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I shut h “What do you evenday”

“Sweetheart, he can’t love you in the way you want him to”

I popback at aze is lost somewhere around my knees, her lips pursed with a wistful little frown to them

“Ma,” I start, “I don’t knohat you’re thinkin’, but I—”

“You like him, sweetheart I know you do”

“Ma …”

“He’s a handso man, it makes sense You’ve been inseparable ever since you were kids He took you to proht meant more to you than to him”

The explosion is inevitable Between the day I’ve had and the things she’s saying, and the uncertainty that still pulsates in the air between me and Jimmy … “Ma, I’m tellin’ you …”

“Nadine and I were talkin’, and really, she’s on the sae as I am It’s not that I don’t value your friendship I do I just think you should be careful with your heart, and your—”

“MA” She won’t stop talking until I explode She won’t stop with her soft, insistent, endless and sweet barrage of reason “PLEASE MA”

“—feelings with that boy I don’t want him breakin’ your little heart because he can’t love you the way you want him to He just can’t, sweetheart He can’t love you in the way—”

“HE ALREADY DOES!”

For the first ti, her eyes snap up to mine with surprise, her jaw dropped

I grit my teeth

I shouldn’t have said that

After a moment of silence fills the roos a hand to her ers: “How do you mean, sweetheart?”

“Never mind,” I quickly say “I don’t know I’ day at the theater”