“My brother has a picture of me at the party last weekend. He says he’ll tell my parents if I don’t pay him off.”
Riley’s jaw dropped. “Your
“I told you, he hates me for no apparent reason.”
“How bad is the picture?” Tyler asked. “I mean, your parents have to know you party a bit at school, right?”
“No. They do not.” I pushed my phone over to him so he could see it. “They also think I’m in West Virginia building houses for the poor with a church mission group.”
Tyler choked on his cereal. “Are you shitting me?”
“No, I am not.” I felt sick. Like throw up sick.
Riley squeezed my knee. “Hey, it’s okay. What does your brother want, like fifty bucks? Just pay the little prick. Or let me talk to him.” There was a gleam in his eye that suggested he wanted to do more than talk.
“You think I should pay him?”
“Well, if you want him to keep quiet, it’s your best option. Though I would personally prefer to beat the piss out of him. What kind of a shit thing is that to do to your own sister?”
I laughed in disbelief. “He wants two thousand dollars!”
“What? Fuck him.” Riley waved his hand. “Tell him to suck my dick.”
That he said Mom instead of Dad was a good indication he was serious. Dad would be profoundly disappointed, but Mom would be pissed.
Though I already knew it was pointless to try to talk him out of it. Paxton had been looking for the big score, the way to topple me, for years, and he had found it. I had basically handed it to him via vodka cranberries.
Well, there you go. My brother thought I was a bitch so he was going to ruin my life. “This is bad. This is so bad. My parents are going to freak.” The grilled cheese sat like a lump in my gut and my mind raced, trying to anticipate the fallout.
“Obviously they’re going to be pissed you lied, but they can’t really punish you. I mean, you’re twenty years old.”
I shook my head. “Oh, they can punish me. They’ll cut me off.”
“Rory’s dad threatened to stop paying her tuition and he didn’t,” Tyler said. “He knew in the end hurting Rory’s future wasn’t worth it.”
But Rory’s father was different from mine and I knew that. Rory had stood up to her dad, and I had admired it when she’d done it. It couldn’t have been easy to tell him she was going to intentionally disobey him. But Rory also knew that at the end of the day, her dad had her back. It was just the two of them, and he loved her.
My father loved me. Sure. And he was a good man in so many ways, a good leader, with deep moral convictions. But those convictions would prevent him from indulging what he was consider the path of my moral destruction. My mother was just like Paxton—she was spiteful. Once she was angry, it took a lot to earn back her affection.
The combination of both of them upset with me was going to result in an order to come home or be cut off. I knew it.
Both of which made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.
“Rory’s dad compromised because he didn’t want to lose her. Mine won’t. I know it.” I tried to give a shrug. “I guess it was going to be impossible not to get busted at some point. I can’t keep pretending to be the perfect daughter. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t figured that out already.”
“Maybe they have,” Riley said, reaching over and pulling my hand into his. “They might know more than you realize.”
My phone rang again. This time it was “Material Girl” by Madonna. My mom’s ringtone, and my sense of irony on display. “Wow. Paxton moves faster than I thought. He must have been planning to tell the whole time.”
Resigned, heart thumping, hand shaking, I picked up the phone, wondering if I genuinely felt guilty that I lied, or if I was just sorry I’d been caught. “Hello?”
“If you’re going to mastermind that you’re off doing mission work, then you should have the good sense not to post pictures of you partying like a trashy whore on the Internet.”
How was that for a greeting? “Mom, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to find out like that.”
“You didn’t mean for me to find out at all. But I’m not discussing this with you on the phone.” Her voice was cold, her anger barely contained. She wasn’t yelling, but she wanted to be. It sounded like she was trying to not completely lose her shit on me.
I just waited, because there was going to be more. “I’m sorry,” I repeated.
She took a breath and continued. “I don’t want to hear your insincere apologies. Tomorrow night is the fund-raiser. You will be there, and you will do your part to help this family. Then we will discuss your behavior.”
“Mom, I have to work tomorrow,” I protested. I didn’t want to go home. They might not let me leave again. I supposed my parents couldn’t lock me in the house, but they could use emotional manipulation.
“And I don’t give a damn,” she said. “Be at the house by five at the latest and I want zero arguments from you.”
Then she hung up on me. Probably to go throw something to let out all that simmering rage.
“That was fast,” Riley said.
“She said I have to come home tomorrow and go to a fund-raiser. Then we’ll discuss my behavior.”
“Are you going to?” he asked.
“I don’t have a ride.”
“I can take you if you want to go. Though maybe showing up with me isn’t going to help the situation. I don’t imagine I’m your dad’s idea of the right guy for his daughter.”
No, he wouldn’t be. But he was the only person who could give me a ride, and if the truth had to come out, then maybe I needed to be a little braver like Rory had been and own up to everything. I wasn’t ashamed of Riley. He was a good guy. I was completely happy with him, and I didn’t want to keep our relationship a secret.
The real question was, did I want to go? I definitely didn’t want to, but I knew I had to. I couldn’t hide from my parents or from my lie. I had to face them and be totally honest. Mature and responsible for my own actions.
“Unless my dad handpicked you, he won’t think any guy is right for me. But it would be awesome if you could take me. I could use the support.”
“If you wants you to go to a fund-raiser, maybe she’s not that pissed,” Tyler said, obviously trying to cheer me up.
But she was pissed, there was no doubt about it.
This was not going to be a fun weekend.
When I came out of the bathroom on Saturday dressed to go home, Riley blinked at me. “I’m sorry, I thought my girlfriend was in the bathroom. Who exactly are you?”
“Ha ha.” I was wearing a long floral maxi dress with a sweater over it, buttoned at the top so it pulled over my chest to cover the bare skin there. The only jewelry I had on was my cross necklace. My flats were yellow, like the flowers in the dress, and I had tied my hair up in a simple bun. No makeup. “I’m trying not to piss them off the second I walk in the door.”
“You look . . . pale.” Riley came over and kissed me on the forehead. “Like a watered-down version of you. I don’t like it.”
“Me either.” But I was trying to be respectful. Either that, or I was still being a wimp. “You ready to
