“I know; it’s getting late.” I try to resist the urge to crash.
“Oh. No.” She shakes her head quickly. “I’m fine. It’s just, after all that adrenaline, I’m coming back down.”
“Relax,” I tell her, grinning. “You’re allowed to be tired. Tonight’s been crazy.”
She exhales. “It has, hasn’t it? I can’t believe you guys talked me into even half that stuff.”
I bite my lip. “Maybe we shouldn’t have.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“I mean, piling on all the pressure.” I shift, feeling even more guilty as I remember the way me and Jolene manipulated her. We backed her into a corner, even when she made it clear she didn’t want to get involved. I sigh. “I really am sorry. And then I went and said all that stuff . . .”
Meg seems guarded. “I told you, I was fine.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, but you didn’t mean it.”
She breaks a small grin. “Well, no . . . but I think I needed to hear it, all the same. I mean, you were right,” Meg adds quietly. “About some things, at least. The truth is . . .” She pauses, uncertain.
“Go on.”
She looks sad for a second. “The truth is, I have given up. Or, I had; I don’t know.”
I must look alarmed, because she quickly continues, “Not on life! But, school, you know? Friends. Being happy.”
“That’s . . . awful.” My voice is soft. She’s not kidding around here. I can tell.
Meg shrugs, awkward. “You get used to it. It’s scary, just how normal being unhappy can get.”
There’s silence for a moment, and then a doctor bustles in. “So who took a nasty spill?”
I raise my hand. He’s in his forties maybe, and balding on top — less McDreamy than McTeddy, but my foot is aching so much, I really don’t care.
“Hmmm . . .” He feels it for a moment, twisting one way and then the next. “Looks like just a sprain. I can give you something for the pain —”
I nod eagerly. He laughs. “And wrap it up to get the swelling down. Unless you want the practice, Meg?”
“Really?” She brightens.
“Sure.” He makes a few checks on a chart and tears off a form. “Hand this to Luann on your way out.”
“Thanks,” I breathe. “I can walk on it, right?”
He nods. “Careful, though. No leaping off tall buildings, or anything like that.”
I catch Meg’s eye and have to hide a laugh. If only he knew. . . .
Meg wraps my foot quickly, like she’s already a professional. Luann checks it and sets me up with a couple of pills — which I gulp down right away. “No driving,” she warns me. I nod obediently. Never mind the medication; I don’t think I could even fit my foot on the pedal.
We make our way slowly toward the exit, Meg supporting my arm.
“Won’t your parents be freaking out by now?” I ask curiously. “Mine know I’m staying at Brianna’s, but you must be way past curfew.”
Meg looks sheepish. “Jolene had me tell them I was sleeping over at your place. An all-girl slumber party. Then I was supposed to drive home later and say you’d all started drinking, so I left.”
My mouth drops open. “That girl!”
“You have to admit, she’s kind of a genius.” Meg laughs. “My dad is super-overprotective, but even he agreed it sounded like fun.”
“Sure, if it’s not your reputation getting wrecked!”
We’re nearly at the exit, but she stops in the middle of the hall. I turn, questioning.
“It’s not just because I volunteer, how they know me here,” she says quietly.
“Oh?”
Meg doesn’t reply for a second; she just looks at the waiting room, her face closed off. “I was here all the time, when my mom got sick,” she says eventually. “Chemo and treatments.” There’s another long pause, and then she adds, “She died.”
Oh.
I grip her shoulder, and for a moment, I can’t tell who is holding the other one up. I feel a lurch of guilt. All those times I wrote off her moping as self-indulgent, or figured she was miserable for no good reason . . .
As reasons go, this one is pretty freaking good.
“Meg . . .” I breathe, but she shakes her head, forcing a smile.
“She’d get a kick out of this. Tonight, I mean. She always wanted me to have great adventures, to take more risks.” Meg starts walking again, so I follow, out onto the sidewalk. “It’s why I kept saying yes to you guys.”
“And I thought it was my charm and persuasion,” I joke, trying too hard, but I’m rewarded with a smile, genuine this time.
“Sure, those too.”
“I . . .” I stop, awkward. I want to tell her I’m sorry for being such a bitch. I didn’t know. I couldn’t have known. But she stops me with a look.
“Your ankle’s OK?”
I test it with some weight. “The bandages help”— I nod —“and the pills should kick in soon. Good thing Jolene isn’t here,” I add, still trying to joke. “She’d probably want to sell them on some street corner.”
Meg doesn’t laugh. She pauses by the car, swinging her keys on one finger. “I hope she’s OK. Where do you think she went?”
I sigh. “How would I know? Back home, I hope, or —” I stop, suddenly realizing something.
“What?”
“The golf course. It backs up to her dad’s house, remember?” I gulp, remembering just what kind of crappy mood she was in. “Oh, crap.”
Meg’s eyes widen. “Will she do something, do you think?”
“This is Jolene,” I say shortly. “Of course she’s going to do something. And in the state she’s in right now, it’s probably going to be a felony.”
God, how stupid can that girl be? I yank the car door open, frustrated. I was this close to getting to Brianna’s — back to normalcy and party fun. But no, Jolene has to go back for round two. . . .
“Come on,” Meg says, deciding for me. “We’d better go stop her. Like you said, it’s a team thing.”
I stuff the heels in my backpack and walk barefoot over the golf course lawn, Dante’s words stuck in a terrible feedback loop in my mind. For months now, I’ve managed to forget him, and now his voice is the only thing I can hear — telling me, over and over, all the ways I’m ruining my life. But he’s wrong. I’m not the one who wrecked my only shot to get out of this town. I’m not the one breaking promises and being so cavalier with somebody else’s future. I didn’t choose this. I don’t want any part of it. But with each new step, I still hear that note in his voice. Disappointed. Giving up on me, like everyone else.
Screw him.
I stomp onward. It’s pitch-black and silent out here, but I’ve never been scared of the dark. Leave that to girls with faint hearts and weak wills. I know there’s nothing out there in the shadows to hurt me. No — the things that cause real pain come with smiles and affection, lulling you into thinking they actually give a damn before they turn so easily and leave.
Screw them all.
I grip the roll of canvas tighter. I’m digging finger-marks into the fabric, but I don’t care. He will, though. He cared enough to mount it in that heavy frame, put it in a place of pride behind his desk. I cut it out with my army knife. Not perfect, but good enough. The jagged edges will be waiting come Monday morning, along with that shower of broken glass and the contents of his in-box I couldn’t help sweeping to the floor. The plan was invisibility, but plans change. All that sneaking was the wrong idea; I see it now. Why should I be the one to creep around, keeping to my part of town, folding myself into tiny pieces to keep my life away from his? Why should he get to ignore me so easily — just carry on with his perfect job and perfect new family without any inconvenient reminders of everything he’s left behind?
He’ll have to see me now.
I reach the other side of the fairway too soon, skirting those white picket fences and peaceful backyards until I reach the end of that familiar cul-de-sac and veer off into the ro
ad. Lights from every house are bright here, spilling out onto the tree-lined street. So warm and safe, so far away from the rest of my life.
I reach his front yard — neat, flower-trimmed — and stop. My feet won’t carry me a single step farther. The hollow ache in my chest is suddenly unbearable.
I breathe in, quick, but it doesn’t ease. The rage that’s carried me through tonight, through the last few weeks, is twisting back into that same wordless grief that always wells around him when it matters. Ever since I was a kid, he’s been my weak spot, and as much as I hate myself for being so pathetic, that bone-deep instinct is betraying me all over again. Sure, I can tell the entirety of East Midlands High exactly what I think of them, but when it comes to my own father? The right words won’t make it through my lips. All the reason and logic and heartfelt pleas in the world stay lodged in my throat. Instead, I’m stuck with nothing but the same old screaming and sharp curse-words that let him retreat back into that shell of denial and self-righteousness, as if I’m the one at fault.
I sit down cross-legged on the edge of the damp lawn, staring at the house. It’s a pretty lie he’s got built for himself in there, and not just the matching dining-room set. I don’t think he’s once acknowledged — even to himself — that anything he’s ever done has caused me pain. No, it was all, “Jolene is acting out. She needs guidance.” Guidance. As in, my mom should have just told me to shut the hell up and act nice for those all-too-rare weekend visits where we sat silently in movie theaters and fast-food restaurants, until the allocated hours were up and he left me again. I tried to write him a letter once, when I was sixteen. He slipped a hundred-dollar bill into my birthday card that year and then turned around and threw a huge party for the twins with specially printed invitations on thick card-stock and tiny clowns embossed on every corner. Mom had been laid off as part of the downsizing at her office and was working night shifts at the drugstore to cover the gap; the birthday money went to paying utilities and buying groceries that month.
My RSVP was no.
So I wrote the letter. I didn’t ask for more outright — I couldn’t bring myself to do that back then. No, I just tried to explain how when he threw money around for them on vacations and a fancy new car, and then didn’t even think about how I was getting by, it said he didn’t care as much. Care enough. I spent hours getting the words right, trying to show that it wasn’t about whatever legal loopholes he’d managed to fix, it was about the fact he was hurting me. They woke up with him every morning, and had dinner with him every night, and if all he could offer me as a parent anymore was money, then he should manage that much, at least.
He called up after and swore at me on the phone, furious as all hell. It wasn’t his money — it was hers, too, and he was doing what he could. Stand-up guy, I know. His kid pours her heart out, telling him how much he’s hurting her, and all he can do is rant about how I had no right to say those things and be so ungrateful, when he was working so hard to scrape together my college fund. . . .
Oh yeah, the famous college fund.
But I didn’t know how all of that would play out, so I bit back the hurt and carried on; tolerated the occasional phone calls and awkward lunch dates. What else was I going to do? For every bright neon sign screaming that he would never give me what I need, I couldn’t shake that stupid, tragic ache of hope that he would come through for me. Just once. Finally. It’s a fairy tale worse than any of that Disney crap, but it was mine — that one day, he’d own up to what a weak, selfish man he’d been, and try to do better by me.
But here I am. Still waiting.
I’ve been sitting here five, maybe ten minutes, when the porch light flips on. I stiffen, bracing myself to get this started, but he’s not the one to come out. Instead, it’s the Blonde who pulls a pretty blue robe tighter and walks down the front steps toward me.
“Jolene,” she says, her expression surprisingly calm for someone who’s got their hellcat stepdaughter camped out in the front yard at two in the morning. “Is everything OK?”
I set my jaw. “Is he in there?”
She pauses, a few paces away from me. “It’s late. Why don’t we talk about this in the morning?”
“I’m here now.” I sit, determined. She looks older than I remember, or maybe that’s just the bare face and tired eyes. Usually, there’s makeup and lipstick and perfect newscaster hair, all polished and dripping money and false enthusiasm. Tonight, she looks like a regular woman, worn out.
But I don’t care about her. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
The Blonde gives me a faint kind of smile. “You should get home, honey. Your mom will be worried.”
“And he isn’t?”
There’s silence. She glances back at the house. “We can talk about this another time, I promise. Come for dinner tomorrow,” she suggests. “You can see Stephan and Camilla, and he’ll be . . . he’ll be there. I’ll make sure of it.”
I watch her. She doesn’t seem angry or impatient, or anything else I’d expect. Instead, she looks almost sad, her arms wrapped around herself, looking everywhere except at me.
“I came to see him.” I hold my ground, that last piece of anger. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She’s quiet for a minute, then she exhales in a low whoosh. “He won’t come out.”
The words are simple, but there’s a strange note to her voice. I stare at her, confused, until she looks me in the eye and I see it there.
She’s ashamed of him.
The truth hits me with a painful twist. This isn’t about her — lurking in the background, sniping about his time and money.
This is all on him.
I can’t speak for a second. “He knows I’m here?” I manage at last.
She nods, sad.
“And he’s up there, hiding from me.” I give a flat laugh. My father, the hero.
“I’ll talk to him,” she promises me, awkward. “We’ll figure something out, about college . . .”
But for once, the money isn’t the point. He’s never going to be the man I need him to be.
I feel everything drain away. So many years, hoping, and this is how it ends. Out in the front yard of a home he doesn’t want me to be a part of.
“OK,” I murmur, exhausted. “I . . . whatever.”
It’s not my usual snipe of a word, full of sarcasm, but the truth. Whatever. I can’t find it in me to even muster a thought, a plan. “I . . . should go.”
I pull myself to my feet, staring blankly around. I don’t belong here; I always knew that, but instead of being a vengeful invader, I feel detached. Foreign. There’s a language here, I don’t understand. He’s playing out his life by some code I can’t grasp, and there’s no turning it back.
“Thanks,” I tell her, still dazed. “I’m sorry, I got you up —”
“It’s fine.” She hugs me swiftly, moving back straight after as if that was a step too far. As if it wasn’t allowed. “So I’ll call? About dinner?”
I shrug uselessly. “I don’t know. I’m . . . not sure if I can see him.” I swallow, already feeling the sting of tears. Something is dead here on the lawn, some last hope, and all I can do is feel the ache of it ringing through me.
“Then maybe lunch, next week. Just us,” she adds, hopeful. “I could bring the twins. You should spend some time with them.”
“I . . . maybe.” I give her a helpless look. I can’t make decisions now; I can barely keep breathing. “I have to go.”
I turn, but she stops me. “Wait — your things.”
The painting is still rolled up on the ground beside my bag. I grab them both, stumble backward. She gives me another weak smile, and then I go, racing faster back down that perfect street and onto the next, not slowing up for a second until the suburban blocks blur together, and my legs ache, and my chest burns almost enough to make me forget how much my heart is hurting right now.
I collapse on the empty sidewalk and start to cry.
My body shakes with s
obs so harsh they leave me gasping, but it doesn’t take long for the tears to be done. People think I act so tough because I can’t bear to break down, but the truth is, it’s not the collapse that scares me so much as what comes after. Like now. My eyes sting red, and my head aches with a dull throb, and there’s nothing but a numb emptiness where all my fury used to be.
It’s over.
I sag back, the cold concrete biting into my palms. Dante was right, about this at least. I can’t keep holding on. In an awful flash, I see the next years spinning out ahead of me. The same old story, the same damn routine. Every time I think I drag my expectations down to meet him, he finds a way to fall short and break my heart just a little bit more.
I can’t do this anymore.
I take a breath, feeling the air slip through my system in a slow wash of calm. I can just let him go.
That’s what Dante said, didn’t he? Like I have that power. Like I can choose it for myself. I’m not naive enough to think it could ever be that easy, but when has anything in my life come that way? This is how it starts: you make the decision, and the rest comes after.
So I decide. No more.
From now on, he doesn’t owe me a single thing. I’ll work my way through college, like I would without him. I’ll go to State, try for a transfer next year, take on more loans if that’s what it takes. I’ll get by because I want to; I’ll make it out of this damn town on my own — no more fooling around, no more trying to make him care.
But if he doesn’t owe me anything, then I don’t owe him a damn thing either.
He’s not my father anymore. He hasn’t earned the right.
I struggle to my feet and stretch, feeling the stiff ache in every limb. I’m so tired I could curl up and sleep right here on the ground, but instead, I take my things and start to walk. Steady, this time.
A car turns onto the block behind me. It slows, drawing level. I tense.
“Jolene!” It’s barely stopped before Bliss leaps out and limps over. “Thank God, we’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
I blink. “I thought . . . you were going home. Or to that party . . .” I shake my head, still foggy from tears and tiredness.
The Anti-Prom Page 14
