“I don’t want to talk about him,” she tries to bite out, but it emerges in a whisper, as her lies often do. And I realize then that all of this has been her talking about him without actually talking about him, about what he meant to her—what they meant to each other—the only way she can. And even though I’m still angry and sad and frustrated, it takes the fire out of me to see her shoulders fall, her gaze drop, her fingers start twisting around each other like if they break free, they might strangle something or someone.

“I think you do.”

Her eyes flash, wet with angry unshed tears. “What do you know about it anyway? You have no idea what I’m going through, with your perfect boyfriend and perfect relationship and perfect mom.”

There’s so much irony in there, I don’t even know where to begin, except that, oh yes, I do. “Oh, so now my mom is perfect? That’s interesting, considering how many times you’ve tried to get me to pray for her because she’s queer and unwed.”

“At least she would take you to get an abortion.”

That stuns me into silence, and it seems to stun Cara, too. I can see how badly she wishes she could shovel the words back into her mouth like a plate of fries from Maggie’s, but there’s really no going back after someone drops the A-bomb, is there?

“Cara—”

“If you tell anyone, I will kill you. I mean it.”

“I really hope you know that I would fucking never.” She flinches at the swear, a habit that’s harder to break than preaching against premarital sex and reproductive choice, I guess. “I don’t even know what happened.”

“Oh, you know the story.” From tiny, sunny Cara, the weary bitterness dripping from her voice is almost unbearable. “Boy meets girl. Boy secretly dates girl because her family forbids dating. Girl loves boy and gives up the virginity she’d been saving for marriage. Girl gets pregnant, because birth control is a sin. Girl tries to tell her mom and gets an earful of how abortion is the greatest sin. Girl tells boy she’s pregnant and is keeping it, and boy gets so drunk in response that he drives into a tree and dies.”

Oh.

Shit.

“And the baby?” I ask as delicately as I can.

“Girl goes to cheer camp anyway, because she can’t stay in this town for one more minute, and spends the summer training hard and flying through the air while trying not to think about how she’s going to raise a baby who no longer has a father. And then one night, there was nothing to think about anymore.”

“The night you skipped Kelsey’s birthday party because you had bad cramps—”