Twenty-eight.

“Another school project?” my mom asked, taking an iced tea out of the fridge. Madison and I were sitting side by side poring over one of her math books.

“I’m just helping Madison study,” I said without looking up.

“How nice of you.”

“Thank you for always having me over, Ms. Lawson,” Madison piped up.

“The pleasure is mine, dear.” My mom ruffled my hair as she walked by and went into her bedroom at the end of the hallway. After she was gone, I tried to flatten my hair back down.

“She’s nice,” Madison said.

“She’s alright.”

“My mom would never do something like that.”

I looked up to find Madison patting the top of her head, clearly distracted from the mathematical process of factorization. She was going to fail her exam if she didn’t pay attention…

“Hey, Jamie?”

“Hm?”

“I never hear you talk about your dad.”

I opened my mouth, to say something, and then… I just didn’t. I wasn’t sure what to say anyway.

“Is he around anymore?” she asked.

“No,” I said quietly, honestly, but Madison was beginning to decode me just as I had spent so much time doing to her. Her lips against mine opened up cracks in me, and she was burrowing her way inside. But she’d infected me so long ago, it was hard to remember a time when I didn’t think about her.

“It’s something that upsets you, huh?”

“A little, yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, not really.”

“I think you should talk about it.” She leaned forward so that she obscured my view of the textbook in front of us. She smiled at me with those lovely pink lips and she stared at me with those lovely brown eyes. Now I understood why everyone liked her. She could melt me right there like ice cream in the summer sun.

“He left when I was young.”

“He left your mom, too?”

“Yeah. It sucks. We don’t really talk about it.”

“Well I don’t know what he was chasing,” Madison told me, “but I know for sure that it wasn’t better than what he left behind.”

Her lips leaned up into mine. Suddenly, all this stuff with my dad just didn’t seem like that big a deal. Maybe Polly was right; maybe I should just talk to Madison about it. She filled me up with so much good that the bad just wasn’t that important anymore.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Madison and got up from the table. On my way out of the room, I ruffled her hair.

“Mom?” I called through her bedroom door. By the time she opened it, she had already changed out of her work clothes and into pajamas. It was only six in the evening, but my mom was the kind of woman who believed in two outfits: work clothes and pajamas.

“Hey, Jay, what’s up?”

“I was wondering if I could have allowance this week.”

She gave me a hard look. “I really don’t have a lot to spare. Our water bill is due.”

“I know,” I told her, because I knew a lot about the bills. Mom always talked about bills when I asked her for things. “But I want to get Madison something for her birthday. I sort of missed it a few weeks ago, and I feel bad.”

Why did I feel bad? Because Madison had bought me an eighty dollar fountain pen with red ink for my birthday, and I was in love with it almost as much as I was in love with her.

“I’m sure she understands, Jamie.”

“I know she does, but I still want to get her something.”

“Don’t you have birthday money from Allie and grandma?”

“Yes, but if I had ten more dollars—”

My mom cut me off. “Don’t spend too much on a gift.”

“Mom, she’s my girlfriend.”

Well, that was an awkward five-second silence, wasn’t it?

“You’re dating Madison?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“For a while?”

“Uh, no, a few weeks.”

My mom nodded quietly, to herself, and went over to her dresser. When she came back over, she pushed a twenty dollar bill into my hand. Twenty? I stared up at my mom with reverence, but more so, with reluctance.

“Ten is fine,” I told her.

“Consider it part of your birthday present.” We had already gone out to dinner earlier that week, an Italian place we went to every year. But this was the first time I got twenty dollars. My mom kissed me on the top of the head and pulled me into a hug. “Get your girlfriend something nice.”

“Thanks Mom,” I said, and showed exactly how much I meant it when I hugged her back.