From behind me, I hear Alex’s truck rumble as he drives away. I want to be relieved, but I’m not sure if what he witnessed could somehow get back to Margaret.
“I’m sorry.” My voice is small. “I lost track of time.”
“That’s not a valid reason. We expected you home for dinner and you didn’t come, and now there’s some guy dropping you off after dark. Do you know how worried we’ve all been? You didn’t call—”
“It was just Alex,” I murmur, but I know that’s not what he wants to hear. This is my fault—I should have called or texted orsomething—but I don’t need him giving me the third degree about it. “I’m sorry, okay?”
I head inside, hoping they follow. It’s bad enough Alex saw them. I don’t want his yelling to draw attention from our entire neighborhood.
My dad is at my heels. “Peach is driving around looking for you. We were all worried sick.”
Nonnie’s standing by the stairs with a concerned look in her eyes. I glance away. Maybe I don’t have a right to be annoyed, but I am. I didn’t ask for everyone to care about me. I was able to take care of myself all those months before my dad was admitted to Sober Living.
I stop in front of the dining room. “Well, tell her I’m fine.”
But my dad isn’t done. “You can’t just come and go as you please. It’s not acceptable, leaving without telling us.”
“Us?”Hot anger slides through my veins. I don’t owe anyone here an explanation except for him. “Last time I checked,youwere my only parent in this house.”
“Do not use that tone with me,” my dad warns.
I’m trembling in quiet rage. This isn’t fair. How is he questioning his trust in me when he’s the one I couldn’t trust for so long?
“Why do you even care?” I throw up my hands. “For months you didn’t care. Then you left and made this—” I reach behind him and grab a ceramic dish from the cabinet, one of the ones he’d produced from the last rehab he’d gone to. “This stupid pottery and your stupid Small Successes and your stupid ranch equestrian training.”
“You will not talk to me like that in this house, do you understand?”
I ignore him. The feelings I thought I’d processed erupt to the surface. All I wanted was for my twelve steps to get me my normal life back, and now Alex knows something’s up—the whole neighborhood knows by now, probably—and my dad doesn’t care. He doesn’t see that them being here is a problem, not a solution.
Nonnie and Saylor have disappeared.
Good. It’s about time they learned to leave.
I look down. The ceramic is cold in my trembling hands. “You’re not the only one who lost Grams, and when I needed you, you couldn’t be there for me. You put more effort into this than you did withme,Dad. Formonths.”
And then I do something I don’t expect.
I drop the dish.
The noise startles me as it shatters into a thousand tiny shards on the tile floor. For a moment, neither of us moves. I’ve shocked my father into silence.
My breathing is staggered, but I find my words. I find the feelings I’ve kept from him for so long. “If I had the choice to come back and live here without you, I would have done it in a heartbeat. It wasn’t only you who left, you know that, right? Because of you, I had to leave my friends, my boyfriend,everythingbehind. And I come back and my life is just—just fucked up now! And it’s your fault. Then you invite these strangers into our home and—honestly? I’ve been covering for you because if Margaret found out, she’d want you back in rehab. And we both know where that would leave me. So yeah, I hate that they’re here. Don’t you get it? It’s notnormal.”
His face crumples, and I know I’ve irreversibly hurt him. The fight has left his eyes.
I pass by Nonnie and Saylor on my way upstairs, but neither of them try and stop me. I know they heard my outburst, but I can’t find the strength to care.
It’s my dad’s turn to pick up the pieces.
THIRTY ONE
NOBODY BOTHERS ME FOR THErest of the evening, and the next morning I wake up early enough to get ready before anyone is awake. I don’t want to face them. It’s cowardly, but I’m still rattled from my outburst last night. As soon as I hear Peach lock herself in the bathroom, I walk to school with an entire hour to kill.
I avoid Alex for the first half of the morning. I don’t stop by my locker, and I take a different route to history so I won’t run into him as he’s leaving theater. I have no idea what I’m going to tell him, or how to answer the questions he’ll undoubtedly ask. He sent me a worried text once he was home—is everything ok?—but I didn’t reply. I didn’t know what to say.
When lunch rolls around, I buy two slices of pizza and slide into my spot next to Lin. Everyone is sitting at the table, except for Colton, who is mysteriously absent.
“Halloween weekend is almost upon us,” Breck announces, then nudges Jay. “And we got the invite to a senior party at Winsor Lake.”
