I opened the fridge and rifled through its contents. Settling on some leftover potato salad, I crossed to the silverware drawer to retrieve a spoon. That earned a disapproving look from Dad.
“What? I’m gonna polish it off! No sense in dirtying up a dish.”
He just huffed at me, and I chuckled to myself.
“You know we haven’t decided where to go on our annual road trip this summer yet. How do you feel about driving nine hours down to New Orleans?” I said it like it was the most normal thing to consider.
“Hmm, that might be doable,” he said without glancing up from his paper.
I stopped midway to depositing a spoonful of potato salad in my mouth when my eyes rolled toward the ceiling, and I dropped the spoon back into the container. I felt like a complete idiot. How on earth could I have forgotten something so important!
“Hey, Dad, you know what? I’ll eat this when I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Just on a quick jog, I need to start conditioning for Volleyball, and if I eat this before I go, I won’t make it all the way through the jog.”
Dad put down the paper and looked at me like I’d lost my mind, “Jogging?”
I shrugged, “Yeah, why?”
He shook his head and snapped his paper open in front of his face again, “Alrighty, see you when you’re done.”
I mouthed a silent, “Thank God,” walked back through the house and out the front door.
Echo giggled in my head; I was wondering how long it would take you to realize you’d left your car at the library. It’ll only take you what, twenty minutes to walk there.
I didn’t bother keeping my response in my mind as she continued to laugh at my stupidity, “Shut up, Echo!”
Chapter Six
Caught
I’d stopped at my driver’s side door in the library parking lot to reply to Drew’s text, unlocked it with the key fob, got in behind the wheel and shut the door.
“You mind explaining what’s going on?”
I fumbled my phone into his lap and almost cracked my head on the closed window when I heard his voice. Slowly, I turned to where Dad sat in my passenger seat. I closed my eyes and let my head fall against the headrest.
“Well?” he pressed, “I’m sure there is a good reason why you lied, so let’s have it. What were you really up to today, Eden?”
I glanced at him and opened my mouth to say something when he lifted a finger, silencing me.
“Perhaps, I can get a straight, honest answer out of whoever you were texting.”
Dread filled me as he handed me my phone and said, “Unlock it.”
I knew better than to argue and did as he asked as the sense of impending doom pulled at every nerve in my body. I knew I was in deep trouble. We sat in silence, and with each passing second of us sitting in the hot car, I could hear Dad’s breathing become heavier and heavier as his anger mounted with each text read. When he finished, he set the phone down on the middle console.
“These messages are only from today, and there are no older ones, which means you’ve been erasing your conversations. How long—how long have you been seeing this boy behind my back!” His voice climbed in volume with each word until he was shouting, and I shrunk down in my seat as shame and guilt assaulted me. Running a hand over his dark goat tee, he took several deep breaths, and when he spoke again it was in a calm, quiet tone. “You are to go straight home, park your car in the garage, and meet me in the living room. We are going to have a little chat, Eden.”
He got out of my car and got into his, which was parked right next to mine. How had I not noticed that? I followed him home, did as he instructed, and waited for him to join me in the living room. When he walked in holding a glass with two fingers of scotch, I knew the situation was not going to end well. Dad only drank when he had a hard decision to make, or when he was completely stressed.
“First, put your car keys and phone on the coffee table, I pay for those things, and you are not going to use either until this is settled. It’s hard for you to carry on with a boy who you can’t see or talk to. Now, do you remember what I told you would happen if even the thought of spending time with a boy, so much as crossed your mind, Eden?”
He tossed a small stack of brochures on the coffee table as he threw the scotch back in one gulp. It was the same three brochures he’d used to scare me away from any thoughts of boys being more than friends, four years before, when evidence of my womanhood had just started to emerge. Four years ago—when I was thirteen. Now, my high school career was halfway over, I was seventeen, and he’d kept me from what every other normal high school girl gets to experience. What did he expect me to do when prom or homecoming came around—go stag?
That’s exactly what he expects, Eden.
I glanced up from the brochures that he’d used as scare tactics strewn on the table and realized that maybe that’s all they were—scare tactics. I had eleven months until I turned eighteen, then what would he do? Nothing, because after that he wouldn’t be able to stop me, legally or otherwise. That simple fact gave me courage I’d never had before when it came to Dad. I’d never been a rebellious teen or even a difficult one for that matter. I’d never
