To be respectful? To make things easier for them?

“For what?” I demanded. “To be impressive?”

“To be polite.”

I swallowed, shifting in my seat. “Since when do you even care about Jamal’s parents?”

That made his jaw clench.

He finally looked up at me. “They invited me over.”

“And you said yes?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I studied him, my fingers drumming against the table. His face was blank. Too blank. Like he was forcing himself to be unaffected, to be distant. Like he was hiding something.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

His grip on the book tightened. “I haven’t been⁠—”

“Yes, you have.” My voice wavered slightly, but I didn’t care. “You think I don’t notice when you stop knocking? When you stop looking at me? When you barely even acknowledge me?”

Blake’s mouth pressed into a hard line.

“You’re pushing me away,” I choked out, my voice trembling with frustration. “And I don’t understand why.”

For the first time, he looked uncomfortable.

Good. He should’ve been.

I stared at him, waiting for something that would make me feel like I still belonged in his world.

But all I got was silence.

And the sound of him turning another page.

I felt something in my chest crack.

His shadow had once been my refuge, but shadows, as I came to understand, fade when the light no longer cares to shine.

Tears welled up, blurring my vision and making everything even more impossible to grasp.

Fighting against the tight knot of emotion rising in my throat, and with all the dignity I had left, I pushed back from the table. “Fine,” I said. “Enjoy your book, Blake.”

I stood up, turned around, and walked away.

I didn’t look back.

6

BEVERLY, 1995

13 years old

I wish I could say that after that conversation, things took a turn for the better—that Blake had an epiphany, snapped out of whatever was going on in his mind, and realized how ridiculous he was being. That he grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and said, “B, I’m sorry. I’ve been an idiot. Let’s go back to normal.”

But he didn’t.

If anything, it got worse.

In the beginning, I was angry. Furious, even. My mind replayed our conversation on a loop, over and over again, desperately searching for any sign of where I might have gone wrong, why he couldn’t just talk to me. But no matter how many times I replayed it, I couldn’t come up with an answer.

Time didn’t stop for heartbreak; it just moved.

Weeks stretched into months, and eventually I gave up trying to reach out. Not because I didn’t care, but because I was tired of being the only one who did.