“Not everyone has or had a great life, Emma.”
“I know,” she said. “I understand. It’s just I look at him now.”
“And you don’t see the hurtful things in his past,” her mother said. “All you see is him now.”
“I see the hard work he puts into it,” she said. “Anyone can see that. What they can’t see are the demons. He stepped up to be the man of the house at such a young age.”
“That happens to a lot of people,” Melissa said. “Your life sheltered you somewhat.”
She didn’t need that reminder. “I felt sympathy for teenager Warren,” she said. “I couldn’t tell him that though. That would offend him.”
“He would be,” her mother said. “Instead, feel pride for who he is now.”
“I do,” she said. “I told him that. Just like he was so proud of me when he found out about my Netflix deal. I thought it was odd that he felt that after knowing me for a short time.”
“But now you don’t think it’s so odd?” her mother asked, grinning.
“No,” she said. “It feels different.” She took a bite of the third cookie this time.
“Because you care about him.”
“I do,” she said. “Which brings me back to something else. He says he tries not to think of his father at all anymore, but when he looks at me, he worries about what people will think about our backgrounds and knowing his.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Melissa said firmly.
“Very much so,” she said, nodding her head. “I told him to fuck everyone. He shouldn’t care what anyone thought of him, only what he thought of himself.”
“What did he say to that?” her mother asked.
“He asked if he should care about what I think,” she said.
She finished her cookie.
“Did you tell him how you feel?”
“I told him I felt favorable toward him and then we had sex.”
Her mother’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t need those details.”
“Good,” she said. “Because I won’t give them. You’d think I was dirty.”
Her mother laughed. “You’re a piece of work, Emma. Do you think your father and I don’t have sex?”
She put her hands on her ears. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you.”
“I think you know how you feel,” Melissa said. “But you’re afraid to say it. Why?”
There was no getting anything past her mother. “What if it goes away?”
“And what if it doesn’t?”
“That’s almost as scary,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be as painful.”
At least she didn’t think so.
How could they make this work?
“Why is it scary?” her mother asked.
