“For what?”
“For talking about my crappy trig grade when …” My voice trailed off. “When your mom’s sick.”
“Don’t apologize. You can say whatever you want to me.” He paused. “And Belly, my mom is getting better. She put on five pounds this month.”
The hopefulness in his voice, it made me feel so tender toward him I could have cried. I said, “Yeah, I heard that from my mom yesterday. That’s really good news.”
“So, okay then. So has your teacher taught you SOH-CAH-TOA yet?”
From then on, Conrad started helping me, all over the phone. At first I didn’t really pay attention, I just liked listening to his voice, listening to him explain things. But then he’d quiz me, and I hated to disappoint him. So began our tutoring sessions. The way my mother smirked at me when the phone rang at night,
