“Why are you helping her cut school?”
Mark raised his hands in a placating gesture. “She asked me to pick her up because she didn’t want to go—”
“That’s not how life works, Mark! You don’t just opt out of the ninth grade because you don’t feel like it.”
“It’s not like that.”
Emily clenched her jaw. “You don’t get it. I knew you wouldn’t.”
“Then make me get it, Emily. Talk to me.”
Mark looked at Emily. “You said we were going to be honest, Emmy. She’s your mom. She deserves to know.”
Mark raised his hands in a placating gesture.
Emily lowered her head.
“The other girls… They hate me. It’s not just one person. It’s all of them. They move their bags when I try to sit down. They whisper ‘try-hard’ every time I answer a question in English. In the gym, they act like I’m invisible. They won’t even pass me the ball.”
I felt a sudden, sharp pang in the center of my chest. “Why didn’t you tell me, Em?”
“Because I knew you’d march into the principal’s office and make a giant scene. Then they’d hate me even more for being a snitch.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Em?”
“She’s not wrong,” Mark added.
“So your solution was to facilitate a disappearance?” I asked him.
Mark sighed. “She was throwing up every morning, Zoe. Actual, physical sickness from the stress. I thought I could just give her a few days to breathe while we figured out a plan.”
“A plan involves talking to the other parent. What was the endgame here?”
“She was throwing up every morning, Zoe.”
Mark reached into the center console and pulled out a yellow legal pad. It was covered in Emily’s neat, looped handwriting.
“We were writing it out. I told her that if she reported it clearly — dates, names, specific incidents — the school has to act. We were drafting a formal complaint.”
Emily rubbed her sleeve across her face. “I was going to send it. Eventually.”
“When?” I asked.
“The school has to act.”
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