• • •

The rain started when Gray's mood dipped on Saturday afternoon. It didn't stop for three days straight, finally ceasing last night when he and his dad went to the diner together after we got home. Mom quietly and curiously quizzed me about Liam while the two of them had a bit of father-son bonding: we tucked up on the sofa with a Netflix romcom in the background, the movie forgotten as I carefully navigated the minefield of her inquisition.

It's hard not to be a little convinced that the weather mimics Gray's mood. He sulked for three days, during a three-day storm, the tempest only abating after his heart to heart with his dad, so it's a relief when the sun comes out at last on Tuesday.

It's still soaking outside though, and there's not much heat behind the brightness. Gray has his smile back, almost, but it doesn't reach his eyes. I'm praying for a ray of warmth to pour through the window, to illuminate his face.

I'm cozied up in Starbucks with my laptop on my knees, trying to bash out at least some of a ten-page paper I have due Friday. I'm working a closer that night, so I can't afford to wing it too close to the deadline. Gray has the same paper, and not a word written, but he has more pressing matters on his mind right now.

It's hard to focus on my screen when I'm painfully aware that he left twenty minutes ago to make a call, and now I'm waiting for the sky to turn. Maybe it's Navya; maybe they're just arranging a date and any moment the clouds will clear. But he never leaves to talk to her. I have a sinking feeling that he's talking to his mom, and the heavens are about to open.

He's been so torn up since seeing her. I had no idea how much she still played on his mind but the evidence is right in front of me. He has only read one book since Saturday. It's Tuesday now. An achievement for most, but Gray isn't most. He's a book or two a day kind guy. He's been quiet in the morning, quiet in the car, quiet at night.

When he eventually returns, I've only written half a paragraph more, bringing me to almost five pages. Nearly halfway. I shut my laptop when he drops down next to me on the deep sofa. His face is pale, his phone clutched in his hand, and he's completely still for a moment before he lets out a pained sigh and rests his head back.

"Everything ok?" I push my laptop away to give him my full attention.

"My mom," he says, turning his phone over in his hand before he drops it onto the cushion.

"You called her?"

"Mmhmm." He nods and leans forward, elbows on his knees, and drops his head into his hands. A low groan comes out of him. "It was killing me," he says. "The not knowing. I had to. I had to."

"I know. What'd she say?"

"She's coming over," he says. He checks his watch. "She said we should talk in person and she's coming over."

"Here? To South Lakes?"

He nods. "She said she'll be here in two hours." He drags his hands down his face. "God, I don't want to. I do, but I don't." He clasps his hands at the back of his neck and looks up at me through dark eyelashes. "She's my mom. I shouldn't feel so crap. It should be no biggie like, sure, Mom, seeya later."

He scrutinizes his watch again. We have class in ninety minutes. "I'm gonna have to skip Shakespearean Lit."

"D'you want some moral support?"

He hesitates. "No, it's fine."

The pause is enough. I don't care about skipping class. Probably a habit I need to break, especially before sophomore year starts, but it's hard to care when I can get the information off the slides and I'd much rather help out a friend in need.

"I'll be there," I say. "Or outside. I can wait in the car. Whatever you need."

He gives me a pained smile. "Thanks. I'm dreading this."

"You don't have to do it," I say. "You could be a no-show. Give her a taste of her own medicine."

He lets out a weak laugh but his heart isn't in it and there are tears in his eyes. I've never seen Gray cry. It freaks me out to see him so emotional and it kills me that the one woman who is supposed to love him unconditionally is the one who has made him feel like this. I can't bear confrontation, but I want to confront her. I want to show her what she's missing out on.

• • •

My weather theory is proving correct. By the time three o'clock comes around, after Gray's mom has texted to say she's five minutes away from the café off campus, the storm is threatening its return. It won't be long before lightning slashes the sky and thunder crashes ahead, a stampede of bulls drowning us out.

We're not there yet. Gray didn't want to be on time, so we're sitting in my car down a side street with a perfect view of the door to the café. He's wringing his hands, his nerves wrecking him, and he's so twitchy, his eyes following every movement outside the car. People are dashing from cars to stores, trying to beat the inevitable rain. None are her.

His phone buzzes with a text. His mom is here. A moment later, a woman appears outside the café. Definitely the same woman we saw in the park. She looks so ... normal. It's weird. She looks around, peers inside the café, then hugs her sides and waits outside. After a moment, she fumbles in her pocket and lights a cigarette, nervously smoking.

"She used to say that was her only vice," Gray murmurs. "Any time I caught her smoking – she knew how much Dad hated it – she would tell me it was a one-off, her only bad habit." He snorts. "I think of all her bad habits, it's the least offensive."

She looks so awkward standing there, keeping an eye out for Gray. She doesn't finish the cigarette before she drops it to the floor and grinds it out with the toe of her shoe. Her hair is in a loose ponytail. She takes it out, reties it, takes it out again.

"I'm gonna go," Gray says. He nods towards her.

"Want me to come in?"

"You don't need to," he says. "You can if you want. But I know I'm gonna get mad."

"Ok." I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back. "You've got this, Gray."

"I really don't think so," he says, his voice shaking. He pulls me into a hug at an awkward angle and he gets out. I watch as he heads over to his mom. She smiles when she sees him and goes in for a hug when he reaches her, but he steps away. Her arms fall to her sides. It's painful to watch.

Two hundred seconds pass before I get out. That's when the rain starts, a sudden downpour that envelops me before I've even locked the car. I yank up the hood of my sweater, hands stuffed in the front pocket, and I hurry over to the café.

They're sitting near the back, tucked away in a corner. I grab a bottle of OJ, pay as fast as I can, and saunter over to a nearby table. It's a totally innocent move, but I feel so guilty and I'm sure my guilt is radiating off me.

I can hardly hear them, but I can't get any closer. Gray's mom is talking in a hushed voice, like she's trying to pacify him. I take out my phone, pretending to be engrossed in the screen when I shoot a glance across at her. For someone who abandoned her maternal responsibilities, she really looks like a mom. I don't know if it's her haircut or her clothes or the exhaustion on her face, but she looks like she spends her life running around after kids.

I jump when my phone buzzes. A text from Liam fills my screen when I unlock it with my thumbprint.

wanna come over after waggledagger?

He thinks his nickname for Shakespeare is hilarious, as though it hasn't been done thousands of times before. I text him back, trying to keep one ear out, but Gray's mom is a soft-spoken woman.

skipping class rn, gray's meeting his mom. I'm his chaperone from afar

It doesn't take Liam long to text back. He's pretty reliable on his phone, rarely leaving me hanging for long. He knows how much I overthink it if he does; he knows I can't help the way my brain works.

ah, got it. any chance the chaperone would like some company?

I realize I've become one of those people who grin at cheesy texts from their boyfriend. I don't care. I tell him where I am and once he replies with a thumbs up and a kiss emoji, I turn my phone face down and sneak a glance at Gray.

He looks caught between shouting and crying. His mom's doing the talking, leaning across the table like she can't bear to make a scene. When her hair falls forwards, she tucks it behind her ear, and she raises her voice loud enough for me to hear when she says, "I never wanted to hurt you."

The line is such a cliché that it hurts. Gray doesn't hold back in his response, but his voice is measured. I don't know how he's so calm.

"You cheated on Dad and you left your family to be with some other guy," he says. "How would that not hurt me? I lost my mom. You just decided you didn't want to be a mom anymore, so you quit. That hurt."

It's hard not to stare, but I want to hear what she says, to see how she reacts.

"It's not like that, Graham," she says. I like that she doesn't call him Gray. She doesn't have the right. "I never meant to cheat on your dad. I fell in love with someone else, and your dad and I grew apart."

"I wonder why," he says, his voice rising before he reigns it back in. "Must've been some guy to get you to up and leave. True love, huh? Are you guys still together?"

It kills me that he doesn't even know. He knows nothing about who his mom has been since she left. It's been nine years. She has a whole other life. She could have a whole other family. My stomach turns, my heart squeezing. I don't want to listen. I don't want to pry. She must sense this, because she drops her voice so low that I can't hear her response.

I jump for the second time when Liam appears in front of me, setting down a couple of hot chocolates before he leans over to kiss me. His eyes shift quickly over to Gray and his mom – I don't even know her name – and he grimaces when he sits down.

"Rough, huh?"

I nod. I've only heard about ten percent of what they've said, but it's clear that it's no rainbows and sunshine. Shaking it off with a shudder, I look up at Liam with a smile. His hair's wet. So's his sweater. "Did you walk?"

"It's only a few minutes."

"It's storming!"

He shrugs and scoots forward, lips pursed. I kiss him and he catches my foot under the table.

"Can I talk?" His voice is a whisper. "Or are we just listening?"

I keep an ear out for a moment. "I can't hear them," I say, "so I guess we can talk."

"Ok, because I have a question. Or a situation, rather," he says, licking the cream off the top of his hot chocolate. "You're working a closer on Friday, right?"

"Mmhmm. Am I still ok to stay that night?"

"Well, that's the situation," he says. "The house is having a party on Friday, lowkey, not too many people. I'd love for you to be there." His hand finds mine. His fingers are wet. Rain clings to his hair. "I know you hate parties, but I'd love for you to stay anyway, even if you don't want to do the party. My room'll be free. I just might not be around much."

I think about it, lips pursed. I'm not a party person, but that's usually because I don't know anyone and it's awkward. This time, I'm dating the host. "I'd like to come," I say after nearly a full minute of internal debate, a long time when Liam's sitting right opposite me. His face lights up.

"Really? You would?"

"Yeah, I would. Is that ok?"

He grins. "It's awesome," he says. "No pressure, though. Don't feel like you have to. You really don't. If you'd rather just come over and crash in my bed – or not come at all – that's totally fine."

"I'd like to come," I say. "For a bit, at least. Yeah. That'd be nice."

"Awesome." He swipes a fingerful of cream from my drink.

"It's not a costume party, is it?"

He laughs, shaking his head. "No. But, hey, if you want to dress as a sexy student ... don't change a thing."

I laugh at his line, shaking my head at him. He opens his mouth to say more but my attention is dragged away by the screech of a chair as Gray launches himself to his feet and stalks out of the café. He walks fast, disappearing into the rain, and I scramble to follow him. He reaches the car before me, tugging the door handle as soon as I unlock it from the end of the road.

He gets into the backseat, slamming the door. I race round to the other side to get in next to him, and as soon as I wrap wet arms around his wet shoulders, he bursts into tears.

Not just wet eyes and sniveling. Full on sobbing. His shoulders shake, tears blending with the rain. His hand is clapped over screwed-up eyes, his nose running, the most heartbreaking sounds coming out of him as he cries. I swear my heart actually breaks, squeezing so tight that it must be bent out of shape.

I just hold him. He grips me like he's a distraught kid and I'm his mom. Over the sound of his sobbing and the rain crashing on the roof of the car, I almost don't hear the knocking on the window. I see Liam's drenched hair, his grimace. I half lean away from Gray to open the door a crack.

"I'll see you tomorrow, ok?" I say. He nods and passes me my drink in a take-out cup, and he glances over his shoulder.

"Gray's mom's over there," he says. "She wants to talk." He looks at Gray, who looks up at him, trying to pull himself together. "What d'you want me to tell her?"

"She's spent nine years not telling me stuff," he says. "I don't wanna talk to her."

"Want me to tell her that?"

Gray nods. Liam seems totally unperturbed by ending up as the middle man in this family crisis. He pushes the door shut and disappears, and I can just about make out him talking to Gray's mom. He towers over her. She's short, everything about her meek and mild, but there must be a fire in her to do this to Gray.

Liam comes back. He opens my door. "Give me your keys."

"What? Why?"

"You're both soaked. You can use my room. Dry off, talk, chill, whatever." He holds out his hand. I drop my keys into his palm and a moment later, we're off. It's only a couple of minutes later that we're parked outside the frat house, a couple more before we're in Liam's room. He doesn't need to show me where anything is.

"I'll be in the den," he says, heading down to the basement, and Gray and I are alone when the door swings shut behind him.

Gray drops onto the edge of Liam's bed. When I throw him a towel, he dries his face and his hair and he rubs his eyes. Flopping onto his back, he sucks in a shaky breath to shove a stopper in his emotions. "I hate her," he says, his voice trembling.

"What happened?" I ask, perching next to him.

"She's a liar," he says, plucking his wet t-shirt away from his skin. I throw him one of Liam's, and a hoodie, I switch out my own damp sweater for the one Liam leant me all those weeks ago. It's loose on me, huge on him, but it smells like him. I want to keep it. But then it'd smell like me.

"What'd she say?"

"She's lived there since she left," he says. I can see how hard he's trying not to lose it. "All this time, she's been an hour from home. Jesus." He hits the bed and his face crumples again, and he doesn't protest when I pull him up so he's sitting, and I hold him. I never know what to do in these situations, but he leans into the hug, his grip tight.

"Why? Why'd she say she moved far?"

He gives me an elaborate shrug. "I think she was embarrassed," he says. "She screwed up real bad: she cheated on Dad and she gave up everything to be with some other guy. She left us so she could gamble on a shot with this random dude, and it didn't work out."

I don't know what to say. I wish I knew. It's awful. Awful for Gray, for Tad, for everyone. "I'm so sorry, Gray."

"Wanna know the kicker?" He looks up at me. His eyes are red, his cheeks raw from scrubbing away tears. "She put it all on the line for this guy, someone better than the family she already had, and he dropped her when it got too serious." He laughs, bitterly. "Actually, the real kicker?"

"What?" I'm dreading the words about to leave his mouth.

"She has other kids," he says. The words fall flat. He holds himself, and in that flash of a moment he looks like her. That's exactly how she was holding herself. "It was one thing if she left because she didn't want to be a mom, but she left to have kids with someone else. So being a mom was never the problem."

He pokes his chest with his thumb and winces at his own strength. "The problem was me."

• • •

I can't convince him that he's wrong. The rest of the day is a wipeout, on the road home when we should still be in class, and Gray is fixated on the conviction that his mom just didn't want to be his mom.

She has three other sons. Apparently she tried to show him photos, tried to tell him about his half-brothers. That was when he stormed out. One's nine in December which, Gray worked out, means she was already pregnant when she left. That one's dad left her. The others are four and five, her children with her second husband.

The pain in his voice as he tells me is so agonizing that I feel it in my gut, the awful twist of the knife each time I hear how much he's hurting, each time I sneak a glance his way. When he exhausts himself, he rests his head against the window for the rest of the journey. I know he's crying, quietly this time, and I know he's trying to hide it. I don't say anything.

We get home at the exact same time as Tad, turning into the driveway one after the other, and he jumps straight into protective dad mode when he sees Gray's face. They go to Gray's room to talk; I drag myself to the kitchen for something to eat. Mom's in there, reading. I don't have the energy to explain so I just hug her from behind and sink next to her.

"I love you, Mom," I say. She pushes her glasses up her nose and smiles. She cups my cheek in her hand and puts down her book.

"I love you too, bogárkám," she says, and she kisses my forehead. "More than I can ever explain. How was your day?"

I give a noncommittal answer and from the look on her face, she knows I'm not telling the whole story, but she doesn't push it until Tad comes downstairs looking weary, pushing his hand through his hair.

"Gray saw Lauren today," he says when Mom asks what's going on. So that's her name. It doesn't suit her. I guess in my head, she's Cruella de Vil. He sits down with a heavy sigh after he greets Mom with a kiss. "She's been keeping a lot of secrets."

He didn't know. He had no idea about any of it; he didn't even know Lauren was pregnant when they divorced, though it sounds like it was as quick as it could be when she wanted nothing except his signature on the papers. She hid everything from him. I'm so relieved that he wasn't in on it. Gray would be so devastated if he found out his dad had known about his secret half-siblings.

Mom makes him a coffee and rubs his shoulders, kneading tense skin. There's something so intimate about it that I feel like I shouldn't be here, so I head upstairs and join Gray when I see his door's open. He's lying on his bed with his earphones in.

I lie next to him. He gives me one of the earphones. I don't recognize the song, but I like it. My fingers drum to the beat in the space between us and when Gray puts his hand over mine, at first I think he's telling me to stop, but he's not. He's just holding my hand. He doesn't say anything. Neither do I. We just share the song.

• • •