“Yeah, he got some of our mail by mistake.”
“By mistake. I bet he took it, trying to get a hold of our water checks.” His eyes flit to the envelope in my hand. “What’s that?” he asks, already suspicious.
I swallow hard and set the envelope on the table. “It’s from Texas A&M. I got in.”
The silence that follows isn’t a surprise, although I hoped it would be way different than this reception. My mother’s eyes widen, her hand flying to her mouth. My father, on the other hand, leans back in his chair, his expression darkening like a brewing storm.
“I told you that college wasn’t in the cards for you. I need your help here.”
“I knew you wouldn’t approve. But this is whatIwant, Dad. I want to study veterinary medicine. I want to—”
“What youwantdoesn’t matter,” he snaps, cutting me off. “You have responsibilities here. The ranch needs you.”
“You don’t need me,” I shoot back. “You just don’t want me to leave Hicks Creek because you think it’ll make you look bad.”
“That’s enough,” he growls, standing up so quickly that his chair scrapes against the floor. “You’re not going, Sutton. I forbid it.”
“Frank,” my mother says softly, placing a hand on his arm. “Let’s talk about this calmly.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Caroline,” he growls, shrugging her off. “We can’t afford it. She’s not going, and that’s final.”
Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
“I’m eighteen. I don’t need your permission. I got scholarships and financial aid. I don’t need your money, either.”
The look on his face—eyes wide with disbelief and horror—is one of betrayal as if I’ve just driven a knife into his chest.
“You think you can just walk away from this family? From everything we’ve built?”
“She’s not walking away,” my mother interjects.
“I’mnotwalking away,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’m trying to build something for myself, while also thinking of this family. Going to vet school will be great for this ranch. You won’t have to pay for vet bills, Daddy. Do you know how much money that would save you a year? Why can’t you understand that?”
I’m going to study bovine medicine so that I can make the ranch even better, but he doesn’t even care enough about me to ask.
“Because it’s selfish,” he spits. “And it’s not how we raised you.”
“Frank,” my mother says again, more firmly this time. “Please, let’s just take a moment to breathe.”
He glares at her, then at me, before turning and storming out the back door. The sound of it slamming echoes through the house, leaving an uneasy silence in its wake.
My mother turns to me, her eyes full of sympathy and worry. “Sutton…”
“Don’t,” I say, holding up a hand. “I’m going, Mama. I’ve made up my mind.”
She nods slowly, her expression pained. “I know you have. Just… give him some time, okay? He’ll come around.”
“No, he won’t. He hates me, and you know it. He wanted a son and instead got me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is. This ranch is theonlything he cares about.”
“Sutton, he loves you. The ranch just takes up so much of his time.”
“That’s no excuse for him being a shit father. He probably can’t even tell you what my volleyball number was because he never went to any games. He never went to any of my choir concerts or any of the plays I was in. I bet if I was a boy, he’d have been at everything.”
Tears stream down my face as all my pent-up anger and resentment comes flooding out.
