I think I’m going to throw up. My stomach is uneasy, and my back is stiff. I don’t talk to Dad like this very often, and when I do, we always end up in an enormous fight that leaves us not speaking for weeks at a time.
“What did you just say to me?” he barks and strides across the room so fast that I almost don’t expect it when he’s in my face and breathing rank breath down on my cheeks. My stomach flips, and my body feels like it’s weighted down with hundreds of pounds of concrete. I just want to sink to the floor and play dead.
“I love him,” I whisper. Because I do, and Dad needs to know it.
“What about school?” he asks.
“I got my GED. I can work in town.” I know how it sounds to his ears, even if I don’t want to admit it. It sounds like I’m giving up my dream of culinary school to stay in town with a boy. But it’s more than that. So much more.
“Fuck that,” he says. His eyes travel down to my neck where, sure enough, he spots the bruises that are forming. “He use anything tonight besides you?”
“We were careful, and he didn’t use me,” I yell, leaning in to him. I know men Dad’s size and bigger who won’t say a cross word to him. I wouldn’t piss him off if I wore a patch either. But I don’t, and I’m not afraid of him. “He loves me.”
“The hell he does,” Dad seethes. “You gonna feel real grown up when your dad shows up and rips his dick off? You gonna feel like an adult then, huh, Chey?
“Is this the first time?” he asks. I’m tempted not to tell him. It’s none of his business, but this is bad enough. Refusing to answer is only going to earn us a longer fight and a trip to Nic and Duke’s, which will wake up the baby. And that, I’ve learned, is worse than scratching Duke’s bike. Sleep is precious these days in that house.
“Yes,” I say. Tears well in my eyes. This isn’t how the night of my first time was supposed to go. I was supposed to crawl into bed and reminisce about it, not stand here and fight with my dad over something this private.
Asshole. He is such an asshole.
“Is this shit the reason you haven’t applied to that school you been talking about?”
“I changed my mind. I just don’t want to go anymore.”
I can’t tell him that I’ve not gotten far enough on Mindy’s case to leave. I can’t tell him that I want to be here when he and Holly have a baby—because she’s so going to snow him into that one. I can’t tell him any of this, so we go back and forth and back again. He asks a question, and I respond with increasingly unkind words. I don’t want to talk about this with him, but even if I run upstairs, he’ll just follow me. Because he won’t listen, and I can’t find the words he needs to understand.
“You’re throwing your future away for a boy who isn’t going to give a shit in six months. You want me to stop getting in your business, then you need to start making better choices.”
“You’re wrong,” I say through falling tears. “He loves me.”
“I’ll bet he thinks he does,” he says. “But you’re going to school. Holly has worked too hard to keep you on track with your education for you to throw it away because you want some asshole’s attention. As it is, you had to get your GED because you couldn’t get your ass to class.”
“It’s not like that,” I wail. I don’t even bother to wipe the tears away. Every word he says is meaner than the last. They slam into my gut and practically pierce my heart one after the other. He needs to stop before his words split me in two. Maybe if he knew the reason I missed so many classes he would understand. Maybe then he wouldn’t look so disgusted with me. No, then I’d have to deal with the entire club’s disapproval.
“I was eighteen once,” he says. “It’s always like that. He wanted your pussy, and now that he’s got it, he’s going to leave you behind. He’s Forsaken now, Chey. He won’t be faithful.” Dad’s words have fallen to a whisper. His shoulders have dropped, and the intensity of the moment has passed. He just looks pained.
Good. Misery loves company.
“I’m not going to leave him no matter what you say,” I mutter through a series of hiccups. “You don’t get it. It’s painful thinking about going away, and I won’t do it to him or to me. I love him, sometimes so much it hurts. It feels like it’s crushing me from the inside out.”
“You are going to regret this,” Dad says. “I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”
I sniffle and wipe my nose. Dad reaches out to hug me, but the last thing I want is his comfort. I just want Jeremy.