“You don’t have to answer that,” he insists. His eyes search my face. I want to know what he’s looking for, what he’s thinking. I’m grateful that he might be the first person to know about my mom and not look at me with pity. I try to hold back a weak laugh when I realize the first person to really ask me how I’m doing without pitying me happens to be a man that I swore I hated—and one I’d bet money hates me. I’m well aware how truly pathetic that is. “If I tell you, are you going to make fun of me later for it?” He rears back as if I hit him. Of all the insults I’ve thrown at him, why does he
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