We debated whether to forbid her. Martin argued for it, clenching his fists. “She’s nineteen,” I reminded him. “Not a child we can ground.” “Nineteen isn’t an adult either,” he shot back. He wasn’t wrong. We were trapped in the gray space between wanting to protect and control her.
When I asked her, point-blank, if this was a romantic relationship, she laughed. Her face was unreadable, and perhaps, a hint of sadness around her eyes unsettled me. “You’re doing it again. Imagining the worst,” she said. And yet she gave us nothing more. We had to make do with this vague denial, if that was what it was.