Armstrong rolls her eyes, then nods, sending Bryce over to Vice Principal Benavidez’s office.
I sit down in the chair in front of her desk, and the moment Armstrong closes the door behind her, I begin to sob. “I need... I need to call my mom,” I say.
She pats my shoulder. “That was supposed to be my suggestion.”
Principal Armstrong does most of the explaining, for which I’m grateful. I nearly tremble when she hands me the phone, but my mom is... calm. She tells me we’ll talk about it when I get home and that she’s calling Keith andmy dad to see who can get to the school quickest.
I hang up, and Armstrong hands me a box of tissues. She cradles her chin in her hand and turns up the music on her computer just a little. Some kind of nineties acoustic songs with flowy lady voices dancing along to each note. “What is this? Old-lady slow jams?”
“Tori Amos,” she tells me. “You’re having a bad day, so I’ll try not to hold that against you.”
We sit there in silence for a little while.
“We can talk if you want,” she finally says. “I can even send you down to the counselor. Or I can play mah-jongg and we can wait for your ride.”
I sniff. “That last option is good.”
About thirty minutes pass before there’s a light knock on the door. A freshman student aide sticks her head in the door. She focuses on me, my tearstained face, dirty clothes, and Oreos stuck in my teeth. “Um, her dad is here.”
The aide steps back and in walks my dad. Not Keith. For some reason, I’d just assumed that the aide meant Keith. But no. My dad is here.
“I was working a job just outside of town,” he says.
But I barely even hear him, because all I can do is fall into his arms. He squeezes me tight. The thick black stubble peppering his chin tickles against my neck, and I let the whole weight of my body relax against him. It feels like falling into bed after a long day. He wears his everyday self-imposed uniform of a plaid button-up shirt and the same style of Levi jeans he’s worn since he and my mom started dating.
“Should we talk?” he asks Principal Armstrong.
“Tomorrow. I’ll talk to her and her mom first thing in the morning. And you too, if work permits. But I think it might be best to get out of here before the last bell rings.”
He nods once and takes my hand. With his other arm, he hoists my backpack onto his shoulder.
He doesn’t speak until we’re out in the fresh air. “Made quite a scene, did ya?” He tries to swallow a chuckle as he slides on his signature Ray-Ban aviators. “Your mother liked having an audience for our fights, too.”
“Dad.”
“Brian had it coming.” He opens the passenger door of his truck for me and tucks my backpack at my feet before slamming the door shut.
“His name was Bryce!” I say, loud enough for him to hear as he walks around to the other side.
He hops in and turns the engine on. “Guess it doesn’t much matter anymore.”
I sigh.
“Do I need to give you the whole he-never-deserved-you pep talk?”
“No,” I tell him. “He was never in my league.” But for the first time the confidence I’ve always put on display for the world to see feels like a complete and total sham.
“You know you’ll find something better out there.”
“But maybe I won’t,” I say, my voice tiny.
He pulls into the Harpy’s drive-through without even stopping to ask if I want something.
The speaker crackles as we approach the drive-through.“Welcome to Harpy’s,” the deadpan voice says. “What’ll it be?”
“You never found someone better than Mom,” I say.
“Two vanilla cones,” he says. “One dipped in strawberry and one in chocolate.” He pulls forward, but not all the way up to the window, and steadies his gaze on me. “With your mom and me, it wasn’t about needing something better. Not for either of us. It was about finding something that worked. We loved each other, but we didn’t work. That wasn’t fair to you or Claudia. And besides, she snored too much.”
