“Dad,” she asked him one evening, “what if he really changes?”
“Then I hope he becomes a better person.”
“But we won’t be together.”
“You don’t have to be his girlfriend to hope he does well.”
She thought about that for a while.
Then she nodded.
I believed that was the end of the story.
But a few days later, Emma came home from school with an expression I hadn’t seen before.
She looked surprised, proud, and sad all at once.
“Mom, Tyler stood up for me today.”
I put down the laundry I was folding.
“What happened?”
“One of the guys from his basketball team made another joke about my arms. He said something about how Tyler used to complain about them.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did Tyler do?”
“He told him to knock it off.”
I stared at her.
“Just like that?”
“Not exactly. The guy laughed and called him sensitive. Then Tyler said he knew he was being a jerk when he made those comments about me. He told them he wasn’t going to act like that anymore.”
