We skipped school and went to Rita’s house. I have never skipped school in my life, but I didn’t know what to do and we needed some time to figure things out.
I could barely look at Cole as we walked down Hennepin Avenue, and it was making him anxious, making him talk more than usual. I was angry, actually angry, at him.
“What were you and my father talking about?” I asked.
“We were talking about my mother,” he said.
“What? Why? Do you talk to my father every morning before I come downstairs?” I asked.
“Sometimes. He just asks how I’m doing usually.”
“But you never told me you knew him. You never told me anything, I guess. Cole, what is going on?”
“Atty, I don’t know what I was thinking. I . . .”
“Your mom isn’t sick, is she?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “She’s not.” He looked down at his shoe, then directly at me. “She’s a heroin addict.”
The words hung in the air. I felt my heart racing in my chest after he said it. There was so much I didn’t know at all. I understood him not wanting to tell me. I understood about feeling ashamed. I’d had my hunches about his mom—but I thought we were together, I thought I knew him, that we trusted each other.
“Okay,” I said. “And what about what my father said about you being on probation? Probation, Cole!”
“I got caught buying drugs for her.”
“Oh my God!”
“I had to! She was getting sick. It’s not really as bad as you think. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve, it’s only a small amount, I just got caught this time. Unfortunately, your dad was one of the arresting officers.”
He was trying to sound upbeat about some of the worst things I had ever heard. He was trying to fake it with me, to be smooth like he is with everyone at school. No way was I going to listen to that. I know he’s sold drugs for money before but had thought he had to because his mother was sick. But Jennifer is an addict, and he’s been buying drugs for her. I get that this is where that sadness that I have always seen in him comes from. But he can’t lie to me.
I turned and stared at him, shocked, angry, disgusted. But as soon as I looked at his face all my anger melted away. I couldn’t stay mad at him, ever. Like he had put me under a spell.
I knew how my father felt about people who broke the law. The fact that he’d showed as much self-control as he had back by the elevators was amazing. All those warnings he used to give me about spending time with people from the building. All those warnings he gave me about people dealing and using. All I could think about was how we were going to get around Papa. In that moment I knew I would do anything to help Cole. My problems were small compared to his, my problems were over. But he was living every day with this.
“I’m in love with you,” he said, and it was as though he were speaking my own thoughts. “I couldn’t tell you those things because I was afraid of what you’d think.”
I turned to Cole and put my arms around him, and we held each other there on the sidewalk for a long time. The only person we could think to talk to was Rita.
When we got to her house she was wearing a purple silk robe and making an omelet.
“Oh hi!” she said. “I’ll make another one of these.” She took eggs out of the fridge. She poured us some coffee as we told her the whole story.
“Listen,” she said. “Forget about all this Romeo and Juliet stuff. You are your own people. You need to do what’s right for yourselves. Cole, maybe it’s finally time you moved in with me.”
He said, “No way. You know I can’t do that. She can’t live all on her own. She won’t even eat, what if she ODs?”
Rita looked at him with that same sad, complicated face I’d seen before.
“Baby,” she said, “nobody can save a junkie, believe me, I know. I’ve been looking after your mom for years. She is the only one who can save herself.”
I knew this was true. Cole had told me about Rita coming over, bringing groceries, cleaning the house.
“I know. I’m not trying to save her. She says when I go to college she’ll go to rehab.”
Rita looked at him sadly.
“I think it’s true,” Cole said. “I think she will this time.”
“I thought we had a deal,” she said to him. “We check in, we do what we can for her, but we don’t start believing the fairy tales.”
Rita kept listening and talking as she wandered around the house cleaning things up and getting dressed. She took one of her gorgeous landscape paintings off the living room wall and wrapped it in heavy paper to take somewhere.
“Listen,” Rita said. “Stay here. Relax. Forget about school today. I gotta go out. There are condoms in the bathroom cupboard. Make sure you use them.”
I’m pretty sure that my face turned a bright shade of magenta when Rita said that, but even before the screen door was shut behind her, Cole leaned over and kissed me so perfectly that I forgot to be embarrassed.
“Hold that thought,” he said as he stood up.
I heard the door of the bathroom cabinet open and close with a whisper, and Cole was back in my arms. How could someone’s touch be so perfect? And the way that he smells! I put my hands on the inside of his shirt and lifted it gently over his head. His skin against mine was cool and smooth, with a downy line of hair that led my hand from his stomach below the button of his jeans. As our bodies wrapped together, I knew that this is how it should be. I knew how it feels to give yourself freely to someone you love—one you desire.
As the morning turned to afternoon, we held each other in a patch of sunlight stained purple from the tinted window, and Cole spoke the thoughts in my mind.
“Does this mean you forgive me?” he said.
And I couldn’t help but laugh.