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By the tiged with people on their way to work The traffic in Nate’s neighborhood is all headed in the opposite direction fro rules when I park in his driveway Even more so when his reat to me She see on her doorstep, which I can understand I used to be allowed to co I practically lived here senior year

Now I’erous--to her son, to her peace She knows it I can tell

"Is Nate here?"

"He’s not up yet"

"I’d like you to wake hiht to let the college handle this, Caroline"

I’m tired of the word this I’ve heard it a lot since I first heard it froe, a little piece of slippery language that can be pulled over the head and hidden behind This situation This trouble This disagreement

I’m a prosecutor I won’t allow her to hide behind words

"Did you see the pictures?"

She can’t look at me "Caroline, I don’t want to talk about this"

"Did you see thenize Nate’s coround?"

She crosses her arround by her foot

"It’s me in those pictures," I say "But it’s your son, too, whether he likes it or not, whether he wants to admit that he’s the one in thele person they existed, so the fact that the whole world kno? That’s on his to answer for I’d like you to wake him up"

For half a o, change

Eventually she turns and ascends the carpeted staircase She leaves the door open I stand on the threshold in the gray light of ift on the doorstep

I can hear the radio on in the kitchen From upstairs, a murmur of voices, a verbal dance between Nate and his mother too muffled to make out the specifics of

A coets louder--a door has opened

"Why are you taking her side?"

"I’m not But if I find out you did this, don’t expect me to support you just because you’re my son It’s despicable, what happened to her"

"What she did is despicable"

"What she did, she did with you Now, get dressed and get down there"

Footfalls Water running in the upstairs bathroom

Nate co like toothpaste

He rubs his hand over the back of his neck "I’m not supposed to talk to you"

"Who says, the dean of students? Please"

"I could get expelled"

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you tried to ruin my life"

His eyes narrow "Melodra?"

"Nobody tried to ruin your life, Caroline Your life is fine It’ll always be fine"

"What’s that even supposed to hten He doesn’t answer

"You have no idea"

It’s just dawned on me that he doesn’t I mean, he really doesn’t

When he said we’d always be friends, in some twisted way, he meant it

"You think it’s … like a prank Like the tih school or rolled the football coach’s car to the park and left it on top of the teeter-totter What did you do, stay up late with a six-pack of beer, jerking off to porn, and then think, I should put Caroline up here?"

"Someone stole iant, stea to--God You did, didn’t you? You thought you could do this and it would just be funny or aweso tointo law school Ruinparent You didn’t knoould uy without flinching, couldn’t pull on a shirt in the , Does thisme they want to stick a razor blade in my cunt That’s what you unleashed That, and a s I want to knohy"

"I didn’t do it"

His voice is small, compressed This is a lie, a bald and ridiculous lie that he’s abandoned here in the space between us Too pathetic even to back up with volus

"You’re pathetic," I say Because he is He’s so pathetic Hiding behind his hate, looking down ondown on West "I feel sorry for you"

"Yeah, well, you’re a bitch"

"Why? Why am I a bitch? Is it because I broke up with you? Because I’ here? Because I wouldn’t let you put your penis in ood to you, Nate! I loved you! For three fucking years, I did every nice thing I could think of for you, and then you paid me back with this I want to hear, fro you shit"

His expression is so ht now I honestly do He looks like a four-year-old

He’s a boy, too stubborn to tell me the truth, too childish to comprehend the consequences of his actions

He hates me because he can