by Kelly Oram
My parents have always believed in principles like hard work and responsibility, so I’m on my own for all my living expenses once I move out. I’ve got a full ride academic scholarship for UVU, so my tuition and dorm fees are covered. I’ll be fine with whatever part-time job I end up with, but things like season lift tickets, which cost over a thousand bucks, will be slightly out of my minimum wage budget.
“Maybe we can work something out,” my dad teased, even though we both knew he’d eventually give. I was his daughter, after all. There’s no way I’d survive a winter without hitting the slopes on a regular basis any more than he would.
By the time dinner was over, I’d sweet-talked him into the premium pass with the fast track, night ski, and parking. “We have to get out of here before she’s talked me into buying her a new car, too,” Dad groaned as we left the restaurant.
In my dreams. I thought about having my own wheels as I climbed into the backseat of my parents’ car. “That’s actually a great idea, Dad.”
“Ha! Nice try, kid.”
Frowning at my dad in the rearview mirror, I was unable to keep the whine out of my voice. “It wouldn’t have to be new. I’m not picky. I’d totally settle for an ugly, old junker. So long as it runs, I’m good to go.”
My parents laughed again, but I was on a roll. “No, think about it. Avery is going to be at UVU with Grayson. They’ll never need to come back to Spanish Fork. If I had a car, I wouldn’t be at their mercy for rides. I could drive myself home whenever I wanted. I swear, I would come home and see you every weekend.”
“Yeah, so you can do your laundry for free,” Mom joked.
“Even better,” I said. “Then I’m guaranteed to be stuck at home with you for a good hour or two while I wait for my clothes to be done. Seriously, you guys, if you really want more time with me next year, this is totally the best way.”
My dad started the car, but didn’t go anywhere. He watched me in the mirror and eventually turned around to look at me. “You’re right,” he said.
Holy crap on a cracker! “I am?”
“If the goal is to get you to come home more often, then having a car would really help, so I’ll tell you what…”
I almost squeaked. I was dying. Was he seriously about to tell me he’d buy me a car?
“Your mother and I want to get you something special as a graduation present. We’d already talked about getting you a season lift ticket, but instead I’ll give you the choice: a season lift ticket every winter that you are a full-time college student, or a car. Either way, you must use your graduation present to spend time with us while you are in college.”
And there went all my excitement. “I have to choose?” I gasped in dread. “How can I possibly choose between a car and snowboarding?”
My dad chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. Now…” He cleared his throat and finally pulled the car out of the parking lot. “Since you aren’t officially on your own yet, I can still spring for a hotel room for you if you want to stay up here tonight and watch the competition tomorrow without feeling like I’m spoiling you rotten.”
My brain had been stuck on “car or snowboarding,” but his question snapped me back to the present. “Oh.” I had to think of an excuse. I had plans with Owen this weekend, but I didn’t necessarily want to have to explain that to them. “Um, well, I didn’t pack a bag or anything.”
“That’s okay,” Mom said. “You could drop us off and then go home and pack a bag and come back. Call Avery and invite her to stay the night up here with you. I’m sure she’d love to watch the competition, too. Then we could all hit the mountain together for a night session tomorrow. It’ll be fun.”
“Yeah,” Dad added with a laugh, “and you could use the drive there and back to contemplate your graduation present decision.”
Crap. My parents were in such a good mood. They’d been so good to me today, and I really didn’t want to let them down, but I’d already promised Owen I’d spend the weekend with him. He’d felt guilty for ditching me last weekend when Avery and Grayson caught us at Jo’s, and booked us a night at a fancy hotel in Salt Lake.
The smile fell off my mom’s face. “You don’t want to come?”
“No, I do. Of course I do.” I sighed. I didn’t want to let them down, but I couldn’t blow off Owen, either. “I just already have plans with Owen all day tomorrow. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to make it.”
“So stay home tonight, and invite Owen to come up with you in the morning,” Dad suggested. “I’ll bet he won’t mind. Most guys think that kind of thing is cool. It’s a lot better of a date than going to some cheesy girl movie.”
“I’ll ask him,” I said, though I seriously doubted he’d want to come. He probably would like watching the competition, but he’s got issues with meeting parents.
“It’s my last one, honey. I’d really love for you to be there.”
“I know, Dad. I don’t want to miss it. I’ll try to be there.”
Dad smiled at me in the rearview mirror again, but I saw the strain in it. We rode in silence to the hotel where my parents were staying. Once we pulled up to the valet, I got out to climb into the driver’s seat. As we waited for the bellman to gather my parents’ luggage from the trunk, I gave my dad a good luck hug. “I’ll try to be there,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “But just in case I don’t make it, you’re going to kick derrière tomorrow. I know it.”
“Thanks, kid.”
He forced another smile, trying to hide his disappointment, but I saw it, and I swallowed. Hard. One glance at my mom told me she was doing her best to look happy, too. Guilt swelled in my chest, and I couldn’t get Avery’s intervention out of my head—all the disappointment and all the accusations that had been thrown at me. “Have I…changed this year?” I asked, surprising all three of us.
I’ve never been one to be very open with my parents. I love them, but they’re good-looking, popular, athletic people. As much as I admire them and get along with them, I’ve never felt that they understood me. At least, they couldn’t relate to the kinds of struggles I had anyway, so I’ve never tried to share it with them.
After exchanging a look, Dad put his arm around Mom and let her do the talking. “Everyone changes, Libby. It’s expected at your age.”
“Yeah, I guess, but…” I bit my lip. I suddenly wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak without my voice breaking. “Do you think I’ve changed in a bad way? Are you disappointed in me?”
I got another round of forced—almost pained—smiles. “You’re growing up,” Dad said. “We know that’s not easy. Sometimes it takes a while to really figure it out.”
So that was a big, fat yes. First my friends were upset with me, and now my parents—they were just too nice to say it directly.
Mom must have read my thoughts in my expression. “We’re not disappointed in you, Libby. We’re worried. We know you’ve been struggling lately.”
“If you’ve been worried, why haven’t you said anything?”
Dad sighed and handed the valet guy a tip. “Give us just a minute.”
The guy nodded, and Dad walked me over to a bench outside the front door of the hotel. He and Mom sat on either side of me. “You know how Grandpa and I don’t have the best relationship, right?” he asked.
I snorted. Not the best relationship? More like completely dysfunctional. Grandpa was okay, but he and my dad couldn’t be in the same room for more than five minutes without getting in a fight.
“Well, when I was your age, if you can believe it, our relationship was even worse.”
I laughed again. “Considering you got Mom pregnant your senior year, I’m not surprised.”
Mom and Dad both sighed, and Dad elbowed me, trying to keep a little bit of playfulness in the conversation. “True,” he said. “I gave him hell that year. But we’d had problems long before you came into the picture. I fought with him my whole life. I always felt like he disapproved of who I was, and he was always tr
ying to push me to do things his way. The more he pushed, the more I fought him. We were practically strangers.”
“I had a lot of the same problems with my parents,” Mom said. She smiled again, and this time it was more sincere. “My parents weren’t thrilled with my boyfriend, and they had some very strong opinions about how I should take care of my pregnancy. They wanted to send me away to college and raise you themselves. They wanted to break your dad and me up.”
I nodded, already knowing all the details of this story. I’d heard it many times, in grumbled bursts from both my parents and my grandparents. Truthfully, the three of us—my parents and I—had been mostly on our own my whole life, because there was too much contention with my grandparents on both sides. And if my dad’s parents and my mom’s parents ever had to be together—forget it. World War III. They hated each other, and hated each other’s kids. The only thing any of them agreed on was me. They all loved me, but they all had their own ideas of how I should be raised. And those ideas definitely didn’t match how my parents had actually raised me.
I frowned up at my parents. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Dad slid his arm around my shoulders and gently tugged me to his side. “We didn’t want that kind of relationship with you. We didn’t want you to grow up and resent us or hate us. We didn’t want you to fight with us the way we fight with our parents. We wanted you to like us. We wanted us to be friends.”
“Maybe, because of that, we’ve been scared to interfere,” Mom said. “We’ve tried not to be overbearing, or pushy. We’ve tried to give you a lot of freedom. Maybe that’s made us good friends with you, but not the best parents. Maybe we haven’t been responsible enough with you, or as involved with your life as we should be.”
“And now you’re a grownup, sweetheart,” Dad said. “You’re eighteen. You’re the age we were when we had you. We don’t really have a right to pry anymore.”
Mom squeezed my hand. “But we love you, Libby. No matter what. And we’re here for you if there’s ever anything you need to talk about. Whatever you’re struggling with that’s caused the changes in you this year, we’re here to help, if we can. If you want us to.”
I nodded, unable to speak around the emotion clenching my chest. Their talk was meant to be supportive—and it was—but at the same time, their concern and admittance that I’d changed this year only validated everything the Science Squad had accused me of.
Libby
After I got home, I lasted about five minutes alone with my own thoughts before I called Owen. I was worried he wouldn’t pick up the phone since it was Friday evening, but he answered on the second ring. He shouted for me to hang on a sec, and I listened as the sounds of a wild party dimmed. “Sorry about that,” Owen said, once he could hear me. “It’s kind of crazy here tonight.”
“Sounds like a real party.” I didn’t mention that he hadn’t invited me to it.
“Yeah, the guys are blowing off steam now that basketball season is finally over. Making up for lost time—which is exactly what we’re going to do tomorrow.” His voice dropped to a low rumble that made me shiver. “You ready for me, wildcat?”
For once, I wasn’t in the mood to play along. “Did you have anything specific planned?”
“Just to spend time with you. I thought I’d pick you up about two, and we could go straight to the hotel. I shelled out for a room with a Jacuzzi in the suite, and we can call room service for dinner. We won’t ever have to leave the room.”
His words made me think of what Adam said about Owen treating me like a hooker. I didn’t want to believe he was right, but the seed of doubt had been planted. I needed to prove Adam wrong. “Hey, Owen, I was sort of wondering…prom is coming up in two weeks, and I don’t have a date. Will you take me?”
“To your prom?”
My stomach tightened at the horror in Owen’s voice, but I was determined to make him say yes. We’d been together—sort of—for about a year now. He might not want to be exclusive, but he could give this much. “Yes. It’s my senior prom, and I want to go with you. Will you come?”
Owen’s laugh sounded nervous. “Libby, prom is lame. If you want to do something that night, that’s cool, but a high school dance? Been there, done that, you know? Why don’t we do something we’ll both enjoy? Let’s go to Vegas.”
“I don’t want to go to Vegas. I want to go to my prom. It’s important to me.”
“So get one of your little geek friends to go with you. I’m sure none of those guys have dates, either.”
I couldn’t believe he’d just said that. And he’d said it so casually, as if it was just a given that none of my “little geek friends” or I would have dates to the prom.
“Okay, I am going to ignore that highly insensitive insult on my friends, and give you one last chance to ask me to prom.”
“Come on, Libby. Give me a break. That’s a high school thing, and I’ve already graduated. It would be awkward.”
“You wouldn’t be the only one. Grayson’s taking Avery.”
I thought I made a compelling argument, but Owen laughed and said, “Yeah, but Grayson is totally whipped.”
“Right. And you’re not. I see.”
I took a deep breath, hoping it would lessen the sting of Owen’s rejection. After a moment of tense silence, Owen sighed into the phone. “You know I can’t ever resist you, Libs. I haven’t been able to say no to you since the first time you dragged me into a photo booth and jumped me. I’m spending three hundred bucks on a hotel room tomorrow night because I care about you. I just really don’t want to do the prom thing.”
I gave in. “Fine. No prom, then, but will you come with me to my dad’s snowboarding competition tomorrow? It starts at nine.”
“Nine in the morning?” Owen blew out a breath. “I don’t think that’s going to work. We’ve got this thing going on right now, and it’s going to get pretty crazy tonight. The guys expect me to party hard with them. I’m going to be hung over in the morning.”
I was so angry that I jumped up off the couch I’d been sitting on and began pacing the living room. “Are you seriously blowing me off for a hangover that you don’t even have yet?”
“Why are you so upset? Your dad always has these things.”
“But this is his last competition. He’s retiring. I don’t want to miss it.”
“So go,” Owen said. “I’m not stopping you. Go watch his competition, and then we can leave as soon as you get back.”
He sounded like he was getting frustrated. I was beyond frustration. I was so angry I was fighting back tears. “You don’t get it. I’m asking you to come with me. I would like you to come. I told my dad I had plans with you tomorrow, and he asked me to bring you. He told me to invite you up, and we could all do a night ski together after the competition is over.”
“A night ski?” Owen asked. “Babe, we only have our hotel room for one night.”
“Okay, fine. No night ski. We could just have an early dinner with my parents after the competition and still be in Salt Lake by seven. That leaves us plenty of time for all the fun stuff.”
Owen groaned. “I thought we talked about this. Why are you so crazy about me meeting your parents?”
He was not going to turn this around and make it about me. “Why do you blow off everything I ask you to do?”
“I don’t,” he said automatically.
“Yes, you do! You won’t go to prom with me. You won’t meet my parents. You refuse to hang out with any of my friends except Avery. We hardly spend time together, and when we do, it’s always on your schedule doing what you want to do.”
Owen scoffed. “Are you saying you don’t like what we do together? Because I don’t remember hearing any objections when I came over last weekend.”
I sighed. “Of course I like that, but I want more in a relationship than just that.”
“But we’re not in a relationship. I’m not your boyfriend, Libby.”
As if he needed to
remind me of that. “Yeah, well, I’m not your whore.”
“What?”
He sounded stunned, as if he couldn’t fathom why I’d ever say something like that. He just didn’t get it. He was never going to get it. The problem was, I was beginning to get it. I finally understood what Avery had been trying to tell me for so long, and she was right: I didn’t want to keep putting up with this. “I don’t want to be just a booty call anymore,” I finally said. “I want a real relationship.”
“But I don’t. You know I’m not good at the whole boyfriend thing, babe. I’d just screw it up.”
“Oh,” I laughed bitterly, “you already did, sugarbottoms. You can forget about picking me up tomorrow. I’m not going.”
“What?” Owen gasped. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Oh, the irony. “How can I break up with you? You’re not my boyfriend, remember? Well, now you’re not my anything. I’m done with you.”
I ended the call and immediately grabbed my keys. I needed some air, and I needed my best friend. My cell phone rang before I got out the door. When Owen’s name flashed on the display screen, I almost picked it up. I hadn’t expected him to call me back. I thought he’d be pissed and go right back to his dumb party. If I’m being really honest, I figured he’d be making out with some drunken college skank already.
The call went to voice mail and I let out a breath, but then he called again. It was even harder to ignore the second time, so I threw my phone onto the couch and went to Avery’s house before I ended up apologizing to Owen.
My anger festered to a boil in the five short minutes it took me to get to Avery’s house. By the time I was pounding on her door shouting her name, I could have killed someone. Avery’s mom answered the door, looking startled. “Libby? Is everything all right?”
If by “all right” you mean “is my life crumbling to pieces faster than sedimentary rock put through a grinder,” then yes. I’m fantastic, Kaitlin. “Please tell me that Avery is neither out with her boyfriend and the scrumptious cause of my current neurotic state of psychosis, nor at work with my new arch nemesis.”
