Breaking Walls

by Tracie Puckett

  It didn’t matter. We hated her anyway. Even though we knew the only reason she and Dad weren’t together was because he’d broken a promise, I still dreamed of a day when someone would scream at her, berate her, make her feel as unloved as she made us feel when she turned her back on us.

  “It didn’t matter if you tried to protect us, Dad,” I said, shrugging a shoulder. “Bailey and I heard the fight. We were standing right there. We know you made her choose, and we know that she chose the show. Even if you wanted to protect her, it didn’t matter. We hated both of you.”

  It was harsh, and I could see that it hurt him. That was the first time I’d ever used such a strong word to describe the way I felt toward my parents, but in the beginning—right after the divorce, that was the only suitable word. I hated both of them.

  “Mandy, I know I promised you and your sister that I would do everything I could to save our family, and I really did. I tried,” he said. “Marriage counseling twice a month turned into sessions twice a week. I did everything I could, but I ran out of options, kid.”

  Doubtful. It seemed to me that marriages only ended when people got lazy, quit caring, and quit trying. They should’ve both tried harder, end of story.

  “You’ve never been married, Mandy,” he said. “You’ve never had to feel that sense of desperation. You’ve never come so close to losing the love of your life that you…that you weren’t thinking clearly, and you didn’t know what to do. I was so scared of losing your mother that I feared the very worst. I thought she loved me— ”

  “She did, Dad,” I said. “I feel like I’m constantly on repeat nowadays. You gave the ultimatum. You’re the one who left. You made the mistake of giving her a choice, so now you have to accept the fact that she didn’t choose you and get over it.”

  “Mandy, she was having an affair,” he said, and my heart stopped. A sharp pain wrenched in my chest, swelling into my throat. “And even then, after finally learning what everyone else around me had already known for months, I still woke up every morning, put on the best smile I could manage, and I tried to save our marriage. I still went to the sessions; I fought with everything I had. I—fought—for—you! But she had no fight left in her, Mandy. She didn’t care. She didn’t.”

  Up until that moment, I managed to keep my emotions in check, but then the tears broke and fell down my cheeks, dripping from my jaw and landing on my shirt. And even sitting there, broken and hurt and confused, he still didn’t relent. He just kept talking, adding more pain and confusion to the mix.

  “Mandy, I know I broke that promise, and I have never forgiven myself for hurting you. I hate myself every day because I know there’s nothing I can do to earn your trust again. But what choice did I have? What was I supposed to do? When I go home and find my wife tangled up in my sheets with my best friend— ”

  “Uncle Ronnie?” I asked, spewing the words. “Mom was sleeping with Uncle Ronnie?”

  Ronald Terrence-Green was Dad’s oldest friend, a buddy he’d met in acting school long before either of them landed their first gig. Bailey and I grew up playing in his backyard, spending hours after school watching him and Dad run lines. Dad loved the guy. They landed their jobs in LA at the same time, playing fraternal twin brothers on the same daytime TV show. They were a team; they were James and Ronald, Jim and Ronnie, Deacon and Louis. They’d worked side by side on the soap for years, sharing the camera, a fan base, and . . . apparently my mom.

  “I tried to protect you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I never wanted you or Bailey to know. Your sister still doesn’t know, and I’d appreciate it if we could keep it that way.”

  I sat staring at the floor, waiting for the splitting tension in my head to break. I couldn’t believe it. All this time, all of the years I’d sat hating my dad, I’d been mad about something I knew nothing about.

  “This last week has been one of the worst weeks of my life. I knew, when you came to me on Friday, I had to tell you the truth. I just didn’t know how to begin to do it.”

  I tried to absorb my tears with the backside of my sleeve, but they were falling faster than I could dry them.

  “I got a call from Ripken last month with the job offer back home,” he said. “Going back to LA meant finally having the chance to live my dream again, Mandy. And that’s all I ever wanted.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  “But there were circumstances I wasn’t aware of,” he said. “There were questions that went unanswered for a while, and after I finally learned the answers, there was nothing else I needed to know. I wasn’t going to go.”

  “What do you mean? What kinds of questions?”

  “Oh, you know,” he shrugged, “who I’d have to work with—co-stars, producers, writers.”

  “Right, because Mom’s still writing for the show.”

  “No,” he shook his head. “She left the show right after we left California.”

  “Oh, that’s . . . that’s lovely,” I said, turning my head. She wanted the job more than she wanted us, and apparently the job didn’t even mean that much.

  “She didn’t quit,” he said. “She was forced out. Last I heard she and Ronnie are getting married, and while he’s still on the show, she’s working for another network.”

  I wondered how Dad knew those things. Mom hadn’t stayed in touch. For the first month or so, Bailey would call and leave messages. A few calls were returned in that first year, but little by little, Mom became as much a distant memory as our lives in California. It never made any sense to me. She was our mother. Didn’t that mean anything?

  Apparently not.

  “So . . . ” I looked back to Dad, hoping he’d continue his story.

  “The role was originally proposed to replace Ronnie’s screen time,” he said. “They were going to bring Deacon back after writing Louis off.”

  “Okay?”

  “But once they’d hooked me, they decided to keep Ronnie on and continue with the family storyline of Deacon and Louis. They weren’t going to write him off after all.”

  “Oh.”

  “And that just…wasn’t an option for me. I couldn’t go back to that.”

  “Understandably so,” I blinked heavily.

  I remembered the way I’d last hugged Ronnie before we left LA. Dad had made us drop by the studio to tell our mother goodbye, and we couldn’t face her. But Uncle Ronnie was there, and he held us, comforted us, promised us that time and distance were exactly what we needed. Why hadn’t Dad just told us then? Why did he let us stand there and hug that man, the man who’d robbed us everything we’d ever known?

  Because he wanted to protect us.

  We sat in silence. I don’t even remember thinking about anything, just sitting there. The minutes passed so slowly, the room seeming darker the longer we waited to speak.

  I couldn’t believe how horribly I’d treated him. For four years…I’d said horrible things. I’d given him the cold shoulder. I’d written him off. And all along it had always been about protecting me…Bailey…our childhood and our family.

  I finally found the strength to peel myself off the couch. I stood up, took a few steps over, and sat back down right next to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist as we settled against the couch, and I cried into his chest.

  It was a lot to absorb. He’d suffered in silence for so long, and no one had been there for him. No one understood. No one could understand because Dad hadn’t told a soul.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad,” I said, sobbing into his robe, and he stroked my hair as he held me closer.

  “Me too, baby,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head. “Me too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I woke up on the couch the next morning, Dad’s chest no longer cushioning my head.

  The sunlight blazed through the open curtains in the living room, and in a matter of seconds I realized that it was far too bright and sunny to still be early in the morning. I checked the clock above the TV. I was already three hours late fo
r school.

  But I couldn’t skip. I couldn’t spend the rest of the day wallowing. As much as I wanted to stay there and comfort Dad, or maybe even continue the conversation we’d started in the dark of morning, I knew I had to get up. I had to get to the school. I had to be there. After the way things had unfolded over the weekend, then yesterday at the mandatory RI meeting, I knew that today was the day. Today I would march myself right into Mr. Davies’s classroom, lift my chin with confidence, and say—

  “I’m quitting the program.”

  After Dad drove me into school, I stared at the clock for the rest of the day. I kept my head low, my eyes down, and my thoughts focused on those four little words I’d been rehearsing—in the mirror, at the diner, in my head. And when I finally said it, when I finally unraveled my next, big plan, I got the exact reaction I’d expected.

  The room fell silent, but it was going to take a lot more than Mr. Davies’s wide eyes and a dropped jaw to change my mind. Heck, nothing could change my mind. I’d decided on Friday night, and I knew it was the only possible move I had left with the Raddick Initiative. Of course, I’d known all along that it was going to take a lot of convincing for them to just let me walk away, but that’s why I had my notebook in hand. I had all the points laid out, ready to use.

  Who: Mandy Parker

  What: Quits the program

  When: Today

  Where: At school

  Why: Why not? There were more reasons to support my leaving than my staying.

  How will it impact the school? The team? The community? Why should Lashell, Gabe, and Mr. Davies agree that this is the best possible course of action?

  Ask me. I had all the answers. By the time I was done talking, they’d wonder why I hadn’t proposed leaving sooner. This was the best choice, and I wanted a clean break—no muss, no fuss. I knew that my teacher wouldn’t put up as big a fight as Lashell or Gabe, so I decided it had to be him. He had to be the one I told. He’d let me go a lot easier.

  “Wait, what?” Mr. Davies turned to look at me, his mouth hanging open. School was over, and the English classroom was empty. He stood from his desk, looking as though I’d just hit him with a sack full of bricks. “You’re quitting?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pull up a seat,” he said, nodding to the nearby row of desks. “Let’s talk about this.”

  “I’ve already made up my mind,” I said. “Talking about it’s not going to change anything.”

  “I can call Lashell and Gabe if you want to discuss this,” he said. “We can all sit down, hash this out—

  “I’d like to do this without them,” I said, “if that’s okay with you?”

  He nodded. We both sat down in the student desks at the front of the room, and he turned to face me.

  “Is this because of— ”

  “It’s not because I want to be with Gabe,” I said. “First and foremost, I have to make that clear.” If I was going to quit because of him, I would’ve quit two weeks ago when we were standing in the hallway.

  Again, he nodded. “Is it because of Carla, because of what happened at the diner?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I’d already made up my mind that I was quitting before she showed up at the diner on Sunday. That’s the main reason I didn’t take ownership of the events when she offered them. It’s why I haven’t stepped up and taken over, even knowing she doesn’t want the added responsibility. I’ve been mulling this over for a while now, and I’m ready. My time’s over.”

  “And it’s not about Carla?”

  “I swear that it’s not.”

  “Mandy,” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat before settling again, “I waited for you to come by the classroom all day yesterday. Lashell got in touch first thing in the morning and asked me to call a meeting after school, and she gave me the gist of what she overheard at the diner. I thought you would want to talk. I thought you’d come to me about this.”

  “But it’s not about Carla,” I repeated. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “But there is. We can’t fix things if we’re not aware of the problem. You needed to say something—”

  “That wasn’t an option, Mr. Davies. She was terrible to me, yes, but she offered me more insight than anyone ever has. Carla was right. I don’t deserve to win this.”

  “But you should’ve said something.”

  “Sure, maybe I should’ve. And no matter how I justify the fact that I didn’t, you’re still going to believe I was wrong by not saying anything.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Mr. Davies, I couldn’t risk her getting in trouble. I wasn’t getting her kicked out.”

  “Mandy, you can’t let people treat you— ”

  “I was willing to take the blows,” I said. “I know it may seem stupid from the outside, but I knew that keeping my mouth shut was the only way to ensure harmony for our group as a collective whole.” He shook his head, still unconvinced that I’d done the right thing by staying quiet. “I wasn’t going to better my chances at winning just because I had leverage. I didn’t want to be that girl. I didn’t want to be her. And I knew that losing Carla meant losing a lot for our team. Sure, her attitude sucks, but if she’s gone, then so is the soup kitchen, the fundraising, all of her really great ideas. Without her, how does Sugar Creek stand a chance? They don’t. And so it’s about taking those personal qualms and setting them aside. I could’ve ratted her out, but then the whole team would’ve suffered her loss, all because I couldn’t suck it up.”

  “Mandy, it wasn’t your place to decide what was right or wrong for the welfare of the team. That’s not your job.”

  “No, but I made it my job.”

  “And by doing so, you let her have her way.”

  “Mr. Davies, maybe you have to be in my shoes to understand it, I don’t know,” I said, smiling. “But I can look at Carla Tally and know one thing for sure: there is no one who’s going to hate that girl at the end of every day as much as she hates herself. Carla’s her own worst enemy. The way she’s behaved, she’s teetering on disaster, and her self-destructive attitude will get the best of her. She will eventually expose herself at the wrong place at the wrong time. And there’s no one else she’ll be able to blame but herself. I have no doubt it’s going to happen. Carla will seal her own fate; she doesn’t need my help. My only hope is that when she finally breaks, Sugar Creek has already secured the win so that one of my friends can walk away victorious.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Mandy,” he said, lowering his face closer, “are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I have to. It’s the right thing to do. Not because of Gabe, not because of Carla. Because of me.” I closed my eyes, feeling a tiny smile curve on my lips. “From the very beginning, I’ve only been looking out for myself and for what I wanted. I had my eyes on that scholarship because I desperately needed it, and I hurt too many people in the process of getting what I wanted. I almost forfeited the entire competition for my district.” As much as I hated admitting it, I knew that was one thing Carla had been right about. And if she’d never been mean, if she’d never called me out, then I may have never seen it. “I almost caused Gabe and the foundation a lifetime of disgrace. They’re trying to launch this new program in the schools, and I almost ruined it for them. And Gabe,” I smiled through tears, “he’s going to be so successful—so much more successful than he is now, and I’m not taking that from him.”

  “So it is about him?”

  “No, listen to me,” I said, still smiling. “It’s about doing the right thing. I won’t win by hurting the people I love. That’s all there is to it.”

  He remained quiet for the better part of two minutes.

  “Okay,” he clapped his hands together. “Let’s talk this out.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m done.”

  “Mandy, think about your team,” he said. “You already said that you’ve been selfish, but walking away from them this close to the end is th
e most selfish thing you could do.”

  “No. It’s the best thing I can do.” There were people on my team who deserved that money more than I did—people who’d never jeopardized the team’s fate, people who’d worked hard from the get-go.

  “Sugar Creek and Desden are going head to head right now. The other two schools will never catch up with so little time left. But you guys are almost there. The money that the dance finale generates could finally tip the scales for your district. That event could be what wins the program for your school. If you back out, and you’re not there to help push this district over the finish line, then what? Do you want that guilt?”

  “I already told you,” I said. “I can’t— ”

  “What if I promise that I’ll take your name out of the running for the scholarship?” he asked. “If I promise you right now that you won’t win, then can I have your promise that you won’t quit?”

  I looked to the floor. “No.”

  I didn’t want my name tied with the program at all. I didn’t want there to be any doubt that the Sugar Creek team won by their own merit. I had to break that tie.

  “Mandy, listen to me. Carla stayed after the meeting yesterday and begged Fletcher to take over the dance, and he can’t do it. Between work, school, and his own RI projects, he’s swamped. She doesn’t want it.”

  “I know,” I said. “She only wanted it as leverage.”

  “If she gives up, and no one takes over, the dance is gone. So come back, fill those shoes, and help win this for your district.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Do it for him,” he said. “Do it for Fletcher. He brought in hundreds on ticket sales this weekend, and he’s put in more hours than some of the other teammates combined. He’s had his hand in every project, and he’s never missed a single event. He’s had a great attitude from the get-go, and even you’ve sung praises about his dedication to the job. The only thing standing between him and the scholarship is the certainty of this district winning.” I closed my eyes. “You say Fletcher’s your friend. So all I’m asking for is one thing: help your friend win this.”