Chapter Twenty

Elle

“You what!” my mom yelled when we told her what happened. Reaching out, she grabbed Jimmy by the chin, twisting his head back and forth so she could examine the damage.

Both of us had decided that we’d have to tell her the truth. We couldn’t lie to her. Not to her face, she always knew when we were lying. We could keep secrets, but not an outright lie. I guess that sort of makes us failures at being teenagers. But it was the way it was.

My stomach began to curl up into a ball. I knew that look. We were in trouble. Big trouble.

“I zigged when I should have zagged,” Jimmy said with a shrug of his shoulders.

My mom’s eyebrows rose as she shot me a look that demanded a translation.

“He punched the speed bag too hard,” I said as if I knew what I was talking about. “It bounced back, and caught him.”

She looked at me like I was speaking in a strange new language.

“And where was he punching this thing?” My mom asked with more patience than I expected. The kind of patience I knew was a way to allow her to marshal her facts before she exploded.

“At Nate’s gym. Actually, it’s his uncle’s gym,” Jimmy began. “You should see it. They’ve got a boxing ring, weights, punching bags. Nate let me borrow some gloves. They were great. In fact, I now want boxing gloves for Christmas. I don’t need a centrifuge. I can borrow one if I need to.”

All I could do was roll my eyes. The boy had no clue how to keep his mouth shut. Nana stood behind Mom, slowly shaking her head. I didn’t know who she was more disappointed in. Jimmy for talking too much. Her daughter for overreacting. Or me, for lying to her.

“Boxing gloves!” my mom said to Jimmy as if he’d just asked for a spaceship.

“Yes,” Jimmy said with a sharp nod of his head. Really, the boy had no clue how much he was screwing this up. But if I tried to stop him, Mom would see and it would just be worse.

“Nate’s been teaching me to box,” Jimmy said as he stood up straighter. I caught a bit of defiance in his voice that I wasn’t used to hearing. Especially when he talked to Mom. He might be cutting some apron strings. But unfortunately, he was throwing my boyfriend under the bus while he did it.

“And you knew about this?” Mom asked me with a stern voice under extreme strain. Like a stretched wire just waiting to explode.

My throat went dry as my mind frantically tried to come up with the right answer. Something that would defuse the situation without getting me into too much trouble. Of course, I failed miserably.

“It was exercise, not real boxing. You said you wanted him to get out more. To exercise. Remember, you wanted him to go to Yoga with you,” I said, knowing it wasn’t going to work as the words left my mouth.

“Little boys don’t get black eyes in Yoga,” Mom yelled. The force of her words made me cringe and take a step back.

“Ruth,” Nana said as she reached out a hand to restrain her daughter.

“I’m not a little boy,” Jimmy said, his hands on his hips. “When are you going to see that?”

“When you start acting it.” My mom replied with a smug look.

Jimmy stared at her for a long minute, I held my breath. I’d never seen him like this. Red-faced, his jaw tight. Staring at my mother like he hated her. Then without another word, he turned and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Come back here,” Mom yelled. Jimmy ignored her and purposely slammed the door as he left.

Oh crap. This was bad, I thought. Real bad. I’d never seen him act this way. Also, I’d never seen my mom this upset.

“This is all your fault,” Mom said, turning on me like a dog after a bone.

Why was I not surprised? It was always my fault. Taking a deep breath, I held my tongue and waited.

“If you hadn’t started bringing that boy around. None of this would have happened. I knew he was trouble the minute I saw him. I thought you had more sense, Elle. I really did. You can do so much better.”

That was it. I lost it. How dare she blame Nate for this.

“Better?” I yelled back at her. “Better?” I said again, unable to get my mind wrapped around what she had just said.

“Yes,” she continued as if it was a serious question. “In fact. You will stop seeing this boy immediately. I won’t allow it. He’s not right for you and he’s a bad influence on Jimmy.”

My mind went blank, the world stopped spinning and the air rushed from my lungs. Stop seeing Nate. What did she mean? This was impossible

“You don’t understand,” I demanded. “You are oblivious.”

She winced and started to respond, but I cut her off before she could say anything.

“If it wasn’t for Nate, Jimmy would have gotten a lot worse than a black eye. If it wasn’t for Nate, that boy who isn’t right, you called him, your son would have been beaten up more than once. It was Nate that stepped in and protected him from the first day of school.”

My mom’s brow furrowed as she tried to understand.

“That’s right, Jimmy was bullied from the start. Just like I told you he would be. Or at least they tried to. But he was so worried you would pull him from school and keep him out of Stanford, he refused to tell you.

“I asked Nate to protect him. I took the steps necessary to make sure Jimmy made it through high school. That ‘Not Right For Me’ boy risked himself repeatedly to keep Jimmy safe because I asked him to. We only pretended to be dating so those idiots would believe Nate would stick up for him.”

Mom’s eyes grew big and Nana gasped as she looked over my shoulder. I turned slowly as my stomach dropped. Jimmy stood there, looking at me as if I was the evilest person on the planet.

My heart fell, how much had he heard?

The look of betrayal in his eyes confirmed my worst fear.

“You asked Nate to protect me?” he said with disbelief. “He did it so that you’d go out with him. That was the reason. Basically, you sold yourself to protect me! Because you thought I was so weak, so stupid, so … so socially inept, that I couldn’t survive unless you sacrificed yourself.”

He looked at me with hollow eyes. Like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“No…” I started. He’d completely misunderstood everything I said.

“You’re worse than her,” he yelled, indicating our mother, as he turned and rushed from the kitchen again.

“Jimmy,” I yelled after him as my heart broke. The look of pain on his face would haunt me to my old age. The hollow washed out look of someone whose world had just been ruined. I started to rush out after him but Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me around.

“Where are you going?” she demanded. “We are not done.”

“Mom …” I began.

“Don’t you Mom me,” she said. “You will stop seeing Nate immediately. You are still only seventeen. And you live in my house. I will talk to the school tomorrow and find out what is really going on. In the meantime, you are grounded until you start growing up a little and start thinking about other people.”

I stared at her. Unable to believe this was my mother. What was going on in that brain of hers? If she thought I was going to stop seeing Nate, she was sadly mistaken. There was a better chance the sun stopped crossing from east to west.

We stared at each other for a long minute, then I stomped my foot and stormed out of there before I said something I would regret the rest of my life.