“No, Steele. Get your shit together and stop calling me.”
“You bailed Brock out.”
“That’s because it’s Brock, not you.”
It took me all of half-a-second to regret those words. I knew exactly what they sounded like, and Steele’s likely interpretation was not wrong. The silence on the other end of the line only affirmed my worst fears. Steele had always been the unhealthily jealous type, but now he had very good reason to suspect the worst between Brock and me.
“OK,” he said. “I… I see how it is.”
“Steele—”
But he hung up before I could get another word in.
Well, in addition to pushing Brock far too hard to reveal more information about himself, I had now sown the seeds of discord between him and his best friend. I hadn’t even kissed him—though, in defense of Steele’s suspicions, I would have—and now Steele and he would probably come to blows.
Apparently, I didn’t just wreck people’s psyches. I wrecked their brotherhoods. It was yet another reason for me to stay the hell away from them.
* * *
I couldn’t say at what point I fell asleep. It didn’t do much good, though, because I only woke up to feel saddened and disappointed by what had happened the night before.
I leaned over to check my phone. No new messages.
Nothing from Brock.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. It would have been nice for him to say something, to ask if I’d gotten home, but I couldn’t—shouldn’t—expect nice things. Not with what I’d done to him.
I showered, got dressed, and walked downstairs, doing very little to hide the zombie-like state that I had found myself in. My father was on his laptop with some coffee and a strawberry-covered pastry by his side; Elizabeth sat to his right, eating an omelet she’d cooked herself. My mother was upstairs, but she had either already eaten or was doing other chores.
“The board is happy with the progress with the solar farm so far,” my father said.
No good morning. No hello, Tara. Nothing. Business as usual.
“Because of your hard work on the ground, we can hire labor and grounds crew to implement the farm soon.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said as I made myself a bowl of cereal—a quick and easy meal that required essentially no thought on my part.
“The board has made a brilliant choice.”
He didn’t sound like he was talking to us. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“I agree, father,” Elizabeth said.
My dad didn’t respond, typing an email on his laptop. I sat back down with the bowl and took a couple of bites. It was just Frosted Flakes, not exactly the healthiest meal a person could have, but one that had always been a comfort food to me.
“Dad?” Elizabeth repeated.
“Your work with the farm is greatly appreciated, daughter.”
“You know we’ve been doing this despite the repeated threats of violence, right?”
Both Dad and I stopped what we were doing to gawk at Elizabeth. She never, ever cracked. And she especially never said anything out of line to my father.
Perhaps I wasn’t the only one dealing with too much bullshit in Santa Maria.
“I…” my father began.
The poor man did not understand how to handle emotion from his daughters. I had honestly thought for the longest time he was autistic or struggled with social anxiety; it was only recently I realized that no, he was so focused on work and making money that anything that distracted from it was something he didn’t pay attention to.
