Chapter 5

This delicate balancing act went on all fall. I didn’t know what we’d do about spring, prom, graduation dances, things like that, but for now, we just walked our tightrope, with many supervised but otherwise enjoyable house-dates at his house. His father was very cool but also very onto things like love, lust, and romance. And spring and my eighteenth birthday were a long way off.

Jamison had been over to my house one time, and I’d very carefully picked a time when my dad wasn’t going to be home. We’d gone up to my room, he’d gotten to meet Wendell and my mom, and that was it. We hadn’t lingered. I got the book I needed and we split.

On the walk back to his house I’d told him how jealous I was of his father and him. He said, “It hasn’t always been this way, or maybe it has, but I didn’t know it. Back when my mother was alive…well, I know I haven’t talked about her much and you’ll understand why, but there was a lot of tension in the house, all the time.”