“Hey.”
Lily looked up.
“Hi, Mom.”
Her smile was too quick.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I glanced toward Sophie.
“Did you two switch groups?”
“No.”
“Then why are you over here?”
Lily rearranged a stack of forms.
“She asked me to work another table.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice flattened.
That meant she knew more than she wanted to say.
I pulled out the chair beside her.
“Lily.”
She kept staring at the forms.
Finally:
“She doesn’t want me around anymore.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you fight?”
“No.”
“Something online?”
“No.”
“Boy?”
She almost smiled.
“No.”
Then her eyes filled.
“She just stopped.”
That was worse.
Over the next week, I watched it happen.
Sophie stopped waiting for Lily after chemistry.
Stopped responding to messages.
Changed where she sat at lunch.
Removed Lily from a private group chat they had shared with three other girls.
At first Lily kept making excuses.
Sophie was stressed.
Sophie’s mom had been going through a difficult year.
Sophie probably needed space.
Then came the college-prep workshop.
The girls had registered together months earlier.
Lily arrived home that afternoon holding the folder they had been given.
She dropped it on the kitchen table.
“Sophie moved groups.”
I looked up from dinner.
“What?”
“She told the counselor she wanted a different mentor.”
“That could be unrelated.”
“It’s not.”
Lily sat down.
“She won’t even look at me.”
My husband, Adrian Bennett, entered the kitchen just as Lily said it.
He stopped.
Only for a second.
But I noticed.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Sophie changed groups.”
Adrian opened the refrigerator.
“Maybe that’s for the best.”
Lily looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He closed the refrigerator.
“Nothing.”
“You said it’s for the best.”
“I mean if someone wants distance, you give it to them.”
