A memory flashes in my head and I’m forced to close my eyes. It’s a vision of the time I wanted to spend his fortieth birthday with him—back when I still thought he was the greatest dad in the world. I was only eight, but remember it plain as day. Down to every detail. Even the moment I climbed into the back of his truck, smelling his cologne still clinging to the interior. But what’s most important is that I remember the chick he drove to see, not realizing I hid in the back.
They talked for a little while. Long enough for me to gather they’d been involved for a while. Long enough to know she was an attorney somehow associated with my father’s firm.
Too shocked and emotionally raw to turn away, I sat by as she proceeded to suck him off in the front seat.
I watched in silence from the shadows, listening to the combination of his lust-filled moans and her loud slurping. All the while, eight-year-old me was trying desperately to wrap my head around how he could do something like that. Mom loved him so much, and always had.
Naturally, I never got that explanation.
When the woman finished, she spit his remnants into an empty fast food cup she grabbed from the cupholder. Then, after attempting to kiss him and getting rejected, she climbed out and disappeared inside a tall office building.
I got found out when I moved and accidentally kicked the windshield scraper into the side panel. Suddenly, he realized I’d been there the whole time, realized I’d seen him cheat on my mother with my own two eyes. And maybe he even knew he didn’t deserve the pedestal I put him on.
His response to this flagrant fall from grace?
His response to seeing me bawl my eyes out?
A lecture.
Mostly, he insisted that me telling my mother would ruin our family and break her heart, convincing me that her pain would be all my fault. According to him, our family dynamic was a bit more complicated than I understood, and me telling what I’d seen would cause it all to fall apart. At eight, I believed that shit, and the bastard bought me ice cream before taking me home. As if that fixed everything.
To this day, I’m still broken in places no one can ever possibly repair, carrying the guilt of not doing more back then. But one thing my father said that night was not a lie. My mother is every bit as fragile as he said she is. Only, that doesn’t change the fact that someone deserves to pay.
So, if not my father—for fear of it inadvertently breaking my mother when his indiscretions come to light—it has to be the women.
Every single one I’m made aware of if I can help it. Now than I’m older, I can at least do that. My mother deserves that much.
“Tell you what,” he pipes up again. “How about we resolve this whole thing right here, by just calling it even. You keep this whole little talk between us, and I don’t raise hell about you using my card. Sound like a plan?”
I say nothing because I have nothing for him.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he concludes. I don’t miss the confidence in his voice, either.
Like nothing happened here tonight, he reaches to turn up the radio. Then, after checking for traffic, we merge back onto the road.
He was with Southside tonight, before coming home to sit at the dinner table where he pretended he’d done nothing wrong. Pretended to be some kind of family man. An act I never bought.
I could only imagine what kept him so long, what kept him out an hour late tonight. I know I’m not wrong. Especially with what I know about south side girls.
They’re only good for one thing.
And, apparently, my father knows this all too well.
Chapter 21
Blue
“I hate everything about this school. Literally,” I add, just to make sure Jules gets the point.
“You have a thing going with one of the hottest boys at Cypress Prep,” she reasons on the other end. “How bad can it really be?”
“You have no idea.”
Her view on my experience here is incredibly distorted, due to a number of factors. Starting with Pandora getting the rumor going about me and West. Then, he only made things worse when he stopped by uninvited during the block party. No one knows what he actually puts me through.
“And to add insult to injury,” I go on complaining, “I’m stuck doing this stupid journalism crap, which I have zero interest in, by the way. So, my day is even longer on the afternoons we meet.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to double-down by working at the diner, too, right?”
I know she means well, but I’m not in the mood for her upbeat outlook on life today. So, “I guess,” is my only response.
The halls are completely empty as I turn the corner to my locker and grab my backpack. All I want to do is go home, eat something, then crash.
“You still there?” Jules asks as I push through the metal door that leads to the parking lot.
“Barely,” I say with an exhausted laugh, fishing my keys from the pocket of my jeans.
“Things won’t always be so bad,” she assures me, and it’s exactly the reminder I need. But, as I get halfway to my parking space, a sizable cluster of football players surrounding my car makes my anxiety spike.
“Jules, I’ll call you back,” I say in a rush, hanging up as I pick up speed.
The fatigue I felt a second ago evaporates as adrenaline replaces it. My feet thud against the pavement as I full-on sprint now, hearing laughter coming from the guys. It isn’t until I’m within a few feet that I see what they find so funny.
Several of them back off, and Austin raises his hands in the air.
