65. THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-FIVE
MACON
I’m tired.
I don’t like the bed at Dad’s house, so I never sleep well when I’m there.
The covers are scratchy, and they smell like old people because of the lavender air freshener his girlfriend, Ellie, likes.
It’s always cold too. Dad never lets anyone turn on the heat, so I have to use the scratchy covers, even though I hate them.
But mostly, it’s lonely.
I miss Mom, and Mr. Snuggles, and now, Uncle Alex.
Sometimes Ellie sneaks into my room to tuck me into bed because she knows I get homesick, and I’ve told her before that I can’t sleep unless Mom kisses me goodnight.
Her real name is Eliana, but she lets me call her Ellie when my dad’s not around.
I like her. She’s nice. Probably too nice for my dad, but she’s marrying him, so I guess she loves him.
He’s not very nice to her, though.
Or to me.
At breakfast this morning, he told me that he’ll be pulling me out of theater club and making me play sports instead. I hate sports. He told me it didn’t matter. He said that since I’ll be living with him from now on, things are going to change.
No more theater club. No more songs from the Hamilton soundtrack. No more soft toys at night.
But I get to keep my fedoras. So there’s that, at least.
“Macon? Are you with us?” Miss Tillmann’s disappointed voice makes me drop the pen I was chewing.
The lid of my ballpoint is a mangled cone of black plastic, and she looks at it the way Dad looks at me when I ask to play Bruno Mars in the car.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to pledge allegiance to the flag this morning? ”
My cheeks go warm. I hate being called on in class.
Hate being told off in front of everyone even more, especially today.
People have been staring more than normal.
Whispering when they think I can’t hear.
Hiding their mouths behind their hands in the way people do when they don’t have anything nice to say.
“Sorry, Miss Tillmann. I was just thinking.”
About home.
My real home, not my new one like Dad says it is.
The one I have with Mom and Uncle Alex—and Aunt Aspen when she stays over.
I don’t even miss our old apartment. Alex’s place is cool, and the comforter is soft, and I can sleep with Mr. Snuggles without anyone laughing at me or making me feel bad.
I can get into bed with Mom when I have a nightmare and play video games with Alex before bed.
My belly hurts thinking about it, and my eyes start to sting.
Miss Tillmann rips off a strip of paper from the pad on her desk and scribbles something on it. “Well, you’ll have a lot of time to think in detention.”
Wooden chair legs scrape across the floor as my best friend stands up and slaps the desk. “That’s not fair!”
Harlow has been my best friend since kindergarten and was born five days before me—something I’m reminded of every single day.
She’s also a girl, a fact that used to get us teased a lot until the day she punched Brody Johnson at recess because he said that the only reason I hang out with her is because I have a crush on her. Now, no one really bothers us.
Harlow is kind of a badass.
I love that about her normally, but right now, when I’m trying not to cry, I kind of wish she’d just shut up and sit back down. I don’t want everyone staring at me when my tears start falling.
Miss Tillmann’s eyebrows raise above the pointy frames of her glasses. “Are you volunteering to accompany him, Harlow?”
Harlow narrows her eyes. She looks so much older than ten when she does that.
She’s even scarier than the principal, which means she’s won every disagreement we’ve ever had.
And if the look doesn’t work, then she pulls out the age card and tells me to respect my elders. I can’t really argue with that.
“Why are you giving Macon a detention for not pledging allegiance to the stupid flag? That’s illegal.”
Miss Tillmann pushes her glasses back up her hooked nose. It’s got a big hump in the middle that makes her look like a witch…or the nanny in that movie with the British kids, who had loads of warts on her face and crooked teeth. “No, it isn’t.”
“West Virginia State Board of Education vs Barnette.” Harlow puts her hands on her hips. “1943.”
That’s something else about Harlow. She’s super smart. Like, child-genius-level smart. She really should have skipped a couple grades, but she wants to stay with me.
Miss Tillmann peels her hand back from the detention slips. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“You’re a teacher, aren’t you?”
I bury my face in my hands, because Harlow is about to earn herself a trip to the principal’s office. She’s probably about to earn me one too.
Miss Tillman’s face turns as red as the ketchup I had on my sandwich last night, and she sputters something I don’t understand.
“The Supreme Court ruled that students can’t be forced to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” Harlow says it with the same look on her face that I get when my theater teacher tells me I’ve done a good job.
Miss Tillman, on the other hand, is so mad she looks constipated.
“So”—Harlow smiles—“are you going to tear up that detention slip or actively oppose the ruling of the Supreme Court?”
Maybe I should get Harlow to talk to my dad. If anyone can get him to take me back home, it’s her.
Aunt Aspen might be a good option too, actually.
But, thinking about it, she’d probably just give him a funny medicine that makes him poop himself.
She’s done it before. She doesn’t know that I know, but I saw her do it, and I heard her talk about it with Mom afterward.
The walls of our old apartment were thin, and she has a really loud voice.
Which is how I know that Mom and Alex have been pretending to date since the day he showed up at our place, and I know the reason why they’ve been doing it.
It’s the reason why I was so happy when they told me they’re dating for real yesterday morning, and it’s how I know that there’s nothing in the world my mom wouldn’t do for me.
Actually, I already knew that one.
My mom is the best.
The classroom door bangs open, and Miss Levine, who works in the school office, walks inside.
She frowns at Miss Tillmann’s flared nostrils then over at Harlow, who is grinning in victory.
Then she shakes her head and clears her throat.
It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before. Harlow has at least twelve stand-offs with Miss Tillmann a week, and she wins almost all of them.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I need Macon Miller at the office now.” Her eyes search the room until she finds me slumped down in my chair behind my desk. “Grab your things.”
My shoulders snap up to my ears. Something turns over in my stomach, and a thousand butterflies set flight in my chest. I’ve never been called out of school early before.
And I can’t work out why it’s happening now, the day after my dad forced me, crying, into his car and told me I won’t be living with Mom anymore.
Unless…
Something has happened to Mom.
My chair falls over from how fast I stand up. I don’t even pick it up, just grab my bag and jacket and run after Miss Levine.
“Why is my dad picking me up now?” The words come out so fast and loud that the whole class hears me.
Miss Levine tugs me out of the classroom by my wrist and closes the door behind us. “We’ll talk in the office.”
That doesn’t make me feel better.
In fact, it makes me feel much, much worse.
I stare at my sneakers as we walk through the halls to the office, my brain cloudy with questions and my tummy curdling the way it does before I throw up.
It seems to go on forever. We pass the lockers, and the gym, and about ninety-six other classrooms with their doors open, and all the kids inside gape at me as we walk by.
But by the time we finally get to the office, I freeze.
I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to know if something bad has happened to my mom.
I want to stay here in the hallway, where it’s safe and I can pretend that everything is okay.
That Dad isn’t forcing me to live with him forever.
That I get to go home, see Uncle Alex, and cuddle my mom.
“Macon?” Miss Levine asks gently. “Are you okay?”
Tears burn my eyes, and it hurts too much to hold them back, so I let them fall. If Dad’s in there, he’ll yell at me for crying like a little girl. But I can’t stop them. Even when I rub them with the sleeve of my sweater, more keep coming.
“Is my mom okay?” I whisper.
I just need to know. I’d rather Miss Levine tell me than Dad, anyway. At least she’d give me a hug afterward and let me be upset for a while.
Her eyes go soft, and the corners of her mouth curve upward in a little smile. She curls her fingers around the door handle and opens it. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
All at once, the butterflies in my stomach go back to sleep. My tears stop, only for a second, before they start falling again, but this time for a different reason.
A happy reason.
Mom.
A small gasp leaves her mouth, and she runs over to me with her arms open wide.
I let out a sob and lunge for her, nearly knocking her backward as I jump into her arms. She doesn’t mind, though.
She laughs. And cries. She does both at the same time, and until now, I didn’t think that was possible for a person to do, but I’m doing it too.
I know it’s only been a day since I last saw her, but I never want to do it again. Not if I don’t know whether or not I’ll get to see her again at the end of it.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
She nuzzles her face into my hair and squeezes me. “I’m here to bring you home.”