He looked at the legal pad in my hands.
“I told her the school would have to take the complaint seriously if we documented what happened. I wanted her to feel like she had some control over the situation.”
“You could have done that without helping her skip school,” I replied.
“I know.”
“You could have called me.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me she was sick every morning.”
His face tightened.
“I know, Zoe.”
He looked at Emily.
“I was scared she’d stop trusting me if I went against what she’d asked. I wanted to be the person she could come to when everything felt terrible.”
His voice grew quieter.
“But I think I confused being someone she could trust with being someone who always said yes.”
For the first time that morning, I saw how frightened he had been, too.
He hadn’t been laughing because he thought the situation was funny.
