“Or that you’d wreck his car. Not that taking it out each time you got mad at him was ever a good idea.” Caleb shot me a pointed look.
I scowled at him. “Nobody likes people who say ‘I told you so.’”
Caleb shrugged. “I’m just surprised you didn’t wreck it months ago. Or that Dad never found out where you took it. If he had, not even a guilty conscious would have kept him from beating you—even if he was sober when he found out.”
“But he never did.” At Caleb’s disapproving look, I added, “And just so you know, that’s not how I wrecked the car.”
Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t wreck it in a race?”
“Caleb, if I’d wrecked it in a race, I’d have totaled it. No, some idiot backed into me in the grocery store parking lot.”
“Ah. Well,” he said, scratching his neck again, “that was bad luck.”
I snorted, thinking of real Caleb stuck in a hospital bed, unconscious. “Got that right. Should have listened to you after all.”
Caleb stepped toward me, nudging my shoulder with his. “Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself. We all could have done something different. I should have done a lot of stuff differently.”
“Right. Like what? Tie me to my bed so I wouldn’t piss off Dad?” I doubted even that would have worked. My very existence seemed to be enough to get him in a bad mood. From what he’d say when he was drunk, I reminded him too much of my mom.
“No, like have reported Dad to Child Protection Services for one.”
“I told you not to.”
Caleb frowned. “I should have anyway. Even if” —he held up his hand to stave off my protests— “Dad had connections, but maybe he’d have been on good behavior while he was on CPS’s radar, at least.”
“Doubt it,” I grumbled. “If only your dumb roommates would have let me crash at your place.”
He shook his head. “We’ve been through this. I go to a school where most of the student body is decently intelligent. And most intelligent guys wouldn’t want a seventeen-year-old runaway crashing at our place after her dad threatens to drag them to court.”
“But—”
“Don’t you see how that would look? How Dad could make it look? Before you know it, he’d be stringing me and all of my roommates along on charges of corrupting a minor and sex trafficking.”
“He wouldn’t do that to you,” I scoffed.
“No, he’d do it to you. I’d just be collateral damage.”
I flinched. Wasn’t that exactly what had happened? Dad wanted to beat me to a bloody pulp. Caleb got in the way and got beaten close to death because of it.
“What did I ever do to him?”
“Exist?” Caleb said with a laugh before he caught my eye and sobered up. I hadn’t realized I was crying until Caleb wiped a few tears from my eyes.
“Hey.” Caleb gently shook my shoulder. “Hey, don’t let him get to you. You know you remind him too much of Mom. I think he feels that when he’s punishing you, he’s really punishing her.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Maybe not. But it’s never been about you. It’s always been about her. You know that, right?”
I nodded, staring at my hands. A thought niggled at the back of my mind. “Caleb, was Mom, you know, crazy? Dad always said she was a crazy witch and all, but do you think there was more to it? Honestly, whenever Dad talked about her, he was the one that sounded insane. Maybe…did Dad have mental stuff going on? It would kind of explain why Mom left—”
“There’s no good excuse for Mom to leave us with him.”
I nodded, not realizing I was crying until Caleb wrapped me into a tight hug, pressing my head against his chest. “Shhh,” he said, rocking me side-to-side, settling the thump-thump of my heart back down to its normal, steady rhythm. “Shhh.”
I gulped down a sob, swallowing it before it embarrassed me.
“Our family’s so freaking messed up,” I said, my voice wavering.
“No, the sperm and the egg donor are messed up. You and me” —Caleb turned me around to where he could stare directly into my eyes— “we’re our family. We’re freaking awesome and we aren’t going anywhere.”
But just as I raised my arms to hug him back, a loud banging ripped me from Caleb and pulled me back into the sterile surroundings of my new room with a suddenness that made me jerk up, shooting enough pain through my sides that I was on the verge of barfing. I clamped my hands over my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut until I was sure I wouldn’t vomit again.
More banging on the door, louder this time.
Whoever it was, I hated them right then. I’d been with my brother, the one person I really cared about, and they’d dragged me away from him just like CPS had earlier this morning.
I wanted to yell at whoever it was to go away, but I clamped my mouth shut. It was probably Ms. Reid checking in on me. I’d fallen asleep, and for all I knew, it could be dinner time right now.
But before I could trust myself to calmly say “Come in,” the door flew open, the doorjamb framing Mickey.
His wide-eyed expression shifted from worry to relief to neutral so quickly that I wasn’t sure if I was seeing things.
“Are you okay? I thought someone else…” Mickey trailed off. My face must have shown how excited I was to have company.
“Nope,” I said, popping the “p.” “Just me. In my room. Alone.” I was tempted to add Just the way I like it but figured that would have been overkill.
“Strange. I felt…” Mickey gaze flitted around the room. “I thought I heard someone in your room.”
Oh. Crap.
I rubbed my eyes before looking back at him. “I might have been talking in my sleep,” I admitted. “It’s kind of a thing I do.”
But I usually wasn’t loud enough that anyone outside of my room could hear
