Page 32 of Catch Me

I think I may have just dodged a car ride filled with him pestering me with questions about what’s bothering me. Not that I don’t want to talk to him about what Oscar said, but I also don’t want him to get upset. I don’t want him to hate Lex or fight with him or anything else he’ll think about doing.

He’s the one who has to steer me toward the car. She smiles at him. “Hi, Reid. I’ve got to steal Briar away.”

He places his hand on the door, staring inside while his hand tightens around mine. “No problem, Mrs. Page. Do you mind if I come over after practice?”

She nods. “That should be fine. I’ll set an extra plate for you.”

Reid squeezes my hand tight, then leans over to kiss my temple. “See you soon,” he breathes, and I wonder if my mom can notice how he affects me with just that barest of touches.

He opens the car door for me, and I slide inside. Mom gives him a wave and then pulls around to the line of cars waiting to get out of the parking lot. I set my bag down between my legs and pull the seatbelt over, locking it in place. “What’s up?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a huff. “I had a talk with Mrs. Parker today…”

Like I needed to feel more sick. “Oh yeah?”

She pulls out of the parking lot, pushing down on the accelerator and throwing me back in the seat. Mom sneaks a peek over at me. “I know why you didn’t say anything to me, but I wish you had. I wish I hadn’t heard from your boyfriend’s mom that you’re sexually active.”

My stomach revolts. “I’m—”

“You’re not in trouble,” she says, clarifying. “I totally get it. I didn’t give Brady a hard time when I found out about him and Jules, and I’m not going to be the parent who worries more about her daughter than her son. I just wish you’d told me,” she says.

I can feel my face flush. Honestly, I’d rather be a bunch of different places than here right now. “I didn’t want to worry you about one more thing, and…” I hesitate before I say the next thing. “We haven’t been on the best of terms lately either. I didn’t want to give you another reason to get disappointed in me.”

Mom sighs again. “Oh, Briar.” Those two words sound like disappointment wrapped into a big, black bow. I almost tune her out. Almost. “I know,” she says. “I get it. We need to both do better, starting now. You can stop looking at me like I’m about to ship you off to a different state at any moment, and I can start treating you like you’re back at square one. Okay?”

“Okay…” I say, a little hesitantly.

“Have you guys been careful so far?” Mom asks. “I assume so. I know Reid’s not a virgin, and I’m sure the Parkers have already drilled that into him.”

“Yes, we’ve been careful,” I tell her.

She nods, and I see a little of the small lines smooth out over her face. “That’s good. I got an appointment for you at the OBGYN. We’re going to get you on birth control. That doesn’t mean you should stop using condoms. I’d prefer it if you use condoms,” she tacks on. “You can’t be too careful. You and Reid have everything going for you guys. I’ve been checking the school portal, so I know how much your grades have improved, Briar. I’m…proud of you. Really proud of you. I know how much our lives were turned upside down after what happened to Brady. I don’t like the way you handled some things, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. Okay? We’ll never forget Brady, but hopefully we can get back to a new normal.”

I don’t know what it is, but whenever my mom talks about Brady, grief grips me. It squeezes my heart until it’s too painful. Staring at other people’s sadness is sometimes worse than feeling your own. My eyes burn, and I clear my throat, doing everything I can to stop reacting this way.

Mom reaches over and puts her hand on my thigh, giving me a quick squeeze. “I know,” she says. “I know.”

I take a few minutes to gather myself and then I look over at Mom. “You’re not mad that Reid and I are having sex? You’re not going to yell at him, are you?”

Mom laughs, the sound genuine. Maybe even one of the first genuine laughs I’ve heard since Brady died. “No, I’m not going to yell at him. Your father might want to have a talk with him, but you’re not going to hear anything from me. I don’t know if I told you before how your grandmother handled my first time talk, but it wasn’t pretty. I swore I would never do that to my kids. I understand you’re going to have sex. And you love Reid…” She looks over at me like she’s trying to gauge how much I really do love him. I smile at her even though my ears are probably pink from what she said sex two seconds earlier. “He loves you too. Mrs. Parker also loves you,” she says. “You should’ve heard her go on and on about how much she misses you.”

Her face falls, and I see her chew her bottom lip. “I didn’t tell her about Reid and me,” I say. “Reid didn’t either. She kind of walked in on us.”

“Oh God,” Mom says, horrified.

“No, not that,” I say immediately. “It was in the morning. I was in his bed. She put two and two together.”

Mom clutches her chest. She calms down after a moment. “I probably wouldn’t have sent you there while Dad and I took our vacation if we’d known you were dating.”

Busted.

“Sorry,” I tell her. “It kind of just happened.”

She takes a left into a single story cement building. An hour and about a dozen cringe-worthy moments later, I walk out with birth control pills and am told I can start taking them tomorrow. My mom seems satisfied, and I imagine she is. I don’t want to get pregnant either. I have things I want to do, and a baby doesn’t factor into them. Even if the appointment was embarrassing, I’d rather be thinking about all of this than not and wind up turning my whole life upside down just because I didn’t want to worry about something being embarrassing. I look over at her as she drives us home. “Thanks for this, Mom. And for being cool about Reid and me.”

Her fingers tense on the steering wheel. “You know I love Reid,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I want to walk in on you guys, you understand?”

Wow. She’s really stuck on that.“Yeah, Mom. We don’t want that either.”

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