Free Dark Hope by Monica McGurk

through my memories of the last few weeks and could find nothing,
nothing
that I had done that could have even remotely set off a reasonable human being.
    I sat bolt upright in my bed.
    How dare he treat you like that?
said the voice inside my head.
    Seriously, who did he think he was, all Mr. Nice and then
wham
! Dropping me like a bad smell just because he was in a pissy mood?
    I kicked my sneakers off and let them fly across the room. They landed with a satisfying
thump!
against my closet door.
    And how could he have lied to me that he didn’t know Lucas? Clearly, the two had a history. But how could they have when Michael was new to the school, too? Why couldn’t he just tell me the truth?
    “Aarrgh!” I yelled in frustration, falling back on my bed.
    I heard a soft knock at my door.
    “Hope, may I come in?”
    I groaned and rolled over. I had forgotten that my mom was already home. Consultant hours were unpredictable. Sometimes, like today, she’d show up in the middle of the day. I’d managed to get by her without too much conversation when I got off the bus, but apparently her Mom Radar was on alert.
    “Sure, Mom,” I answered, straightening out the bedcovers and fluffing the pillows.
    She slid in through the door, a look of mild alarm spreading across her face as she scanned for damage. “Is everything okay? It sounded like you fell.”
    “Just me throwing my shoes, Mom. Sorry about that.”
    She frowned slightly and tilted her head, her eyebrows forming a distinct question mark.
    I sighed. I’d already learned that she was hard to hide things from. I chalked it up to her MBA and consultant training.
    “Michael was just being a jerk today, that’s all.”
    I watched her carefully choose her words as she sat down on the bed and plucked at some imaginary lint. “Michael, that new boy with whom you’ve become friends?”
    “Yes, though the way he’s been acting this week you’d think I’d set his pet bunnies on fire or something. He’s been so moody, Mom! And he won’t tell me what I did. It’s so unfair.”
    “What makes you think it’s something you did?” Mom asked me, looking me straight in the eye. “Did you do something wrong, Hope?”
    “No!” I protested, clutching one of the pillows tight to my chest. “I’ve racked my brain, Mom. All I can think of—”
    I stopped, not even wanting to say it out loud.
    “Go on,” Mom urged.
    “… is that he’s tired of me. I mean, who am I, right? Just some hick girl from Alabama. He’s probably gotten bored of me.”
    My body sagged, my head drooping to my chest as I thought about this possibility. It seemed to be the only thing that made sense.
    Mom gently lifted my chin so she could look me in the eye. “Hope, did Michael try to avoid you? Did he move his seat in class, or try to eat with someone else at lunch?”
    “No,” I admitted grudgingly.
    “Have you gotten too clingy, maybe thinking of him as more than a friend?”
    “No!” I protested, my cheeks burning. “It’s not like that, Mom! We’re just friends.”
    I saw her lips twitch.
    “It’s not funny!” I shouted, burying my face in another pillow.
    “Oh, Hope, honey, I’m not laughing at you, I promise. It just seems to me that you are awfully unfamiliar with teenage boys. They go through their moods and then some, just like the rest of us do. And if I understand the situation as you’ve described it, he might have an awful lot of pressure on him, having to fend for himself. From what you say, it doesn’t seem to me like he is trying to end your friendship. Whatever it is, he’ll get over it. Just give him his space. You’ll see; when Monday rolls around, I bet everything will be back to normal.”
    I sat up again, looking at her skeptically.
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “But why’d he have to be so mean, Mom? It makes me so
angry
!”
    “I don’t know, Hopie,” she said, using her old nickname for me while she smoothed out my hair. “But when I get angry