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believe I really had to explain this to my mom. She, of all people, should get it! He sounded hurt?! So what ? I wondered. After what he did to us…? Just thinking about it made every muscle in my body tense. “I’m sorry he called the house phone.” I don’t know why, but I didn’t see that coming. I guess I figured he was doing his obligatory reaching out during the holidays and once they had passed, I had thought he’d forget about it.
    Apparently not. Apparently he was trying to pretend to be interested a while longer.
    “You need to call him.” Her voice was firm but the look on her face was pained.
    I understood what she was doing. She didn’t want to have to deal with him any more than I did , I was sure. Yet, she probably felt it was her maternal responsibility to force me to fix things. But I didn’t want that. I sure didn’t need it, either. Neither did she.
    She tried to hand me the phone. “Why don’t you call him now?”
    “I’ll do it later,” I said. I made no move to take the phone from her. When I said ‘later’ I meant maybe in a year or so.
    Or maybe never.
    “I think maybe we need to talk about this.” A sigh accompanied her statement.
    I felt horrible already. She was moving on. She didn’t need him pulling her back into the past. And I was sure it was. Because that’s exactly what happened to me. Every time I thought about him, I thought about what he had done.
    “No. We don’t need to talk about it. I’ll call him,” I said with a sigh of my own.
    “When?” she demanded because she was my mother and she knew me well. “Because this is important. He’s your father. You need to talk to him. I think it’s time you two move past what happened.”
    “Why? Have you?” I asked. My tone was a little more accusatory than I meant for it to be. She flinched, telling me she hadn’t. How could she have? I instantly felt bad. I was saved from feeling the need to apologize when the doorbell rang.
    “I’ll get that,” I offered. I had no idea who it would be. It wasn’t as if we had company frequently popping in.
    As I was swinging the door open I belatedly wondered if could be Mom’s boyfriend. Um, man friend? Significant other?
    Or heaven forbid…my father …coming to demand I speak to him.
    It wasn’t either of those two.
    It was Tristan.
    I immediately realized he could be my salvation. And more than anything at that moment, I wanted to be saved from the conversation Mom was forcing me to have.
    “Oh, hey!” I said as I pasted on a smile. “I was wondering when you would get here!”
    The door blocked his surprised expression from Mom’s view. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was frowning slightly. As he opened his mouth to speak, I rudely—but necessarily—interrupted him.
    “The CD is upstairs!” I said with a little too much cheer. I assumed he’d come back to discuss his non-invite to the dance. But we weren’t going to do that here, in front of my mom. So I thought I might as well try to take advantage of his sudden appearance. “The CD that you made me last summer? The one I forgot to bring over earlier today. I know you want it back and I keep forgetting to give it to you.” I threw in a small palm to the forehead gesture for good measure.
    “Hi, Tristan,” Mom said with a smile as she moved so she was behind me.
    “Hey, Lila,” Tristan said as he gave her a small wave. Then he returned his confused self back to me.
    “It’s up in my room,” I told him. I had my back to my mom. I made what I hope to be a just-go-with-it face. I grabbed him by the hand and tugged him inside.
    “Ohhhkay,” he said as he kicked off his boots.
    Still holding his hand, I towed him up the stairs behind me.
    “We’ll talk later!” Mom called after me.
    “Uhhuh,” I noncommittally replied.
    We reached my room and I pulled Tristan inside, shutting the door behind us. When I was dating Corey, Mom of course had a door-stays-open rule. But since I was with Tristan and