Susanna hadn’t been herself for days. A young mother, not even 40 years old, tall with large, deep eyes that seemed to speak for themselves.

A woman with a great capacity for empathy, she had developed a special connection with her eldest son, especially as he entered puberty. An attraction that almost bordered on the forbidden, although it never crossed the line, of course.

"Could it be jealousy?" she wondered.

Sure, she was even afraid to even think about asking that question, for fear that the answer would bother her too much. But there was something more behind that feeling; something more than just jealousy, and it was the realization that her relationship with her son had somehow broken down. Or at least, that he had lost the trust he had in her.

It wasn’t so much jealousy as disappointment or pain, she told herself, although, on the other hand, what had happened was natural. What’s weird is that it hadn’t happened sooner…

But of course, it was impossible for it to have happened sooner, given how things had unfolded.

Because the thing is, Ethan had also been bullied, just like so many others at school. "The Travolta" really gave him a hard time, and things only got better when he eventually left him alone and moved on to another target. And, of course, thanks to the strong support of his parents, who, instead of blaming him for anything, helped him unconditionally.

"Mom, it’s mandatory for kids to go to school. They’ll throw us in jail if I stay home," the boy said. "No, honey," his parents replied. "If it’s necessary, we’ll just say you’re sick. That you have a serious, long-term illness, or that you’ve had an accident. And if we have to, we’ll even fake a doctor’s note to explain it."

Luckily, they didn’t have to do any of that, and things gradually went back to normal. Because, unlike Emma, Ethan had a loyal and unconditional friend he could tell all his problems to; a friend he could rely on when things weren’t going well, and to whom he confided everything for comfort and to get helpful advice: his own mother. A mother who was close to him and acted like the friend he never had, and who somehow helped him shed some of that harmful introversion.

And just like a real friend, during that time—and even after—they had conversations like this:

"Which one do you like more? Madison or Savannah?"— she asked him.

"Man, Savannah looks way better. Like, she’s got more curves, and she’s just prettier in the face."

"Plus, you’re into blondes, right?"

"Well, not necessarily. I’d actually say I prefer Madison. Like, she’s got a bigger breast. You know, something to hold onto when you’re… you know."

They both laughed.

"Anyway, I’m just talking for the sake of it," the guy continued. "Like… I have absolutely no chance of going out with them."

"Why not?"

"Well… because I don’t! Like… I have the same chance as, say, Emma, of going out with Travolta. Zero!"

"Does Emma even like Travolta?"

"I don’t know. I guess so. All the girls like it."

"Okay. But, just hypothetically, let’s say one day things change, and you get the chance to choose one of them to go with you to a desert island. Which one would you take?"

The guy considered the options for a moment.

"Neither. They’re both unbearable. Okay for a little while, but that’s it."

"Okay, I get it. But, just imagine… what if you could do a brain transplant first? That’s the thing. What if you could take one of those two bodies, but with a personality tailored to your liking? Which one would you choose?"

"Well, I don’t know…" —the kid paused for a few seconds— "I think I’d go with Madison."

"Because of the breast?"

"Not just that. The other one is too skinny. And I’m more into…"

"Overwhelming" his mom finished.

"Yeah, that’s it." They both laughed again.

The thing was that they hadn’t had conversations like that in a long time. The kid had been distant again, and his mom was worried he’d gone back to his old ways. That maybe Travolta or some other guy was causing trouble again.

She quickly pushed that thought out of her head. He seemed happy and content, maybe even happier than ever. And that was strange. She wished she could take him somewhere and spend the whole day together, because that’s the only way she could get a word out of that quiet kid. But her other daughter’s problems had made that impossible. Now they had to focus on her, just like they had on him before.

It’s a shame about Alicia, she thought. Both Ethan and his sister had inherited their father’s introversion, and Susanna was unable to connect with her in the way she had been able to with Ethan. That’s why they were spending a fortune on expensive behavioral therapy, hoping that a specialist could succeed where her parents had failed. And it seemed to be working.

Part of the blame lay with Greg, her husband. He should have used his connection with Alicia to get inside her head, just as Susanna had done with Ethan. Everyone knows that kids often bond more with their mothers than with their fathers, while girls tend to feel more connected to their fathers.

And for that same reason, Susanna had been unable to truly connect with her daughter, and there was a natural distance between them. The same distance, in fact, that existed between Ethan and his father. They just didn’t click, even though Greg wasn’t the monster he might have seemed.

An older man, well over sixty, fell for him because of the typical fascination a young student might have for a professor. Because that’s what her husband was: a professor of financial mathematics at a public university. And, frankly, a terrible professor. He was stingy with his words, barely explained the lessons, and hardly answered the students’ questions.

It wasn’t always like that when she first met him. Back then, about twenty years ago, when he was in her early forties, he seemed approachable and friendly. And she completely fell for him when she had to go to his office to get an explanation for a bad grade. The young woman left there having passed… and gotten engaged."

She soon got pregnant with Ethan, and two years later, she had Alicia, her other daughter. She had to put her studies on hold for a while to raise the two kids, but she quickly picked them back up in a ‘distance learning’ format. And now, she works as an administrative assistant in the mornings at a bank.

She often wondered if this ‘attraction’ she felt for Ethan wasn’t just because he was the only young man around. Her husband was older, he was bitter, and he couldn’t fully satisfy the aspirations and desires of a young woman like her. She stayed with him partly out of habit; because he was the father of her children, and because she still respected him in some ways; that bond of admiration and respect that exists between a teacher and a student still lingered."

Susanna, an intelligent and perceptive woman, quickly figured out what was going on with Ethan without him having to tell her. She already knew the reason for his distance, and she even knew the name and last name of the causer. Maybe that last part took her the longest to figure out, although the other thing was pretty clear from the start.

"How long had they been together?" she wondered. The sessions with Alicia had started before summer, so it could have been since then. Although the famous "separation" didn’t happen until the fall, more or less. Maybe they were building the relationship during that time…

Of course, if they were doing it during the summer, it’s easier for them not to leave any traces. But when the bad weather forced them to keep the windows closed, it became more difficult to hide the smell in Ethan’s room. A smell that she recognized perfectly, because everyone has their own unique scent, and she had a special talent for identifying them. Starting in the fall, more or less, on Wednesday nights, when she went to say goodnight to her son, the room smelled different. It wasn’t just Ethan’s usual, deep, dry scent anymore, but something softer. Something more like Alicia’s scent, although also different.

At first, she didn’t think much of it and thought it could be due to anything. But everything changed when she ran into the neighbor next door, who told her about certain "noises" that she could hear coming from her house on Wednesdays, with mathematical precision. That immediately put her on alert, and all that was left was to identify the person responsible; something she figured out pretty quickly, actually.

"Ethan, isn't there anything you need to tell me?"

The mother had entered the boy's room to put freshly ironed clothes in his closet. After performing the customary greeting—which consisted of touching fists together, then the right elbows, then foreheads, and finishing with a kiss on the lips—she blurted it out, just like that, straight out.

"Me? What do you want me to tell you?"

Mother and son looked at each other. She didn’t look away, but he did after a few seconds. He was looking at something on social media, and he glanced away towards the screen.

"Is that Emma, right?"

Hearing that word, the tablet almost slipped from his hands.

"What?"

"It’s Emma, the one you hang out with on Wednesdays. Isn’t it?"

The boy sprang up as if propelled by a coiled spring and left the room. He glanced both ways down the hallway to check if anyone else was around—specifically his sister, since his father hadn’t returned from work yet. But no. She was in her room, chatting with someone.

"Like… who else knows?" he asked, breathless, still standing in the doorway.

His mother stepped closer:

"No one knows. Not Alicia, not your father. Well… the next-door neighbor knows."

He scowled and jerked his head sharply.

"That gossiping bitch…" he muttered, clenching his fists.

"Look, kid," she tried to reason, "people have ears… and they listen. If you want to hook up with someone without anyone knowing, either do it somewhere else, or try to keep it quiet. Got it?"

Ethan fell silent and sank back into the armchair, letting his arms hang limp at his sides. Deep down, his mother was right.

"How did you know it was her? I mean… the neighbor doesn’t know her…"

"It wasn’t hard to figure out. I know you’ve been seeing her lately."

"Well, she’s a classmate. I hang out with others, too."

"You hardly hang out with anyone else" she emphasized the word hardly," if at all. And she… she hasn’t been in your class for a long time."

"Okay. And that’s the only reason?"

"Well, the neighbor also told me she was a ‘chubby’ girl. You tell me who else could it be."

The boy sighed. He thought, "That old hag was probably watching, and she saw the girl leaving this house after hearing the door close."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" the mother asked. "I thought we were friends…"

Ethan looked at her, hesitant about what to say. Finally, he decided to tell the truth.

"Because she doesn’t want people to know."

"Why not?"

"I don’t know."

"Haven’t you asked her?"

"No."

That was believable. It was part of the kid’s nature. He didn’t ask any more questions than were strictly necessary.

"Are she afraid of her mother?"

"How should I know?"

"Okay. How long have you two been together?"

The boy looked at her with eyes as cold as ice:

"What is this? An interrogation? Like…"

Pain. Intense pain. Yeah, it was an interrogation. But never, in the toughest moments of the bullying, even when more thorough interrogations took place, had the guy uttered the slightest protest. On the contrary, he had opened his heart completely to the mother’s questions.

This was a turning point, she thought. The incredibly painful realization that another woman had Ethan’s heart.

She had always known that moment would come, sooner or later, although, certainly, not so soon… She wondered if he would play the same games with her —the tickling, the gentle nibbling.

No. She didn’t want to know the answer. Even if, over time, she managed to get more information, she would never ask him, and she wouldn’t want to know.

With great effort, she tried to push those feelings aside and reconsider what she was doing. The boy might be right. She was acting like a mother, and not like a friend. Something she had always tried to avoid, for Ethan’s sake.

But at least, now she knew who had taken her son away…

She never liked Deborah, nor did she appreciate her husband’s insecurity. She was a woman who was quick to lose her temper, and who would start yelling like a crazy person the moment someone disagreed with her. However, the boy always had a special fondness for Emma, at least when they were little kids, although things changed later. And that led to a certain relationship between the two mothers during the preschool years. A relationship that had already ended, although for no particular reason."

"Don’t worry, Eth," she used the nickname she called him, only she did—. "It won’t come out of my mouth. The thing is that…"

"The thing is, you're jealous, Mom," he interrupted.

It stung her as much as if someone had stabbed her. What bothered her the most was that she had not called her "Sussi," which is what she should have done when he called her ‘Eth’ But no, she called her "Mom." That almost hurt even more than saying she was jealous.

Was she really jealous? she wondered.

"No, no, Eth. I’m not jealous. What hurts is…" she paused. Even she wasn’t sure if it was jealousy. No. It had to be something else, something she was about to say:

"What hurts is that you didn’t tell me. That we’ve lost the trust we used to have."

He said nothing. Maybe his mother was right, after all. Perhaps he hadn’t acted correctly, and by being loyal to his girlfriend, he had omitted the sacred duty of telling her everything. A duty that was etched into his soul, and that had saved him from drowning when he suffered bullying back in the day.

"Just tell me one thing," she continued. "Do you love her?"

The boy let a slight smile play on the corner of his lips:

"Like crazy, Sussi."