you mean?”
“Why have you been avoiding me lately?”
I wish I hadn’t come here tonight. I wish a giant UFO would suck me up and take me away, never to return. I close my eyes, but nothing happens. When I open them, Sarah is still there, waiting. “I—”
“I was good enough for you when you first got here, but now you’ve found better things to do? Is that it?”
“What?” I ask. “No, that’s not it at—”
“Then what?” She’s jabbing at the algae now.
How do I explain that she’s got it backward? How do I say that I don’t know what to talk to Michael and Steve about, that if it weren’t for her hanging out at the petting zoo in addition to looking glamorous, I never would have even tried talking to her? How do I say any of that without sounding pathetic?
“If I did something to make you mad, why don’t you just say so?”
“Why is everyone so convinced I’m mad at them, for god’s sake!” I’m surprised to find myself shouting.
Sarah jumps up. “Don’t yell at me, Ellie. I’m not deaf, and I didn’t come to the park to get yelled at.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s been a rough day.” I tell her about my conversation with Mom.
She sits back down. “Sounds like she needs some serious help.”
“That’s what Jeanette says.”
She finds a stone and tosses it into the pond. “What do you think?”
“Maybe. Jeanette wants Mom to see a therapist.”
“Think she will?”
“No.” I don’t tell her that it hurts to think of Mom on a psychologist’s couch. Mom always says that psychologists are for people who don’t have family and friends to talk to. If I’d listened properly, instead of getting so caught up in my own world, maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.
“So is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” she asks. “Because you were upset about your parents?”
I shake my head and admit that I didn’t want to hang out with Michael and Steve. “They’d just think I’m weird. Guys always do, and then you’d have to choose, and I didn’t want to be dropped.”
“That’s the most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever heard, Ellie. You don’t just ditch someone for something they might do.”
“I didn’t ditch you,” I say.
“Hard to tell.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I can’t be perfect all the time.” The words—ones that Mom always uses and that I hate—make me squirm.
Sarah tosses her stick into the lake and gets up.
“If you ever feel like hanging out instead of feeling sorry for yourself, let me know.” She heads back down the path, leaving an emptiness far bigger than the one I’d had when I came to the stone bridge in the first place.
Jeanette is waiting for me in the living room. “I made some tea. Chamomile. For the nerves.” She brings me a steaming mug and hands me a plate of chocolate-chip cookies. “These are for your soul. Did your walk help?”
“Next question,” I say.
She hands me the plate. “Eat. Very few things don’t improve with chocolate.” I obey, and she tells me she’s asked my mother to leave the next call up to me.
The cookie turns to dust in my mouth. “Oh great. Thanks, Jeanette.”
“No problem,” she says, ignoring my sarcasm. “Someone’s got to stand up for you, Ellie.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how you can talk to her the way you do.”
“Why not?” She grabs a cookie. “It’s a valuable skill to learn, being respectful but firm. And don’t forget, she’s my little sister—I’ve had a lot of experience talking to her.”