That was the difficult truth.
I took his hand.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His face crumpled.
“Because you’d make me stop.”
That hurt.
Not because he was wrong.
I probably would have.
“I was trying to help.”
“I know.”
“No,
Mom.”
He finally looked at me.
“You don’t.”
Tears spilled down his face.
“She cries in the bathroom at school so nobody sees.”
My throat tightened.
“She stopped eating lunch because she says food tastes like metal.”
His voice shook harder.
“She misses half her classes. Everyone looks at her like she’s dying.”
David sat back down slowly.
Ethan continued.
“And then she told me her parents were running out of money.”
He wiped his face angrily.
“I couldn’t just keep sitting there.”
I pulled him toward me.
He resisted
for half a second.
Then collapsed against my shoulder.
“I didn’t want her to think she was ruining everybody’s life.”
