Molly would have commented. Instead, she took a minute to look at her daughter and think, If only you knew how much I love you.
She’d been so in love with her one-and-only child since the day she was born. It almost seemed unfair that Caitlyn was darn near perfect. Molly had been waiting for years for the other shoe to drop. Life was never this good. People weren’t this good.
But there she sat, delicate face open and cheerful. She had big blue eyes and a cloud of wavy, strawberry-blond hair. Thanks to her father’s genes, she was both shorter than her mother and finer boned. She gave an impression of fragility that her years in dance belied. Cait could be tough.
Bracing herself, Molly stirred the homemade chili simmering on the stove. “Cait, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Her daughter tilted her head. “Wow. You sound serious.”
“It’s about Trevor.”
Cait stiffened.
Get it out quick. “There was another incident involving Trevor. Aaron Latter bumped Trevor in the hall between classes, and Trevor attacked him. He hurt Aaron badly. Mr. Whitlock had to pull Trevor off Aaron. I know how you feel about Trevor—”
“No, you don’t.” Cait was already scrambling off the stool. “What did you do? You didn’t kick him out, did you?”
“I suspended him. You know I had no choice.”
“Oh, right,” Caitlyn said in an ugly voice. The hostility that filled her eyes was shocking. “Did you even ask him his side?”
“He has no interest in talking to me.”
“Gee, I wonder why that is? God, Mom. How could you?”
Molly continued with her dinner preparations. She’d tell any parent not to overreact to teenage drama. Be matter-of-fact, she would say. Explain, but do not justify yourself. Be a reasonable adult. A role model.
She reached for the olive oil. “You know school policy on fighting. This is his second infraction within a week. And from what I’m told, this wasn’t a fight. It was an assault.”
“Oh, that’s bull!” her darling daughter snarled. She grabbed her book bag and in a violent movement flung it toward a chair in the dining nook. It skidded across the seat and thudded to the floor. “Aaron Latter is a sneak and a liar.”
“Cait, there were witnesses. Lots of witnesses.” Explain but do not justify, echoed in her brain. Yes, but where do I draw the line?
“You know he didn’t ‘bump’ Trev by accident, don’t you? Aaron has been coming on to me. He’s practically stalking me. Trevor told him to back off, all right? So the little passive-aggressive creep thought he could get away with smashing into him in the hall, like oh, oops.”
It sounded reasonable. It might even be true. It also might not be.
“You’ve never mentioned having a problem with Aaron,” she said mildly. She sliced a tomato carefully, aware she was clenching the knife handle too tightly.
Cait wasn’t nearly as pretty when she was sneering. “I don’t tell you everything, you know.”
“I thought we had a good relationship.”
Cait’s pointed chin shot up. “I thought we did, too. Until you decided you hated the only guy I’ve ever really liked. The only one who’s ever really liked me.”
The reasonable adult broke. “Okay, now that’s ridiculous. Boys have been trailing around behind you since you were five years old. Remember Ben whatever his name was, who asked you to marry him?”
“That was kindergarten!”
Molly talked right over her. “You were the only girl in Mrs. Carlson’s fifth-grade class to have a boyfriend. Who wrote you poetry.”
“We were children! Like it’s the same.”
“Middle school dances,” Molly continued inexorably. “I chaperoned them. Don’t imply you weren’t popular. You were the only freshman in high school invited to the senior prom—”
“Which you didn’t let me go to.”
“You were fourteen years old! He was eighteen.” The knife was still clutched in her hand, but she’d given up slicing.
“I didn’t care about him, okay?” Cait’s pale, redhead’s skin was a furious red. “I love Trevor, and you’re…you’re persecuting him because he likes me, too!” She shoved one of the stools and it crashed to its side on the hardwood floor.
“Caitlyn Callahan!”
“I’m through listening to you,” Cait yelled, and raced from the room. The front door opened and banged shut.
Molly let the knife fall to the cutting board, braced her hands on the tiled countertop and closed her eyes.
Dear God, she asked, why didn’t we get this over with when she was thirteen? Why did raging hormones have to hit now?
Easy answer: Trevor Ward.
“I do not hate Trevor,” Molly said aloud. “I am more adult than that.” She thought.
* * *
“TALK TO ME,” HIS father said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
The anger that filled Trevor 24/7 rose like a storm-driven wave ready to crash on the beach. Trevor didn’t know how to handle these violent impulses, this deep hunger to make everyone else hurt as much as he did. He couldn’t have formed all this hostility and sense of betrayal into words even if he’d wanted to, and he didn’t.
“Nothing’s going on.”
His father sighed. “Have you ever been in a fight before last week?”
He shrugged.
Dad had just slapped dinner on the table—a frozen lasagna nuked in the microwave, salad from a bag and presliced garlic bread, also nuked. He hadn’t said a word during the drive home. When they’d walked in the door, he’d said, “Go to your room and don’t come out until dinner,” and continued toward his home office without looking back. Trevor had hesitated, but Dad hadn’t looked or sounded like himself. There wasn’t anyplace he wanted to be, anyway, he’d told himself, and gone upstairs where he threw himself on the bed and discovered he had enough adrenaline still heating up his bloodstream that he wished Aaron Latter was on his feet again and coming at him.
Now Trevor only wanted his father to get the lecture over so he could sneak out and meet Cait. So far, she was the only good thing to come out of moving to this crappy little town. When he was with her, his anger settled. He felt more normal. Horny, but normal. He grinned. Yeah, okay, that was normal.
“You find this funny?” his father asked coldly.
He kept his head down. “I was thinking about something else.”
“I guess the first thing I need to figure out is how to keep
