“I’ve made you angry, and I apologize, Mila. Who was it?”
She looks everywhere but at me, taking a sip of her soda, setting it down, rifling through her bag, then pulling out her wallet. Muttering to herself, she pulls out a piece of paper and slides it across the table.
“That was from…my grandpa. That was the last thing he ever said to me. It was his…I guess his dying wish that I go to school.”
I open the note and read it. It says, “Good girls don’t grow up to be great women. Go be fucking great.”
“Your grandfather said this to you?”
Mila reaches across the table and snatches the note back. “You don’t have to believe me,” she snaps.
What the hell is happening here? “I do. I do believe you. It’s just that my grandfather is…well…not nearly as cool.”
A knot of pain forms in my chest as I watch Mila swipe a tear from her cheek with the back of her index finger. “Yeah, well, at least your grandpa is still alive and not out there making stupid choices,” she says.
Okay. I’m done asking her questions for now.
I reach across the table, cover her hand in mine, and squeeze.
Another tear falls, and this time she misses it, causing the purple ink in her spiral-bound notebook to bleed.
“I’m so sorry for…whatever it is you’ve been through.”
Mila tugs her hand away from me, and a mask of placidness falls over her face.
She asks, “Are we going to study now?”
Gone is the soft, sad bunny that I saw a minute ago. If I keep pushing, the woman in front of me now could burn my body to ashes with one look.
“Yep. We should study now.”