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his father.”
    Abby laughed, thinking his mom was joking. But when she didn’t also laugh, Abby said, “They really did? This morning? Where’d they go?”
    Nadine Newquist looked into Abby’s eyes for a long moment, and then she said, “The judge took Mitch out of town, Abby. We’re sending him away. He won’t be graduating with his class. We’re enrolling him somewhere else. He’s not coming back.”
    “What?”
    Abby blinked, not sure she’d heard the words she’d heard. They’d come so fast. There was so much weird impossible information in them. She couldn’t grasp them. They slid out of her brain. Nadine was going to have to start all over and say them all again, slowly. That way, the words would turn out to be something completely different from what Abby was afraid she’d heard, words that nobody could ever possibly have said to her.
    “What?” Abby asked, again.
    Her mouth had gone dry, her heart was pounding.
    “As you know better than I do, Abigail, my son came home very late last night from your house, when he wasn’t supposed to be there. He lied to us. Apparently, it was not the first time. Perhaps lying is perfectly acceptable in your home, Abby, but it is not in ours. I don’t blame Mitch. I blame your influence, and not just about the lying, either. He’s feeling far too much pressure from you. Mitch doesn’t know how to say no to you, Abby. And neither he nor we want him to ruin his future by hooking up with a girl who would get pregnant in order to keep him here with her.”
    “No! I didn’t…I never…”
    Nadine put up a hand, palm out, to stop her.
    “We’re taking him away from you, Abby, and you’re just going to have to live with the fact that it’s your fault that our son cannot remain in his own home. He agrees with us that it’s the right thing to do. He will have a far brighter future away from you than he would ever have with you. You’re just a small-town girl and he’s meant for bigger things. You need to forget him. You need to get on with your silly little life.”
    Mitch’s mother closed the door in Abby’s face.
    Abby stood there, in shock, for about two seconds. Then she rang the doorbell again. When nobody answered, Abby pounded on the door with her fists until it hurt too much to keep doing it. When that didn’t raise any response, she yelled, “Nadine!” The first name slipped out, a personal, desperate plea. “Please, Mrs. Newquist!”
    There was no response from within the house.
    Abby didn’t know what to do or how to react to the strange, horrible feelings inside her body. She felt as if she were going to explode from panic and grief. She ran around through the snow to the side of the house, trying to see in through the windows, but all the drapes were closed. She ran to the back, even tried the back door, but it was locked tight. For a wild moment, she considered dragging a ladder out of the garage, propping it against the house, and climbing up to Mitch’s second-floor bedroom.
    Not graduating with his class? Not coming back?
    Feeling pressure from her, afraid she’d get pregnant to trap him?
    That was impossible! It was a joke. They were playing a cruel joke on her. They were all inside, behind the curtains, laughing at her. It couldn’t be true! No matter how serious Mitch’s mom had looked, no matter how much her voice had quavered with anger, no matter how deep the contempt in her eyes, it just couldn’t be true.
    Is this really my fault?
Abby backed away from the Newquist house.
    For a long time, she stood in the snow, staring at the house that wouldn’t let her in. Was this really happening because of what she had wanted to do last night? Were they trying to keep Mitch and her apart?
    She couldn’t believe Mitch had ever said those things, or felt those ways about her.
    Abby ran to the back door and pounded on it again.
    “Please! Whatever I did, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t send Mitch away! Please don’t send