I went home happy that I had done something about my situation, that I hadn’t left it all up to hard work and Lady Fate.

When I arrived at my room, Lily and Ruby were in the blanket fort below my bed and Lily was sobbing. She had burrowed into Ruby’s side and was determined to stay there.

“What’s wrong?” I mouthed to Ruby. She rolled her eyes, which meant it was Carl.

With that, Lily set up a wail. “I didn’t mean to dance with other guys. I thought we were just having fun. He danced with other girls.”

Ruby stroked her hair. “He had no right to call you that. Don’t rationalize his actions.”

I asked Ruby if I should go with hand gestures, pointing at the door. She shrugged. I knew the drill. This would probably last for a few hours. I threw my backpack in the corner and joined them in the blanket fort.

I touched her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Lily. He’s not worth even one of your tears.”

Lily removed herself from Ruby’s abdomen and threw herself on my shoulder. “You guys are such good friends. Why are you so nice to me?”

The silence stretched on. We rubbed her back. Neither of us was sure, but we knew we couldn’t let her be alone in this. I smiled. Why had I let myself be alone in all this? No one expected me to be except myself.

“Because this is what friends do,” I said to Lily, kissing the top of her head. “Friends support each other when everything goes wrong.”

Lily giggled. We looked at her, asking with our eyebrows for an explanation.

“I just got an image of us in a pyramid and me standing on you two holding Carl by his ankle as he begs for mercy.”

Ruby and I laughed. “If he doesn’t apologize when he’s upside down, there’s no hope for him.”

It was a funny image. I tried it later, thinking of my Dad. Would he apologize if he was held upside down? It would certainly reverse his view of the world. But I couldn’t imagine him seeing what he had done as wrong. And in his world, it wasn’t. He was trying to raise us to be the people he had envisioned before we were born. It was always so much easier with possibilities than with reality. You could have it all if it hadn’t happened yet.

In a burst of frustration, I had asked my counselor why my Dad wasn’t the one sitting in the uncomfortable sofa answering her non-questions.

She had stared at me over her glasses. “You think your Dad should be the one sitting here.”

It was amazing. They had deprogrammed her ability to answer questions. But then I realized, I did. I thought he should be the one in counseling. She had answered my question without trying to. I already knew why he wasn’t here. None of his actions had ever come back to harm him. He thought he was doing the right thing. I toyed with the idea of bringing that up to him, but I knew that I was residing on thin ice in summer so I kept silent and comforted myself with the idea that he would ultimately be the one to suffer.

* * *

I slept well that night, rolling out of bed easily to brush my teeth and wash my face. I exited the bathroom and ran smack into Flint.

“Hi pupil,” he said. I’m about to get my Socrates on.”

I walked away, thinking he was just messing with me. Halfway down the hallway I realized what he was talking about. I ran back. “You’re my tutor?”

He bowed. “At your service.”

I dropped my washcloth, toothbrush and face wash onto the floor and ran at him. I must have scared him, because he took a step back. I hugged him around his middle, smiling. I was going to work hard and Flint was going to be my Socrates. “Can you tutor me in all my subjects now?” I said, releasing him.

“Not officially, but I can help.”

“How’d you even know I was in the bathroom?” I said.

“I heard you fall out of bed,” he said. “I was in the lounge outside. You walked right by me.”

“I do not fall out of bed.” I crossed my arms again.

He laughed and ruffled my bed head hair. “Go get dressed. I didn’t mean to slow you down. I just wanted you to know.”

It was in that moment that I decided to tell him everything. It would take me longer to do it, but I knew that I could share what was going on with him. I wondered if he knew that, because all the weirdness of the last few months disappeared. It was like we had never stopped being friends. I didn’t want to leave that moment to get dressed, but we had class to go to and meetings to attend.

In my room, Ruby was tossing and turning, throwing in the occasional curse word. I smiled, it was comforting at this point to hear her, where the first few months had been terrifying. Now, it symbolized that someone was there, angry and ready to get into a fight for no reason. That made me happy.