Free The Stranger Inside by Melanie Marks

kitchen table. “I remember how much you love peanut butter,” she said, moving on to get herself another cup of coffee.
    I eyed the toast, the mounds of peanut butter Mom had heaped on to it. It made me clutch my stomach, overcome with a memory:
      “Here—try this.”
    Jeremy beckoning me with a wooden spoon, enticing me to sample his “special secret chocolate sauce.”
    Later I learned his “secret ingredient” was peanut butter. That became his secret ingredient for everything, once he learned I loved peanut butter as much as he did. We heaped it into everything.
     But now … I couldn’t even look at peanut butter. I pushed my plate away, the toast untouched.
    “Don’t you like it?” Mom asked.
    I shook my head. “Sorry,” I mumbled feeling bad, knowing she was trying to be nice, that she made it as a treat. “I hate peanut butter.”
    Mom eyed me over her coffee mug, tilting her head as though I was an alien creature she couldn’t figure out.
    I rinsed my breakfast dishes and went upstairs, avoiding the den as yesterday it made me burst into tears. Seriously. The den phone made me bawl.
    Okay, yeah, my emotions were wacked-out because of Dad dying, wacked-out big time, obviously, but that wasn’t totally it, not totally. Because even that phone held a memory. Of Jeremy. Even the phone.
    See, we had this thing we used to do with the den phone every Friday. We made a special call on it.
    I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to think about it, refusing to think about it. The memory was too tender. Hurt too much.
     That sucked, having so many memories of Jeremy. At the most unexpected moments they would slash through my soul, rip me to shreds. Not that the memories were bad. They weren’t. They were good. Too good. That’s why they hurt so much. Jeremy and I, we had been happy together. And I’d never exactly been happy since.
    Not being able to pick up the phone or a jar of peanut butter without thinking of Jeremy was traumatizing.
    Not fun.
    At least things were better now—better than when I first got here. Slowly, I was starting to feel like I was going to be okay, not stuck in Jeremy-Mourning-Central. Or Crazy Town. Slowly, I was coming to terms with everything. It helped having Sawyer. He got my mind moving in other directions.
    Since meeting him, we’d gotten together every day. Usually we didn’t do anything special, just hung at his house playing ping-pong or video games or shooting pool. It was nice though because his dad was in the Navy and out to sea on a three-month tour. So we had the place to ourselves.
    But he still wouldn’t let me come to the practices.
    I was still bugged about that even as I came back downstairs and waited for Parker to pick me up and take me to Sawyer’s. So far it worked out perfect having Parker come to get me. Mom stayed off my back pretty much, and she was even kind of nice. A little bit.
    “You really like Parker, don’t you?” Mom asked now, as I sat looking out the living room window, waiting for him. “He seems very nice.”
    I furrowed my brow. She had barely spoken two words to him, ever. She was just pleased I hung out with Parker because he looked like a dork. Anger sparked deep inside me.
    “You don’t know the first thing about Parker,” I said, though I knew I should keep my mouth shut. “For all you know he’s a drug dealer with thick glasses.”
    “Well, he has you home early, and he’s very polite,” she said. “Why don’t you have him over for dinner?”
    Dumbfounded, I could do nothing more than stare at her. Suddenly she was so pleasant—like one of those moms on TV, one of those nice ones that say stuff like, “I’m proud of you,” and “I trust your judgment”—unfathomable phrases like that.
    “Maybe.”
    To my relief, Parker pulled into our driveway and I was able to bolt out to his car and away from the baffling being I called Mom before I did something crazy, like barf up the truth. Parker gave her a little wave