I dropped my head into my hands so he wouldn’t see my tears. He came to the side of my chair. “Ellie, please don’t. I promise this has nothing to do with us or how much I love you. I promise.”

“Then what did it have to do with?”

“I think maybe I was worried you wouldn’t respect me if you knew.”

I lifted my head. “You didn’t trust my love?”

“No, I just—for a little while longer—wanted you to believe in my goodness and not know the darker parts. I was afraid it would change things if you knew.”

“It does change things, Hutch. Not because that happened to you, but because you kept it from me.” I lifted my head and allowed him to see my tear-filled eyes. “Was it terrible for you? Was it awful?”

“Yes,” he said. “Do you want to hear about it? Or would it be better if you didn’t?”

“I want to hear it. I want to know everything of you. Everything—not just the good parts.”

We sat up most of that night while he told me of the harrowing life that was juvenile hall, as he told me all that he’d hidden from himself and from me. I adored him more because of it. I loved the soft, wounded, broken pieces of him in a way I never had before.

When I left for school that next morning, Mother stood on the front porch staring after me. I threw my bag into the car as she hollered toward me, “You cannot leave without saying good-bye, Lillian Eddington.”

I stared at her for the longest time, wondering how a woman who claimed to love me as she did could desire to inflict pain. I didn’t find an answer in her face or angry expressions.

I walked to her. “Mother, I don’t understand you. Why did you do that? Why did you do that to Hutch? To me?”

She placed her hands on my face; I withdrew. “Because I only want the best for you.”

“What if he’s the best for me?”

“Oh, he’s not, Ellie. I see things you don’t see. He’s not for you.”

“You are cruel and mean and you have no idea what love is, Mother.”

She shook her head. “I do know. And if you can’t see what I’m trying to do—protect you—then you can go get hurt. But don’t come crying to me when you do.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said.

We didn’t talk—Mother and I—for a full three weeks. I didn’t answer her calls or frantic messages on the answering machine. When we did finally speak, her speech contained the same sentiments with new anger and inflection.

And with Hutch: What Mother had meant for harm only brought us closer together.

For a time. For a short time.