“You’re the ones not listening. I’m trying to talk to you—”
Dad gripped her shoulders. His voice began to shake and rise. Tirade incoming. Inside Willow began to shake too, but his hold wouldn’t let her make space. “You’re my daughter.Youlisten tome, and I’m telling you right now, you will not date one of those…one of those…”
Acid seeped into Willow’s stomach, along with a sourness at the back of her throat, as if she might really throw up. “Ezra is a person, a good person, and I’m not breaking up with him.”
The routine was as old as she was. Dad bounced his fist off the wall, not hard enough to damage it, just hard enough to make her jump, to make his point. “You’ll do what you’re told for the good of this family.”
“No, I will not.”
The first time she’d ever spoken those words to her parents.
Mom turned and left the room. Dad stood staring, his mouth a hard line. When Mom came back, she pulled Willow’s carry-on along behind her. She shoved it forward, and it bumped into Willow’s shins.
“Pack,” Mom said.
“Wh-what?”
“Call him right now, put him on speaker, and break up with him. Or pack and get out of this house.”
“Mom…”
“No Fitzgerald is going to be with one of them, Willow. No Fitzgerald—” A faint noise of disgust rose in Mom’s throat as she turned away and shoved her fingers into her hair. “I won’t put up with it. We won’t.”
“Just call him, Willow,” Dad said. “And we can all go to bed.”
They didn’t mean it.
Yeah. They did.
“Give me a week,” Willow said.
Mom cocked one eyebrow. “A week to break up?”
A tiny coward within tried to speak.Yeah, I’ll break up with him within the next week. I promise.Willow squashed the inner wimp and drew a deep breath that filled every empty lonely space inside her, that calmed the roiling in her gut. Time to be brave.
“A week to find somewhere to sleep,” she said.
Before she’d finished speaking, both of her parents shook their heads. They’d discussed this. They were in agreement.
Well, okay then. She took her carry-on to her bedroom. Then she shut the door.
“Five minutes,” Mom said from the hall.
“What?” came a squeaky sleepy voice.
Saffron was up. Maybe Willow had a chance after all. Surely if Saffron protested, Dad and Mom would come to their senses, realize they couldn’t reasonably make their daughter homeless.
“Your sister is choosing a lupine over her own family.”
Three hard raps on the door. “Willow, let me in.”
“No,” Willow said.
Saffron flung open the door, marched in, and shut it behind her. Dressed in pink bunny-print pajamas, dark ponytail half-fallen out, she squinted against the light. “This isn’t happening.”
“You told them.”
“For your own good.”
