"Is everything alright, Honeybear?" Bethany Black wasn't used to seeing her daughter look quite so angry. Karyn could certainly be grumpy at times, and teenagers will be teenagers. But this morning it looked almost as though Karyn was wearing the wrong skin.
"I'm fine!" Biff snapped with Karyn's voice, through Karyn's teeth.
Bethany felt that her daughter didn't sound fine. But she did not object verbally, she just took the hand that by all appearances should have been Karyn's, placed her other hand on the back that should by all appearances be Karyn's, and gently guided Biff to sit down on the sofa with her.
Biff, for his part, found himself instinctively following Bethany's lead. Like she'd done this with him a hundred times before. Biff's body was telling him that the hand on his back was comforting, and he found himself subconsciously relaxing into it as Bethany began rubbing in the way she always did when she wanted to calm her daughter down.
Slowly, and begrudgingly, Biff's anger melted down into something else, dripped down his throat from the burning in his head and settled into a pool of something heavy and not quite as hot, resting in his belly. And just as Bethany knew would happen, even as it caught Biff entirely by surprise, tears began to flow down his cheeks.
Bethany curled around and wrapped her other arm around Biff, and his face instinctively found her shoulder, and the tears poured out even faster.
Biff couldn't remember the last time he'd cried. Why was he crying now?
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong now, Honeybear?"
And he wanted to. Heaven help him, Biff wanted to tell her what was wrong.
"It's Jon Gibson," Biff finally acknowledged after the tears had died down.
"Jon?" Bethany furrowed her brow. "But he's usually so sweet. What did he do?"
"I don't know," Biff pouted. Since when did Biff pout? "But I know he's the reason I feel like this."
"And how do you feel?"
"I don't know!" Biff cried, as the tears returned in full force.
"Alright, alright." Bethany's hand was on Biff's back again. "You know what? I'm caught up at work, nobody's going to mind if I'm twenty minutes late. Why don't you stay here on the sofa and I'll bring out some breakfast for you, and we can talk a bit, and then I'll drive you to school. You get a little more time to settle down, and you don't have to see Jon on the way to school. Is that alright?"
Biff nodded as he wiped his face with his sleeve.
And Bethany left for a few minutes, and she returned with some buttered toast and some scrambled eggs, and she tried to get her daughter to have a little bit of conversation, but she never seemed to answer any questions with more than two words.
And Biff ate, and he sulked, and he tried to reason out what could have happened to him. And despite all outward appearances, he was glad that his mom was there for him.
Karyn's mom. Biff was glad that Karyn's mom had been there for him. Even though she was definitely not his mom. She was comforting nevertheless.
