Free Undertow by Elizabeth O'Roark Page A

skip all of my high school dances?”
    “I never asked you to skip all that,” he argued.
    “Yes you did!” I cried. “Or do you not remember the summer you flipped out on me for ‘practicing’?”
    He shook his head. “Maura, I’m sure I said something stupid, and the idea of you dating makes me sick, but I never meant to imply you shouldn’t be dating at all.”
    His answer almost made things worse. I buried my face in my hands again, weeping, needing him to comfort me and to leave me alone all at the same time.
    He leaned his forehead against my knees in supplication. “I’m so, so sorry,” he pled. “Please don’t be mad.”
    Even at that moment I knew I would forgive him. As much as it hurt, this wasn’t entirely his fault. Aside from the one time he’d gotten upset at me for “practicing” so long ago we’d never had a single conversation about how things should be when we were apart. But at the same time what hurt most was that I loved him so much I hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else. And he had.
    “Take me home,” I told him. The words felt as if they came from far away, resting beneath a large weight I might never dislodge.
    We walked home and I said nothing in response to his apologies and his pleading. I put my hands in my pockets to avoid holding his.
    We got to my grandmother’s steps, and I didn’t turn back toward him as I unlocked the door.
    “Maura … ” he began. I walked in the house and latched the door behind me. I felt ill as I did it, my anger at him already morphing into anger at myself. I hated that he’d slept with other girls, but I hated even more that I hadn’t been better at these things, that I’d been too young and stupid to understand the things he wanted.

CHAPTER 14
    Ethan drives up the night before graduation.
    “You’re tense,” he comments that night, laying on my bed and watching me pack.
    I shrug. “Maybe a little. A lot is happening at once.”
    “What do you mean?” he asks.
    “You know,” I say, not entirely sure myself. “I’m graduating, I’m moving, I’m saying goodbye to my friends … ”
    “So you’re not nervous about your parents seeing us together?” he asks, grinning.
    I laugh. “Yes, although I don’t know why. They’ve met other guys I’ve dated, and anyway, they already know you and they’re totally thrilled.”
    “I’m not just ‘other guys’, Maura,” he replied. “So this is kind of a big deal.”
    I sigh, because that’s precisely the problem: I don’t want this to be a big deal, and it is. Tomorrow, being together with my family, makes it official.
    **
    My parents arrive at almost the same moment as Jordan, Mia and the baby. It’s a relief to have the baby to focus on instead of the little portentous looks my parents throw back and forth watching me and Ethan.
    “Come here, Catherine,” I say, plucking my little niece out of her carseat. “Look at how big you are!” I coo. “Mia, she’s so cute I could just eat her up!”
    Mia offers me a tired half-smile. She’s been wan since she had Catherine last September, as if something vital departed with the baby’s birth. I keep waiting for the Mia I knew to return, with her little-girl giggle and her happy innocence but every time I see her she looks a little worse, a little quieter, a little more … resigned.
    I tuck the thought away and return to my niece, extending a pinkie for her to grab. She immediately pulls herself to standing with that one small grip, and I laugh. “Look at her! She’s like a superhero baby!”
    “Babies do stand, moron,” says Jordan.
    “But she pulled herself to standing only holding one of my pinkies, asshole. Let’s see you do that,” I argue, my attention focused entirely on my gorgeous niece.
    “Looks like you’re next, dude,” Jordan tells Ethan. I focus on Catherine, my stomach clenching as I wait for Ethan to rebut it. But of course he doesn’t, and all I can do is scold myself for making a big deal out of