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“Your mother and I provide for you; we keep a roof over your head and food in your belly and shoes on your feet. It’s because of us that you go to school. It’s because of us you understand right from wrong.” He exhales heavily, his puzzled eyes searching mine. “If you don’t understand why you should be grateful, then you really are an incredibly stupid girl.”
“I understand why you think I should be grateful,” I reply. I’m trying to be calm, but there’s a tightness to my voice that betrays me. Maybe I am stupid, but I’m smart enough to know that public education is free and state-mandated, that I contribute more to our household in terms of labor than a single one of my new friends does in theirs, that if I were allowed to get a job in lieu of all the free tutoring he makes me offer, I could afford better shoes than the ones I currently wear and better food than I currently eat. “I just don’t understand how you wanted it to be demonstrated.”
“Then you can spend the rest of the weekend in your room alone, figuring it out,” he says, throwing his arms out wide in exasperation. “You’ll be missing movie night, by the way.”
I would laugh out loud if I could.
An entire weekend in my room means no two-hour Bright Covenant church service online tomorrow morning. It means no afternoon spent making dinner and no Sunday spent washing windows or dusting or whatever my mom had planned.
And Kappy just gave me A Discovery of Witches.
Figuring out gratitude has never been quite as fun as it’s about to be tonight.
“What did you think of the game?” Ford asks with a sly smile as I take my seat in journalism on Monday.
I laugh. “You had an entire stadium cheering for you Friday night. Do you really need more adulation?”
“Always,” he says. “And I don’t necessarily care about what an entire stadium likes.”
I fight a small smile. The words he didn’t say—I do care what you like—hang there like unpicked fruit. “I don’t know anything about football, but you seem really good.”
“I’m not,” he says, “but I’m good enough for it to pay for college, and that’s all I care about.”
One of his buddies files past on the way in, hitting Ford in the arm. Ford tips his chin in response before he turns back to me. “So, are you going to homecoming?”
“You mean the game? Or the dance?” I ask.
“Both,” he says. “Either?”
“I wouldn’t be allowed to go to the dance,” I reply. “And I’d like to go to the game, but I’m in trouble, so I doubt it.”
He cocks a brow. “You’re in trouble? What did you do? Pray too loudly?”
For the first time in my life, I do something I’ve watched Kappy do at least three times a day since I met her—I flip him off.
I get a flash of his grin in response—the best possible reward. “I wasn’t grateful enough that my dad let me go to the mall.”
“Why the fuck should you be grateful that your dad let you go to the mall?” he demands. “That’s like...normal teen stuff.”
I shrug, rather than saying Because I’m not a normal teen.
“Are you going?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “To the mall?”
I’m embarrassed that I’ve asked, but there’s no correcting course at this point. “To the dance.”
His shoulders sag and he turns toward Mr. Scott. “I’m leaving for Jacksonville right after the game.” He swallows. “To, uh, see my sister.”
In one fell swoop, I’m both deliriously happy and cut to the core.
It doesn’t matter if he takes someone else to any of the dances.
He’ll never be taking me.
16
The halls are bedecked with posters celebrating homecoming. The band marches through the cafeteria on Friday and I get updates during the dance from Kappy, who is disappointed that no one threw any soda at anyone else and says she wishes I was there.
