Page 48 of Tell Me You Love Me

“How long will you be out for?” Franky sits on my bed, watching me slide a hoop earring onto my ear. “What time will you get back?”

“Err…” I’m going out. God help me; I’m doing something I never actually did in my youth. Because by the time I was twenty-one and old enough to buy a drink, I was already a mom.

Jesus. Why am I nervous?

“I’ll only be a few hours, honey.” I finish the first earring and move to the next. “But you should try to go to sleep while I’m gone, okay? I know you don’t like doing that without me, but I’ll have the monitor set up to keep an eye on you, and you can use Grandma’s iPad to text me if you need to.”

“Can I just stay up and wait for you?”

“No. Because I want you to try to do this.” I meet his eyes in the mirror. “Consider this a night of growth for us both, since I don’t particularly relish the idea of going out and seeing these people from my past.”Growth is shit. I hate growth.“It’s healthy for us.”Allegedly.

“If I go to sleep on my own, does that mean Ialwayshave to sleep on my own in my bedroom?”

“No. We can go back to normal tomorrow night, and the next night, and the night after that. You can sleep wherever you want from now until you’ve decided you want to sleep somewhere else.” Dropping my hands, I brush them over my dress and along my hips, then I turn from the mirror and smile. “There are no rules about this, honey. There’s just you and me and whatever you need to do to feel okay every night.”

“But not tonight?” He looks me up and down, entirely neutral in his expression.Never, ever rely on Franklin Page to make you feel good about your outfit choice. “I don’t get to feel okay tonight?”

I snort. “Nice try, but no. We’re in a new town now and starting a new life. Sometimes that means we have to try new things, even if we don’t want to.”

“But you’re a grown-up. You don’thaveto go out. We could stay here and watch TV.” His little eyes beam behind his glasses. “That sounds like a good idea to me.”

“And around in circles we go.” I release a pent-up breath and turn toward my closet to get shoes. “That lady we saw out front of the bank? Caroline?—”

“Was very loud,” he shudders. “She likes it when people look at her.”

“Well…” I select a pair of wedge sandals. “I don’t know that shelikesit. But she definitely doesn’t know how to be any other way. Which is fine, in my opinion. We should never be someone we’re not, and true friends would never try to change someone they care about.” Spinning back, Imove to the bed and push Franky’s Murdle book backward so I can sit beside him and pull my shoes on. “Caroline was—ironically—pretty shy in school. She preferred to read in the library instead of hanging out on the playground. She didn’t have a lot of friends and?—”

“Did you have a lot of friends?”

“Not necessarily.” Thoughtful now, I slip one foot into the leather straps of my sandal. “I was always hanging around with Tommy and Chris. And Raquel, too, and Ollie. We had our circle of friends, and we never excluded anyone else, but it’s like the whole world knew it was me, Tommy, and Chris, first and foremost. Me and Tommy, connected at the hip.” I sigh. “And Tommy and Chris, because they were a package deal. Caroline was a little afraid of them, I think.”

“Afraid?”

“They weren’t mean. They were just… they were often hurt, honey. Dirty. They lived a tough life back then, and not everyone can sit with boys who had black eyes and split lips and not feel weird about it.”

“Why did they have black eyes and split lips?”

“Because their mom and dad weren’t very nice.” I slowly feed the leather strap through the metal buckle and picture the boys, so heartbreakingly clear in my mind, hurt and hungry. Sad and, most often, in pain. “It’s easy to look mean when you’re injured, and I bet it’s hard to muster a smile when breathing makes your ribs ache. It wasn’t their fault that they looked a little unwelcoming sometimes, and it wasn’t Caroline’s fault for shying away from that.”

“You didn’t mind sitting with them when they were hurt?” Franky’s little feet don’t touch the floor from up here, so he gently kicks them back and forth, tapping the frame of the bed with his heels. “They didn’t scare you?”

“No.” I finish the first shoe and move to the next. “I felt protective of them. I felt sad every time they were sad, and angry every time they came to school with fresh injuries. But you know what was worse than that? When they didn’t come to school at all.”

“Because you worried about them?”

He’s so intuitive. So smart.

I nod. “Smartphones weren’t invented back then, and even if they were, Tommy and Chris wouldn’t have had the money to buy one. So when they didn’t come to school at all, I knew they were in bad shape, and I couldn’t even send a text to check in.” I swallow the rage that bubbles along my throat, rearranging my face and offering my baby a softsmile. “On those days, Caroline would sit with me. She would provide space in the quiet and comfort while I worried. She never got cranky when I wasn’t in the mood to chat, and she never held a grudge that, just as soon as the boys were back in school, she was alone again, and I wasn’t.”

“Do you wish she was brave enough to sit with them?” He studies my eyes, his perfect green stare flickering between mine. “If she were, she wouldn’t have been alone.”

“Yeah. But we don’t try to change our friends. She did what she felt was right for her, and I did what I felt was right for me. And in the times in between, we were happy to be together, even if that togetherness was wrapped in my worry and silence.”

“I guess I see why you want to go see her, then.” He reaches around for his book and scoots back on the bed to rest against the headboard. “She seems nice, even if she’s loud.”

I breathe out a soft laugh. “Exactly.”

“And I like to read in the library, too. Will you talk to me through the cameras later?”

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