“Jase, watch your language.”
“I don’t give a shit about my language right now! Dad, you know I don’t want to go to Harvard. I’ve been accepted to the New England School of Ballet, and that’s where I’m going.” It’s not like I haven’t been making this clear to him for weeks.
“It’s not.”
“Dad!” We’ve had this conversation a thousand times. “I don’t want to go to Harvard. I want to dance. Why can’t you finally accept that?”
“Because you’re not going to waste your high school diploma on a ridiculous dance school. You’re a Winslow. Act like one.”
I snort. As if it means something that I’m a Winslow. In his world, it does: It means wealth and a bunch of medical success stories. To me, it means nothing.
“If Sam were here—”
“Samisn’there!” I shout, interrupting him. My heart is hammering, and my entire body is shaking. My voice too. “If he were here, you’d have come to my graduation. Which was today, by the way.” I glance at Mom. A guilty expression appears on her pale face. She actually forgot. “ButI’mhere. Sorry if I’m not good enough for—”
“That’s enough,” Dad says definitively, finally looking at me. The expression in his green eyes—the same eyes as mine, damn it—is cold and merciless. “You’re going to Harvard. Otherwise, you’ll have to think about how you’re going to finance your education yourself. And where you’re going to live.”
I freeze. “Are you seriously throwing me out?”
“Apparently, you want to make your own decisions, so you can live with the consequences. I guarantee you that I’m not going to fund a totally pointless dance education.”
“But Lia is doing it. Why is she allowed to dance and I’m not?” I look at Mom pleadingly, but she refuses to meet my gaze and stares blankly at her salad.
I want to tell her how much ballet means to me and why I want to dance. That it’s the only thing I can do well. That it’s the onlything in my life that makes me feel like I can achieve something. That it helps stop me from going crazy and gives me an outlet for my feelings. I want to tell her that I feel more alive when I dance than when I do anything else and, above all, that it makes me happy. But I’ve tried more than once to express to them how important dance is to me, and they aren’t interested. They refuse to listen. I don’t even try anymore.
“You’re not Lia. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Make up your mind, and live with the consequences.” Dad turns back to his lasagna.
Stunned, I stare at him.
Fuck you.The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say them. Instead, I turn away without a word and leave the house.
Chapter 9
Jase
Who do you hate most?
Sam. My dad.Sometimesmyself.
—J
“We need the money in four weeks at the latest. Otherwise, you’ll have to leave, Jase.”
Pearson’s words are still ringing in my head, on repeat in a continuous, toxic loop. I hear them again and again as I hurry to the parking lot to call an Uber. How could this happen? How could everything go so wrong?
Fuck fuck fuck!
It takes far too long for the damn Uber to finally appear. I slide into the back seat to avoid talking to the driver. My thoughts race as the car makes its way with agonizing slowness through the Boston traffic, across Back Bay to the West End. Half an eternity passes before it finally pulls up by the glass-fronted building complex where my parents have their clinic.
My parents are fertility experts and specialists in gynecology, and if they put half as much energy into their own son as they dointo the unborn children of their patients, we’d probably all be doing a lot better.
The clinic takes up three floors of the building, with its own laboratory and several delivery rooms. My parents spend more or less every moment of their time here, unless they’re called to one of the nearby hospitals to help with a cesarean section. My parents are brilliant, and medicine is their whole purpose in life.
It used to be different, back when we were still a family. But the old days are long gone.
My mother’s office is on the first floor. I don’t bother stopping at the reception desk to announce myself. Her assistant is sitting behind the desk, talking to a very pregnant woman, and doesn’t even notice me.
Dark wood floors, bright walls, warm colors. The atmosphere is friendly and inviting, a place designed to make you feel safe and at ease.
