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“It had nothing to do with Christian.” She pulls the dry and crusty washcloth over her eyes so I change it out with a fresh wet one. “Noelle invited me.”
“Who’s Noelle?”
“Captain of the soccer team.”
“And the boys there, who were they?”
She shrugs. “Don’t really know. Students I guess.”
“Darla, did any of them… Did they try to…”
“Nobody touched me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Are you sure? You were pretty drunk. How do you know?”
“I just know, okay?”
I sigh. “When your dad and I hoped you’d make friends with teammates, you do understand this is not what we had in mind?”
“He’s going to kill me, isn’t he? What did he say?”
“I haven’t told him.”
Finally her head turns and she looks at me, surprised. “You haven’t?”
I shake my head.
“That’s pretty cool of you, I guess.”
“Have you met Addison Calloway?”
“Who?”
“Addy. She’s a friend of mine. The one with the prosthetic leg.”
“Oh, her. Yeah, I’ve seen her around.”
“Do you know how she lost her leg?”
She rolls back over and pulls a pillow to her chest. “I’m not in the mood for any lectures.”
“Maybe not, but you sure as hell deserve one. Addy was eighteen when she got drunk and then drove a car. She crashed into an overpass and got pinned, crushing her leg. They couldn’t save it. They had to cut her leg off. All because she’d been drinking.”
“What does that have to do with me? I wasn’t driving. I’m nowhere near old enough to drive.”
“Okay, we’ll let’s unpack that, shall we? You are thirteen. You just started high school. You aren’t old enough to drive. You’re barely at the age where you can even get a job. What about that makes you think you’re qualified to be able to drink alcohol?”
“Like everyone isn’t doing it.”
I sigh. “I was a teenager once, Darla. I’m not going to lie and say I never had anything to drink. Of course I did. I even ended up throwing up on my parents’ lawn a few times. So believe me, I get it. But you’re thirteen. What’s going to happen when you’re fourteen? Are you going to try pot? And when you’re fifteen, will it be cocaine? The earlier you go down that path, the worse it will be.”
“Gee, thanks,Mom.”
The sarcastic way she spits out the words sends a dagger straight through my heart.
“I’m only telling you the same things your dad would say if he were here. That he loves you and cares about you and his top priority is keeping you safe. All of that goes for me as well.”
“But you’re not going to tell him?”