She shuffled the papers again. I saw where this was going so I reached across the table and gently placed my hand on hers.
“I understand,” I told her. “How many months?”
She twitched the papers. “I pulled the last twelve months. I thought that was more than enough to prove a pattern.”
I nodded, pulling my hand back.
“Yeah, and if you went back two years you’d see the same. It’s not buyer’s remorse. It’s a calculated defense against unnecessary drama.”
She raised one of her thick, perfectly sculpted eyebrows. I hadn’t inherited those—I got my dad’s wispy, flat eyebrows.
I used to joke that I got his figure too, but I’d finally started filling out summer before last, so I wasn’t as bitter anymore.
“Tell me about this unnecessary drama,” she said.
She moved her hand without looking at it and touched a button on her phone—the one she’d programmed to start her recording app. I frowned at her phone.
“Oh, don’t look like that Kennedy. You know I have to keep track of these things.”
“Yeah, so you can use my life lessons in motivational speeches,” I said under my breath.
She shook her head, but she was looking at her phone screen. “Louder, Kennedy, I can’t hear you.”
She meant her app couldn’t hear me.
The toaster popped, but I’d lost my appetite. I pushed away from the table and grabbed it anyway—if I left it there, I’d get a lecture about ants—and stalked toward the back door.
“Kennedy?” Dad said, sounding shocked. “Your mother was speaking to you.”
“Yeah, and when she wants to have a conversation without her robot assistant, I’ll speak to her, too,” I snapped.
I jerked the sliding door open and didn’t bother shutting it. One of them would follow me out, they always did. They got off on these little personal dramas. It gave them material.
Dad was the one who eventually came out. I caught his reflection in the little pearlescent-coated garden shed and watched him check his phone before approaching.
One way or another, they were determined to get my angst on record.
“Kennedy, you understand how important my work is,” he said in a tone he thought was soothing, but really just sounded patronizing. “You are a very important part of that work. Our experiences with you let us teach other parents how to motivate and inspire their children to do great things. Now, this issue with the money—I gotta say, it’s a new one to me. I’ve gotten questions from other parents about their children over-spending, but nothing like this.”
“Then you shouldn’t need to research me,” I said without looking at him. “If I’m the only one doing it, nobody else is going to need your very special insights.” That last part came out dripping with sarcasm, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Ah, but that’s the thing—if you’re doing it, then there are at least a few other kids doing it. If I have the answers ready before the questions—”
“I’m not a kid,” I said quietly.
“—then I can guide them in the right direction and not be blindsided by a Q&A session. I really hate being blindsided, Kennedy.” There was a soft threat in his voice and I tightened my arms around myself. I didn’t say anything.
Dad stood quietly, waiting for the tension to loosen my tongue. It was a technique he picked up on the road during one of those godforsaken Q&As when I was in fifth grade.
It had worked for a while—but spending most of my time in a silent house had given me the advantage. I could easily pretend he wasn’t there, because he usually wasn’t, and I was more comfortable standing in silence these days.
After several minutes, far longer than I expected him to hold out, he sighed. “Kennedy. As your parents, we need to know how you’re managing your money. We’ve given you a lot of freedom to do what you will with your generous allowance, and leaving a mystery like this on the books reeks of disrespect. I know you’re not a disrespectful kid, so I expect you to do the grown-up thing and tell us what this is all about.”
How do you fight something like that?
If I hold my ground, I’m acting like a child and he gets the moral victory.
If I tell them what’s going on, they’ll record me and use the story on tour, and they get the material victory.
I pressed my fingers against my temple, pressing back a headache that threatened to send me to bed.
“Fine,” I said. “I spend the money because—”
“Hold on,” he interrupted. I ignored him, talking over him as quickly as I could while he fumbled with his phone.
“-I go shopping with my friends, who do what you just did—”
“Wait a second.”
“-and I take most of the crap back afterwards because I don’t really want it, I just don’t want to rock the boat. Happy?”
He lifted his hand and dropped them again with a heavy sigh. “Let me see,” he mumbled, playing with his phone. He pushed a button and my voice came out of the speaker.
“—the boat. Happy?”
He looked at me, his expression tight around the eyes. “I asked you to hold on,” he said.
“Did you? Sorry, I was busy answering your question.”
His eyes flashed and for a second I thought he was going to yell at me. Then he smiled, a calm smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Answer it again for me,” he said, pushing the button to record. Fucking unbelievable.
I felt rage fill my chest, but this wasn’t the appropriate time to let it all out. It didn’t matter that he and mom deserved my rage more than just about everyone.
It didn’t matter that I felt like a fucking bug under a microscope as opposed to their child – their child that they hadn’t seen in weeks!
I leaned over his phone, maintaining eye contact.
“I spent the money then returned the items because I don’t give a fuck and I do what I want,” I said clearly, unable to stop the rage.
His jaw dropped.
I’d never cursed in front of him before. I wasn’t quite sure what had gotten into me. It was like the claustrophobia I’d felt in the locker had seeped into my bones, constricting everything inside of me.
Before he could collect himself enough to respond, I grabbed my keys off the table, snatched up my backpack, and marched right through the front door without even looking at my mother.
I needed to take a drive.
A long, long drive.
My phone rang four times in the half hour it took me to circle the town. Finally, when I was nearing my neighborhood again, I pulled over and checked my phone. The first three calls were from the parents, but the last one was from Joan. There was a text, which I opened before calling her back.
Macy and Julianne said you weren’t in fourth period. Someone else said you got shoved in a locker. Are you trapped? Should I call the principal?
I called her back and she answered on the first ring. “Good god! There you are! You had about thirty seconds before I started bothering police and firemen and everybody.”
I grinned. “Good to know you have my back. No, they let me out.” I bit my lip, curious but apprehensive about the answer. “Why didn’t Macy or Julianne check on me?”
Joan hesitated. When, finally, she spoke, her voice was heavy with an unspoken apology. “Because you didn’t sit with us at lunch. Julianne took it pretty personally. She said that between that and you not wearing the first day of school outfit you were skating on thin ice. She thought spending the night in a locker would be fitting punishment, I guess.”
I frowned, fighting the anger that threatened to pour into me again. “Are you saying she set that up?”
“No, no,” Joan said quickly. Almost too quickly. “She just… I guess, she figured that if it already happened that someone else had taken care of your punishment for her. I guess.”
“Punishment,” I said, choking on a bitter laugh. “Who does she think she is, my mother?”
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Joan sounded embarrassed, which she should have. Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are. That statement said a lot about her. Truth be told, it said a lot about me, too.
“Well, I mean—she is kind of in charge. Her word is law and all that, you know.” She was wrong on a lot of fronts, of course. But the thing was, if none of us dared to step up, then Julianne’s law would continue to rule us.
“Yeah. I guess,” I said and didn’t bother to hide the exhaustion in my voice. This day was already more than a trip and a half and despite the fact that closing my eyes and allowing it to disappear would do me good, I didn’t want to go home. Not just yet. I didn’t want to keep driving either. “Hey, are you busy? You want to go get ice cream or hang out or something?”
“Not ice cream,” she said. “I could come pick you up and we could hang out at my place, though, if you want.”
“I’m already in my car,” I said. “I’m parked a block away from your house.”
She made an uncomfortable sound. I sighed as I put the pieces together. “You don’t want to be seen in public with me,” I guessed. “And you don’t want my car at your house because Julianne wants to punish me with a collective cold shoulder. You probably worked up a sweat just sending me that text.”
“I already deleted it,” she said quickly. “You should too. Please. Just in case.”
I rolled my eyes. “Alright. Whatever. Fine. See you at school.”
“Wait, but—”
I hung up the phone. I wasn’t going to sneak around to see my friends just because one of them decided I was persona non grata.
The mall would be open for a few more hours—and the new arcade they’d been building on for the past two years was finally up and running.
I hadn’t played arcade games since moving here, even though there was a decently stocked one at the pizza place.
Julianne didn’t approve of arcade games. Neither did my parents, for that matter. Something about it making them look bad, like they couldn’t afford to buy me personal consoles. I figured it was probably a similar issue for Julianne—appearances are everything.
The cold shoulder hurt a lot and that hurt clouded the rest of what I was feeling. It took me five rounds of Alien Blaster to sort through most of it.
When the screen was thoroughly covered in pixelated green alien blood, I took a break.
I was hurt that our friendship, the only friendship I’d ever maintained for that long, was so fragile that just doing my own thing was enough to make her treat me like an enemy.
I jumped on the flashing dance pads and put my coins in the slot.
Missing track hadn’t done anything good for my mood, but pounding out some dance moves would get the same physical result.
Maybe then I could think clearly instead of feeling everything all at once with no way to sort through it.
I pounded through song after song, working up one hell of a streak. The concentration it required left my subconscious alone to chew on my problems.
All I had to do was watch and jump and listen and watch and jump and move and step.
I was sweating through my white t-shirt, but I didn’t care. Between the dirt and locker smell the shirt was never going to be the same anyway. I thought about just replacing it when I was finished in the arcade and tossing this one to an early grave in the dumpster.
Maybe I would.
I hadn’t decided yet.
By the time I missed three steps in a row and got a game over, I was out of breath and completely drenched, but I was smiling.
I jumped off the platform on jellied legs, turned around—and found myself looking right at… Rudy.
He was leaning against the Master Chief simulator, watching me with his signature unreadable expression. If he was here, that meant the rest of them probably were too.
For a quick second, I wondered if Julianne had a hand in this, but decided that I was being ridiculous. Not that it would be beneath her to befriend the enemy to prove a point to me. It’s just that the enemy, in this case, didn’t give a damn about Julianne. She didn’t have them under her thumb or under her law.
I glanced around to see if I could spot the rest of the Seymore boys. By the time I looked back at where Rudy had been standing, he was gone.
I blinked hard a few times, half of me wondering if I had imagined him. But as soon as that thought hit, so did his voice. He wasn’t talking to me, but it still rang in my head, reminding me of that soft threat and gruff apology he’d issued when he let me out of the locker. I swallowed hard and struggled to catch my next breath.
Suddenly done with the arcade, I went to find a replacement for my soft white t-shirt. I couldn’t keep my attention focused on shopping, though. I kept catching myself looking for him, holding myself so that I could see everyone around me.
I should have just gone up and talked to him. I might have to play Julianne’s stupid games with her, but I didn’t have to be a mouse to anyone else’s cat.
Impatient with myself and virtually everyone else in my life, I grabbed a grey shirt off the rack without really looking at it and marched up to the checkout counter.
Finished there, I made a beeline for the bathroom where I changed and tossed my white shirt in the trash. I know it sounds wasteful, but trust me, the stains and the locker stench were never going to come out. Not in a million years.
I tugged the grey shirt over my head and checked my reflection—then groaned. I hadn’t noticed the big black guitar printed across the front of the shirt.
“Even if Rudy doesn’t think it’s a signal, Julianne will,” I muttered darkly. A flash of fury had me tossing my hair back defiantly. “So what if she does? Who ever told her to read that deep into everything anyway? Rudy isn’t the only one who plays guitar.”
Even so, I knew that I wouldn’t have the guts to wear it to school. More than ready to put this stupid day out of its misery, I hurried through the mall without looking at anyone else, jumped in my car and headed for home.
When I got there, I found my parents talking on the back patio. I wouldn’t have noticed them at all if they hadn’t kept the glass door open.
Careful not to move into their line of sight, I stepped into the kitchen. Skipping dinner left my stomach growling like an angry Godzilla.
I had no patience to prep a proper meal and no time to order something in, so I made myself a sandwich.
The waiting for the bread to toast and the silence that followed the entire process of adding mayo to bread and slapping meat to the insides meant I could hear just about everything my parents were saying. It’s not that I was trying to eavesdrop, I just couldn’t really avoid overhearing them.
“I’m sure it’s just her own sort of creativity,” Mom was saying soothingly. “Some kids paint, some kids play music, she plays with money.”
“No,” Dad said coolly. “The only thing she’s playing with is me. Us. She knows we’ve already analyzed her previous behavior and come up with solutions. She’s giving us a puzzle and daring us to solve it rather than just talking to us.”
“Hm. Maybe. Do you think it’s an attention grab?”
“Why should it be? She can always call us. We always pick up for her, don’t we? If she needs more one-on-one attention she shouldn’t have driven all the nannies away. It’s like she’s deliberately kneecapping our business, Angela.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what it is! That is exactly what it is. She’s overspending to prove to us that she can, and returning all of the things she buys to throw it in our faces that she can live on a budget.”
There was a long pause. I gave the back door a baffled look.
“Make that make sense for me,” Mom said gently.
Dad huffed impatiently. “You remember when she was asking us to spend more time at home? You remember how we pointed out that if she wanted to keep spending the way she does that we have to work to provide the money for her to do that?”
“Yes,” Mom said hesitantly. “I’m not sure
—”
“She’s showing us that while she has the capacity to spend a fortune, she also has the wherewithal to show restraint. You know what, I bet this unstable spending pattern is just a ploy to keep us at home. That’s why she won’t tell us what she’s doing or why she’s doing it. She wants to keep us here chasing our tails. You remember that fit she threw when we weren’t going to be here at the beginning of December?”
“Well, to be fair, that was her birthday.”
“She could have thrown her own party, I gave her all the numbers and extra cash to do that very thing. She just wants to be the center of our attention and jerk us around until we lose focus.”
Mom sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I just—I don’t see it.”
“You don’t see it because you don’t want to see it. You want her to be this perfect angel because we used your methods for her early childhood development and you don’t want to be wrong.”
“Don’t you dare turn your temper on me, Forest,” Mom said it in the same calm, collected voice that she had used to say everything else. Even then, it still made dad stop in his tracks.
“You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry, honey.”
They were unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. Seriously!!!
I took my sandwich to my room, despite the fact that my appetite had turned on me. Fuck them.
Fuck this whole day.
Chapter Fourteen
“They heard you talking shit this morning.” Those words had been playing in my head for days and I think I finally figured out why.
Rudy had been right there with the rest of them when the girls and I had been talking about the Seymores, but he hadn’t said “we heard you talking shit.” No, he said “they.” So either he hadn’t heard me or he’d correctly interpreted my comments as calling out Julianne’s inconsistency rather than joining in on the bashing.
Not that that was much better, but the thought of being understood and given the benefit of the doubt awakened a ferocious hunger in me.
Gwynne—the Irish nanny who had taught me the Celtic lullaby—had been the last person in my life who understood me the way I understood myself, and she’d been deported before my eleventh birthday.
Them Seymore Boys: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 1) Page 8
