The Truth About Faking

fingers. “Want me to do a braid?”
    I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say.
    She slides her fingers through the sides of my hair anyway and starts wrapping the strands from left to right, over and over. “From where I was sitting, it looked like Jason really liked you,” she says. “I bet if you give him a little time, he’ll come around.”
    I sigh. “No way, Mom. It’s over,” I say. “You should’ve heard him. He says I was playing games and the only reason I want him back is…” My voice trails off.
    I haven’t told Mom about the whole Trent thing yet. It’s just too much to deal with all at once, and she can’t help with that anyway. Not with the way Trent’s mom feels about her.
    “Is what?” I hear her frown as she continues braiding.
    “Just because it didn’t work out with me and Trent,” I say.
    She doesn’t answer as she finishes my hair. Then she walks around to sit in front of me at the table. I continue looking at my coffee mug, but she reaches across the table for my hands. I slide mine into hers and look up, meeting her eyes.
    “Tell you what,” she says. “Just be yourself, and I bet things change quicker than you expect.”
    I don’t roll my eyes at her although I want to. Instead I just smile and nod. Mom always has wild ideas.
    In the car Shelly’s completely distracted. I can’t believe she didn’t call me yesterday demanding I tell her everything about Trent, but I’d been sure this morning she’d be bursting. Instead she’s strangely quiet as we drive the few blocks to school. She pulls into the first empty spot without even trying to find something closer and kills the engine. Then she just sits quietly for several moments. Now I’m starting to get worried.
    “You okay?” I ask.
    “I’m in love with Aaron,” she says, looking straight ahead.
    I catch myself before I laugh out loud, and instead I do a little cough. Then I clear my throat and turn in my seat to face her.
    “Love?” I don’t want to state the obvious, but I confess my problems are completely forgotten at this. “Is your mom trying a new self-help theory?”
    “No,” she says, still in zombie-mode, looking out the front window. “I know. It seems… really fast.”
    “It is really fast. You’ve only been out what, twice?”
    She turns to look at me then, and I can tell by her expression this isn’t a joke. “He said that, too. That it seems fast—”
    “Wait,” I interrupt. “So you’ve discussed it with him?”
    “We sort of talked about it after the party.” She looks down at her lap.
    “What happened exactly?” I can’t believe this.
    She’s quiet a moment, then she starts. “Well… after the Trent thing, the party kind of ended. So we went back to his house and we were all making out and stuff. You know.”
    I shrug, “Okay.”
    “Then I just… said it.”
    I stare at her, waiting. But she’s stopped again.
    “And?”
    “And he said that about it being fast, and I nearly died,” Her hands go to her face, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “It just slipped out, Harley.”
    I reach over and rub her arm. “That’s okay,” I’m trying to make her feel better, but ouch!
    “I told him I had to go,” she opens her eyes and looks at her hands in her lap. “I pretty much stayed in my room all day yesterday just thinking about it. About him. He kept calling, but I couldn’t answer the phone.”
    “So you haven’t talked to him since?”
    I watch her squirm. “I couldn’t.”
    We’re quiet. I want to be encouraging, but I’m still trying to recover. I know how she feels about things like falling in love and commitment these days.
    “You know, I always thought you and Brian might get back together,” I say. “Eventually, I mean.”
    She shakes her head. “Brian’s a jerk.” Then she adds in a quiet voice. “But Aaron’s… different.”
    “Well?” I smile. “That’s good. Right?”
    She looks away, out the window. Several moments pass before she says anything again.
    “I’ll never forget the night my dad sat at our kitchen table and signed those divorce papers,” she says. “And then he walked out the door like we never even mattered.”
    My eyes get warm. It’s the same night I held her hand as she cried.
    She turns back to me and kind of smiles. “But I can’t keep making everyone else pay for what he did, right?”
    I nod and she exhales.
    “I told Aaron about that,” she continues. “The divorce, I mean, and how