Backbone

A boy's crush is complicated by his parents' troubled marriage.

"His father offered him the bag of pretzels and he took one. He thought his father might say something else, about Monica, or the movies, but he didn’t. They walked down Main in the glow of empty shop windows, taking their time, the only people out and about tonight. If his mother wasn’t ready for them at home it wouldn’t be any good to go back now. 'Do men and women think alike?' Greg said."