Read In a Second (Friendship, RI Book 3) By Kate Canterbary Chapter 57 – Today’s vocabulary word: quarry
I waited as long as possible to pack for the trip back to Michigan. Ridiculous as it was, I held a sliver of hope that my attorney would call, saying Maddie dropped the petition or the court refused to hear the case on the grounds of total absurdity. Or that for once in my whole fucking life, the universe would give me a pass and let me skip the most complicated, convoluted path. But that didn’t happen.
It wasn’t until reading Percy a bedtime story the night before our eight a.m. flight that I finally took stock of the home he’d made for himself in Audrey’s spare bedroom and realized it was time to take it all apart.
Once he was asleep, I gathered an armful of stuffed friends—the ones he wouldn’t miss if another nightmare woke him up—and tucked them into the suitcase alongside his boxer shorts and t-shirts. It felt final in a way I didn’t want to look in the eye, as if we weren’t just leaving but dismantling everything we’d found here.
I knew this wasn’t the end. I knew there’d be another step, another chapter for us—for me and Percy and Audrey—but only if it didn’t undo the fragile peace we’d brokered here. Whatever came next, it had to be better than the mess behind us. Anything was better than nothing, right?
But there were limits to that anything. I lived in Virginia. This custody situation could land me in Michigan. And Audrey—and the world she’d created for herself—were in neither of those places. I couldn’t ask her to leave any of this and I didn’t want her to give up this place and these people for me.
She’d already given up enough for me.
I found her in the living room with her own armful of Percy’s toys and books. ‘Quite the blast zone this kid leaves behind him,’ I said.
‘It’s not that bad.’ She pulled a book from between the sofa cushions. ‘He’s comfortable here. I like that,’ she added softly.
I went to her, plucking the toys from her hold. ‘I like it too.’
She stepped away, her lips rolled tight together as she nodded to herself. She reached into Bagel’s crate and pulled out another book. ‘He’ll want this in his backpack,’ she said, waving a graphic novel. ‘I noticed he rereads it a lot.’
I took the book and pressed a kiss to her temple. She leaned into me and I hated that we had to leave, that we couldn’t hide from the real world long enough to knit ourselves together tight enough that we could stand up to every cannonball that came our way.
‘Thank you,’ I said to her skin. ‘And thank you for putting up with us. I know you didn’t ask for this and—’
Her hand landed on my chest. ‘Don’t thank me,’ she said. ‘Just—come back. To me. When you can. That’s all I need.’
I dropped another kiss on her forehead, held her as close as the stuffed animals would allow. ‘You won’t be able to keep me away.’
I returned to the spare room to pack while Audrey resumed the hunt for Percy’s stray goods. She peeked in when I was almost finished, holding his discharge papers from the hospital and antibiotic ointment. ‘Could you put that in my backpack?’ I whispered, pointing to the forms. ‘And the antibiotic with my toiletries?’
With a brief nod, she crossed the hall into the room I thought of as ours. It wouldn’t be ours tomorrow; it would be hers once again. I didn’t care to think about her alone in that bed, in this house. Didn’t wish to think about her life without us. Didn’t want to start another argument with myself about asking her to come to Michigan for the hearing. She had to get her classroom ready for students and had school meetings coming up later in the week, and the last place she wanted to be was Arenac County Family Court.
Once I had Percy’s things packed away and his clothes out for the morning, I left his door slightly ajar and stepped into our room. Experience had taught me how to pack for myself in five minutes flat but that didn’t make—
‘What’s this?’
Audrey stood on the other side of the room, my clothes folded in neat piles on the bed and my bags open around her. She pinched a small silver ring between two fingers and stared at me like she’d discovered proof that I was a serial killer.
A startled laugh rumbled out of me because if that ring proved anything, it was that she was the real killer.
‘I need you to start talking immediately,’ she said. ‘Where did you get this? And when?’
I closed the door behind us and leaned back against it, my arms crossed and a breath trapped in my chest just like the day that ring arrived. The day I knew she was gone and not coming back for me. ‘I’ve had it since you mailed it back to me, Saunders. Right after you left for California.’
‘I never— No. I never would’ve done that.’
‘It came with a note saying you’d decided it was time for us to go off into the world on our own and hoping I could understand.’
She pressed a hand to her forehead, letting her eyes shut for a second. ‘I didn’t write that note.’
If I could’ve done one thing differently back then, it would’ve been questioning the validity of that note. I should’ve picked up on the stiff wording, the mangled sign-off of Wishing you all the best and lots of love, Your friend Audrey. The fact that it’d been typed and not handwritten. But being eighteen didn’t come with that kind of perspective.
‘I thought I lost it.’ She ran a finger around the silver band. ‘The only reason I went home at the end of the semester was to turn my bedroom upside down for it. I spent years looking for it. I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking I knew where it was and tear my dorm room apart.’ She peered at the thin band, at the single lilac bloom preserved in clear resin. Not the lilac stone she’d requested but the placeholder—the promise—I’d given to her on her seventeenth birthday. ‘I thought it was gone but you had it. And you kept it right here with you, all this time.’
That part, I couldn’t explain. Because there was no clean way to say It was the only real proof I had that you’d ripped my heart out, claimed it as your own, and then mailed the dead, pointless muscle back to me. To say I could hate you when I stared at that ring and that felt better than missing you. To say The sight of that ring was torture but nothing hurt worse than being separated from it.
No way to say You broke me and I never recovered.
Because I couldn’t lay that blame at her feet. It hadn’t been her choice or her fault, and I’d been too young, too naïve, too drunk off my resentment of the wealthy world she came from to see what was happening. To understand that the girl I’d adored so thoroughly, so completely hadn’t woken up one morning and decided she didn’t want me anymore. That our plans weren’t good enough for her, our promises weren’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.
And I’d let that crystallize into facts as I believed them.
She swept a tear from her lashes and I felt that pain square in my chest. I pushed off the door but she held up a hand, shaking her head as she said, ‘No. I need you to stay over there for a minute.’
I didn’t like it but I didn’t argue.
She went on staring at the ring, the dainty silver polished to a shine because yes, I did clean it regularly and no, I had yet to grow tired of hurting my own feelings.
‘Why did you try to stop my wedding?’
Her words were quiet, almost as if she didn’t intend for me to hear them. But they were also a wall, solid and tangible enough for me to flatten my hand against.
‘I know I was terrible to you that day,’ she continued, ‘but I was scared that my father was going to see you. I knew he’d do something heinous and I couldn’t let that happen. Not after everything I’d done to protect you.’
My jaw tightened and I felt it all the way in the back of my neck. ‘You could’ve left with me instead. Saved everyone a lot of grief.’
‘Why were you there?’
I crossed my arms, leaned one shoulder against the door. ‘Because I had to see it for myself. That it was what you wanted.’
‘But you knew it wasn’t.’
‘Mmhmm. Yeah. Pretty obvious, considering you looked like you were being marched to the gallows,’ I said.
‘You let me go through with it,’ she said.
‘What was I supposed to do, Audrey? Kidnap you? Throw you and your fucking ball gown on the back of my bike, and take off? The restraining order had just expired and you fucking told me to leave. You hadn’t answered a single email in four years and all the letters I sent came back undeliverable, and—’
‘Emails?’ She glanced up at me then, all agony. ‘What emails?’
I stared at her for a moment, that teenage vow still pressed between her fingers and our history filling the room, ghosts and shadows curling in around us. ‘Then you don’t remember everything that happened that night in Sedona. With the ecstasy,’ I added.
Even more color drained from her face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘After you danced with every bull rider in southern Utah—’
‘It wasn’t every bull rider.’
‘One bull rider is enough for me.’ I held her gaze until the corner of her mouth kicked up. ‘You said something about how you left for California and it was over, and you were alone. And I couldn’t understand how you’d say that when I emailed you for months. A year went by without a single response but that didn’t stop me.’
I’d always known her parents had a hand in sending her away but it was the ensuing silence that’d really fucked with my head. To my mind, even if her parents were calling the shots, she wouldn’t have turned on me like that. And it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d screw with her email.
She brought a hand to her neck. ‘I never—’ Turning a pained gaze to the ceiling, she said, ‘I didn’t get them.’
‘I know. You told me that in Sedona.’ I pushed away from the door. ‘The ecstasy told me first but then I knew when you asked about Caltech. Right from the start, I told you about my plans to transfer. I wanted to make the move in the spring semester but they didn’t have space in the engineering program. Half the messages were my ramblings on the Jet Propulsion Lab and making the switch to aeronautics.’
‘How…how is any of this possible? How did I not get these emails?’
‘I can tell you but you’re going to have to forgive me for a massive invasion of your privacy first.’
Eyes flashing, she snapped, ‘What?’
I crossed the room to grab my laptop. ‘Remember my friend Jordan? He works in private security and has access to the kind of hackers who know how to get to the bottom of problems like this one.’
‘You’ve been in my email?’
‘Not exactly, no.’ I shot her a glance as I keyed in my password. ‘But Jordan Kaisall’s hacker has and he came back with the results this morning.’
She paced away from me, kneading the bridge of her nose. ‘My god. Jude.’
‘They found everything from me sequestered in a hidden folder,’ I said, motioning to the screencaps Kaisall had sent. ‘And anything you tried to send me landed in a dead-end drafts folder. Same story with texts sent from our old phone numbers.’
‘But I have emails from you. Back in June, the flight info. And I responded to you.’
‘They think something reset on the back end when you changed your email handle. After you got married.’ I cleared my throat. ‘You still couldn’t see the messages but we would’ve been able to send and receive emails. We just didn’t try again until recently.’
‘I can’t believe they did this to me.’ She glanced at the screen but then quickly away as if it hurt to even see the evidence. ‘At the same time, I absolutely believe it. The only truly unbelievable part is that I didn’t think of it.’
I didn’t need any clarification to know we were talking about her parents. I still didn’t understand how such objectively terrible people could’ve created someone as gentle and loving and precious as Audrey. Or how she’d managed to escape their world in one piece.
‘I should’ve known they’d use their tools against me,’ she said. ‘I’d overheard enough conversations about tapping into a candidate’s email accounts or a journalist’s voicemails to know they had that kind of reach. I just didn’t think…’ She gave a sad, tired shrug and it sent an ache spiraling through my chest. ‘But I should’ve.’
I closed my laptop and set it aside, and then quickly shifted all the clothes piled on her bed into my suitcase. I sat on the edge, pulled her between my legs. ‘No one expects their family to betray them,’ I said, seating her on my lap. ‘Don’t blame yourself for what they did.’
She shook her head at the ring. ‘Every time I thought about this ring, my heart broke all over again. I felt like I’d failed you. I mean, I knew you hated me for it all, but it only made it worse knowing I couldn’t even keep track of this one perfect thing I had left of you.’
I took it from her, slipped it onto her fourth finger. ‘I didn’t hate you.’ She gave me her Please don’t fucking lie to me face. ‘Would I have kept this if I hated you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe it fueled your rage.’
‘Or maybe I just never stopped loving you. Even when it killed me.’
‘Sounds brutal.’
‘You’d know. You lived through it too,’ I said, my chin on her shoulder. ‘Worse, probably, since you married that dickbag.’
She laughed at that but it was short-lived. ‘Why does it have to be so hard for us?’ she asked, the words a whisper. ‘Every time we get close, the world shows up with a wrecking ball.’
She wasn’t wrong. Life—our families, surprise babies, death, disease, custody situations—liked jamming up the gears. ‘It doesn’t have to be that way anymore.’
Another hard, quick laugh. ‘How do you figure?’
I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me though it didn’t seem close enough. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in court this week and I can’t guess how your parents will try to manipulate your life next—’
‘They’ve been trying to marry me off to a big finance guy.’
‘Do us both a favor and don’t go through with it this time,’ I said, nipping at her jaw. ‘Listen, we don’t know what’s coming next but I know I’m coming back here. This kid and I, we’ve spent a long time trying to figure out where we belong and now we know that place is with you.’
‘But what about Penny’s family?’
‘I don’t want to guess what will happen with Brenda or Maddie but I know we’re coming back to you,’ I said, pressing a finger to her lips. ‘All I want to hear is whether you want to stay in this house, this town—or if you want to find somewhere new for our family. And yes, that family does include Percy’s brother Bagel.’
‘He’d riot if Bagel wasn’t included.’
‘He’d tear this place apart brick by brick.’ I set her beside me on the mattress and then stood, yanking off my shirt as I went. Her gaze tracked my every move. The jeans followed. I shifted to the head of the bed, pulling down the sheets and blankets. ‘Come here,’ I said, beckoning her closer.
Weary eyes stared back at me but then a smile tugged the corner of her mouth and she crawled between the sheets. She tucked herself into my side when we met in the middle, her head on my shoulder and her hair silky where it spilled over my arm.
‘You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ she asked.
‘To hang around a hotel for a few days while I deal with the contractors working at Brenda’s place? Or hang around the courthouse while the judge meets with Percy? No, princess, you don’t need any of that in your life. And you have that math curriculum meeting and then you need time to set up your classroom.’
She murmured as if she didn’t like that response. ‘Bagel is really going to miss his brother.’
‘He loves that dog,’ I said, sweeping my palm down her back. ‘And he loves you too.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, hiding her face in my chest.
‘No.’ I kissed the crown of her head. ‘I thought I knew what it meant to love you, but seeing my son love you a little more every day? And seeing you love him right back?’ I pressed a hand to my chest. ‘I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would hit me. How inadequate it feels to say I love you. But I need you to know there’s nothing I won’t do for you two. Whatever wrecking balls come our way, I’m ready for them. Even your parents and all the socially appropriate husbands they send after you.’
‘I love you too,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s about time I deal with them. Once and for all.’
‘You could take them apart one-handed,’ I said. ‘That’s how fucking strong you are, princess.’
‘I don’t always feel that strong.’
‘You’re not supposed to,’ I said, twisting her hair around my palm. ‘You’re not supposed to carry heavy shit all the time. It’s being able to put it down that builds the strength.’
Audrey nodded against my chest though it didn’t feel much like agreement. I reached over and switched off the bedside lamp. Darkness fell on the room and the patchworked quiet of suburbia settled around us.
‘Wait. Is this finance guy the one who walked you to the door?’ I gave her hair a slight tug. ‘The night we came in from Michigan?’
An extraordinary pause and then, ‘Yeah.’
‘Motherfuck.’ I slapped the sheets with my free hand. ‘I knew I should’ve broken his nose when I had the chance.’
‘It’s good that you didn’t.’
‘Debatable, Saunders. Highly debatable.’
Read In a Second (Friendship, RI Book 3) By Kate Canterbary Chapter 58 – Today’s vocabulary word: instigate
My stomach was a swirling cauldron of stress and anxiety and pure, uncut rage. It simmered the entire trip to my parents’ house in the Hamptons, so much that my heart thudded in my chest and my jaw ached from clenching. I wanted to press a finger to the place where it twisted inside me, to hold it down and suffocate the strength from it.
I might’ve been able to do that if not for the prenuptial agreement that’d been delivered to my door this morning.
Silly me to think I’d seen the last of Brecken Wilhamsen. For another woman living another life, he’d probably make for a thoroughly adequate husband. Hell, there was a time when I was that different woman and I would’ve taught myself how to be content with him. But I wasn’t her anymore.
I knew it wouldn’t make me any less swirly and stressy but I opened my phone and went to the link Jude sent last night when he’d arrived in Saginaw, one with all our missing messages. It opened on that day, the one where it’d all fallen apart.
Audrey,
What the hell is going on? Why aren’t you answering your phone?
Call me. I’m freaking out over here.
Audrey,
I don’t know what the fuck is happening but Cassidy said you changed your mind about Barnard and decided to go to Pepperdine instead? I don’t trust her and I’m not going to believe it until I hear it from you.
Love you,
It scares me that you haven’t responded to any of these messages or texts or calls.
This feels like one of your dad’s power moves and I don’t like any of it.
Please call me. I don’t care what’s going on, I just need to know you’re okay.
Love you.
My mom sent me your engagement announcement today.
Maybe I’m fooling myself but I still don’t get it. I’ve spent four years trying to figure it out and I just don’t understand any of it. This isn’t who you are and I refuse to believe you woke up one morning and threw away the person I’ve always known you to be.
I don’t know if you’re reading this. One of the theories I’ve nurtured since the start of your disappearing act is that you’ve had me blocked or muted for years, and I’m just screaming into cyberspace. But if you are reading this and you need help, I’ll do anything I can. I don’t care how long it’s been or what’s changed between us. I’ll always be there for you.
I think I should probably stop writing to you now.
Jude
I didn’t like being the person ugly-crying on public transit, but here I was, tears streaming down my face while I loudly sniffled. Mortifying. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to tighten the laces on these emotions.
I tried to rehearse what I’d say, but nothing came to me. As much as I wanted to—needed to—I couldn’t call up the words. I was terrified I’d walk in there and have…nothing. That I’d cower from the confrontation like usual. That, once again, I’d make the worst choices when it meant the most.
It turned out that I didn’t need to worry about any of that.
As I stepped inside my parents’ home, I noticed an ornate ship in a bottle displayed on a hall table. It was made to look old, an antique, but like everything else here, it was fake and soulless.
I knocked it off the table.
A housekeeper came running at the sound of shattering glass. When she skidded to a halt, I said, ‘Make sure they know it was me.’
With a nod, she motioned toward the backyard. I let myself believe that tip came from a place of solidarity even though it probably had more to do with the fact I walked in here and started breaking shit, and she didn’t want any part of that.
I pushed a large vase to the edge of a table and grinned when it crashed as I strolled out toward the flagstone patio. My mother was seated near the pool under a massive umbrella, a tablet in her lap and several newspapers fanned out on the table. A tray with half a grapefruit and an empty glass streaked with swampy green debris was parked off to the side. My father stood at the edge of the yard, a golf club in hand as he surveyed the balls scattered in the grass.
Neither noticed me and I decided that was a good thing. I was the one in control this time. Calm clarity settled over me like I’d finally found the eye of my hurricane.
‘I know what you did,’ I said. ‘When you sent me to California. I know everything.’
My mother startled in her seat, a hand fluttering to her chest. ‘What in the world? Audrey? What are you doing here?’
No, there was nothing orderly about this conversation and I wanted it that way. If I’d thought it would help, I would’ve built a slide deck and clicked through a bullet-pointed presentation. But I couldn’t rely on reason with people who hacked email accounts and filed bullshit restraining orders. People who believed quite earnestly that marrying me off to Chris had been a good idea. It wasn’t like they’d hear my concerns and acknowledge the harm done.
Breaking shit and yelling was the only option.
‘I’m not going to bother asking why you did it,’ I said. ‘But believe me when I say this is the end.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, turning back to her tablet, ‘but I won’t tolerate you storming in here like this and creating a scene.’
I gestured to the space, empty save for my father. ‘You’re the one making the scene.’
‘Cassidy is here for the week and she’s on the beach with the children,’ she said. ‘They don’t need to come up here and find you in the middle of a breakdown.’
‘All I’m doing is asking you to explain the shit you pulled when you shipped me off to Pepperdine.’
‘Would you listen to yourself? You’re hysterical. You sound like you’ve lost your mind,’ she said. ‘Go inside and get a drink. I’ll talk to you when you’re thinking clearly again.’
The shrill cut of her words must’ve gained my father’s attention because he ambled across the yard, the putter loose in his grip. ‘When did you get here?’
That was his version of a warm greeting.
‘She’s having one of her tantrums again,’ my mother said to him. ‘She’s speaking in riddles and nonsense. She’s going to make herself sick if she doesn’t calm down.’
‘I’m perfectly calm,’ I said, ‘but I’m not leaving here without some answers.’
‘If this is about Wilhamsen, I’ve already looked over the documents. You’ll sign them,’ he said. ‘No arguments.’
He eyed me with resentment so thick and profound that I could taste it in the back of my throat. Now that I saw it from this distance, I knew it’d always been this way. I’d put everything into being right, being good enough—and for what? Because this wasn’t family. It wasn’t love. And I’d let myself linger in this sodden place too long.
‘Please don’t tell me that lowlife is back,’ my mother said. ‘After everything we did to protect you from him? What could he possibly want from you now?’
‘Can you hear yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying to me?’ When she only turned an impatient glare in my direction, I clapped my hands together and barreled ahead. ‘I’ll simplify it for you. I know about the emails you blocked, about the forged note you sent with the ring you hid from me, and I know about the restraining order. Explain.’
My mother went back to aggressively swiping her tablet. ‘I don’t know which ring you’re talking about.’
‘But the emails and the restraining order? That rings some bells?’ I asked.
‘It’s ancient history,’ my father said, lolling the club back and forth.
Sweat rolled down my spine but my voice was steady. ‘You promised me you’d leave him alone. If I went to California, you wouldn’t do anything to him.’
‘Call it an insurance policy.’ The sneering laugh that followed made me wish I’d broken more things on my way out here. ‘What’s the point of all this?’
‘The point is that I am finished with you and your manipulations.’
He scoffed and turned back toward the grass. ‘Don’t waste my time with these theatrics.’
‘Just tell me why you sent him the ring,’ I said.
‘For the last time, we know nothing about a ring,’ my mother said. ‘Is this a real thing? You’re sure you haven’t dreamed it up?’
‘Oh my god,’ I muttered to myself.
‘What’s going on here?’
Glancing away from my parents, I found my sister crossing the yard. She wore a blinding white sarong over a black bikini and a straw hat that could shelter five people in a storm. A pair of children came up behind her, along with a middle-aged woman with several beach bags over her shoulders.
I really, really didn’t want to see my sister today.
‘Audrey’s convinced herself that we stole a ring from her years ago,’ my father said, his words sopping up his disdain. ‘She’s come here to scream at us about it.’
A predator’s grin spread across Cassidy’s face as she stared at me. ‘Nanny, take the babies inside,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t want Aunt Audrey frightening them again.’
She didn’t look at her children or the woman whose name probably wasn’t Nanny as they filed into the house. I’d met her kids a handful of times. They’d been too young to remember, still too young to remember much, but it was important for her to toss in the again.
Holt’s first birthday party was one of those times, because my mother had sworn Cassidy wanted me there but was too nervous to ask directly. I should’ve seen the lie for what it was but I’d missed it. Just as I’d missed all the food at this party triggering my bridge troll gut. Me hastily handing one-year-old Holt to his father so I could make it to the bathroom in time had turned into me being unsafe around children. Yes, that was a real thing my family said.
The other time was my mother’s sixty-fifth birthday party, a big country club affair with an unironic Gone With the Wind theme. She’d allowed me to believe she was dying and she wanted her whole family together one last time. Except she hadn’t been dying, not imminently. She’d needed a pacemaker. In the three years since that party—when I’d held little Cassen and he’d accidentally headbutted me, leaving him screaming and me with a split lip—she’d been fine.
‘Someone lost a ring?’ Cassidy asked, sweet venom in her voice.
My mother waved an exasperated hand in my direction. ‘Audrey believes we’ve robbed her of something. Honestly, as if I have the time for this kind of drama.’
My sister crossed her arms over her bare torso, that eerie smile still stretched across her face. ‘Was it that cheap little flower ring? That purple one?’
All the blood left my body and in its place, ice water. ‘How would you know, Cassidy?’
‘I did you a big favor and mailed it back to that grungy boyfriend of yours when you went off to college.’ She cupped a hand around her mouth like she was letting me in on a secret. ‘Made sure he knew it was dead, done, and over, if you know what I mean. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? That’s why you left it at home when you moved out. Right?’
It was good that ice pumped through my veins now. That I was frozen from the inside out. Because I gave Cassidy nothing but stone-faced silence.
‘Why are you asking about it now?’ She shuffled her sandals against the patio decking. ‘It’s been a million years.’
I held up my hand, wiggled my fourth finger where the ring now sat. ‘Because I recently got it back.’
Her eyes widened. She didn’t have the decency to look guilty when caught in her lies and she didn’t apologize. She gave me a dismissive flounce and strolled toward the house. With a hard chuckle, she said, ‘Good luck with that. You’re gonna need it.’
‘Audrey, please tell me you haven’t taken up with that boy again,’ my mother said. ‘We’ve done so much to correct for your mistakes and paper over the messes you made. We’re not going down that road again. And what will Brecken—’
‘I am not marrying Brecken,’ I snapped.
My father whirled around, the club leveled inches from my face. ‘You will do what we damn well tell you or—’
I snatched the club away and flung it into the pool. ‘Or what? Explain it to me. I’d like to know. I have a job, a home, and my own money. I haven’t taken a cent from you in years. So what is it you intend to do to me?’
‘Watch your mouth, young lady.’ My father’s face turned the color of an overripe tomato. ‘You’ll show me respect when you’re in my home,’ he seethed. ‘Or I’ll toss you out of here on your ass. Good luck making it without me then.’
‘That’s what you think you’re demanding? Respect? Because it sounds a lot more like compliance.’
‘We stopped you from ruining your life,’ he roared, spittle flying with every word. ‘If we hadn’t stepped in, you would’ve run off with that delinquent and he would’ve dropped you as soon as he realized you didn’t come with a blank check.’
‘No, you save the blank checks for the spineless sycophants because they cut you in on their backroom deals and give you these sweetheart spots pulling the strings with their political action committees. You don’t care who they are or what they take as long as you’re close enough to get high off the power.’
‘Stop it right now.’ My mother jolted to her feet. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you but that’s enough.’
I met my father’s vicious glare. I could almost see steam rising off his head. ‘You better clean up that mouth by the next time I see you or you can kiss any inheritance good-bye.’
‘Here’s the thing.’ I pressed my palms together, tapped my fingers against my lips. ‘When I leave here now, I’m going to go find that delinquent—the one who still loves me despite the utter shitstorm you rained down on him—and ruin my life the way I should’ve a long time ago. I’ll be too busy with that to care about what happens to me when your life’s over.’
‘You’ll regret this,’ he shouted.
‘The only thing I’ll ever regret is not walking out the first time you threatened me.’
I turned toward the house as my mother said, ‘We are not finished here. Don’t take another step.’
‘Just think of all the time you’ll have for Cassidy and her kids now,’ I said. ‘You always liked her better anyway.’
‘There won’t be a penny from us,’ my father yelled.
I nodded, giving them a thoughtful glance when I reached the threshold. ‘I think I’ll be okay without it.’
My whole body shook as I walked through the house, their angry voices dulling into the growing distance between us. I paused near the front door, where the glass had already been swept away. So I flipped over the table.
I went on shaking as I drove to the ferry terminal, my mind soft in a blur of sunlight and summer hydrangeas and the sound of wind through my open windows. My ribs and shoulders ached from bracing myself for so long.
I knew I’d crash soon. I’d come down from this almighty adrenaline rush and feel like the morning after the high of Janet’s ecstasy. But for right now, I rolled the windows all the way down and let the ocean air fill my lungs.
I walked straight into the fight this time and I’d survived. All I had to do now was show up for the next fight.
