“And yo sure you’re up to the challenge of watching over her during break?”
“I’m an adult, Hershel, and she’s a child. My child. I think we’ll manage.”
I want to fist-bump the air, but refrain, stepping away from the door when I hear what I assume are Roland’s footsteps moving toward me.
“Ready?” he says with a stressed smile while we move through the office.
I nod, waiting until we’re outside the walls of the administration building to speak. “Thanks for playing along with my bluff. I needed him off my back.”
Roland stops on the last step, causing me to turn around to face him. “Bluff or not, Kennedy, you’re coming home with me during the break.”
“What? No. That was just to get out of that stupid shepherding thing—”
Roland puts up his hand, and a stern line forms across his mouth. “No.” He lowers his voice to a near whisper, linking his arm through mine as we move further away from the building. “Don’t think for a minute that he won’t be checking in on us.”
“Spying?” My throat constricts with anger and tears. My mind is racing around how to get out of this, how to tell my mom, Mollie—no. No. I’m going home for break. I’m not spending six weeks with Roland.
“Follow-up,” Roland lets go of my arm once we’re halfway across the quad.
“But, spying,” I reiterate. He’s silent, and that’s the only answer I need. “Well … what now? I want to go home! I don’t want—sorry … it’s not that I don’t want to meet your parents, or whatever, but I wasn’t planning on that. Yet.”
Roland cups his hand over his mouth, an intense introspection working through his eyes. “I’ll still take you to see your mom and family. But not for the whole six weeks. I do have a lot of traveling to do, that wasn’t a lie. And, even better, Dean Baker really is going to that family issues conference in Georgia.” The sarcastic tone of voice startles me. He growls a little, as he gets lost in thought.
This is the most undone I’ve ever seen him, and I’m lost as to how to respond. This is my fault.
“I’m sorry again,” I start. “I … I know neither of us wants this, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
Roland looks at me with wide, sympathetic eyes. Taking my shoulders in his hands, the hard lines around his eyes soften. “Kennedy,” he whispers. “No. I’m sorry. I do want this. I’ve always wanted you in my life, to meet my parents, all of it.”
“But your … frustration …”
“That’s at Dean Baker. He’s the head of my unofficial lynching committee. And …”
“What?” I prompt, unaccustomed to seeing him at a loss for words.
Roland cracks a grin. “How are we going to explain this to your mother?”
Finally, I crack and release a few nervous tears. “Can you call her, please? Tell her she can call Dean Baker if she wants, but explain that we presented it as an already solidified deal … I don’t know. Just … please deal with her? I can’t. If I tell her anything about him, I’ll tell her everything, then she’ll be marching here with Connecticut’s most cut-throat lawyers and, honestly, no one wants that.” I’m rambling, but thinking of the look on Mom’s face when she hears I’ll be largely MIA during break is heartbreaking and frightening at the same time.
“No worries,” Roland finally says with a charming smile. “I’ve got it covered. It may be many years since I last debated with her in our politics class, but I know how to negotiate with her.”
Naked. That’s how I feel whenever Roland or Mom talk about each other like they’re different people from a different time and place. Really, that’s what they are to each other, but the way Roland is looking at me makes me want to wrap myself in a blanket.
Like I’m the product of two people who loved each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Set Me on Fire
Kennedy.
“You’re kidding.” Eden’s mouth hangs open so far her gum nearly falls out.
I shake my head slowly, snapping my gum. “Nope.”
She looks around our room like someone just told her Santa Claus shot the Easter Bunny. But, it’s just the two of us, finishing up some packing before we depart for our break. Bridgette had some last-minute volunteer work to do this afternoon, which is giving Eden and I some rare alone time. It’s not that I wouldn’t trust Bridge with this information, but I’d like to take it one person at a time, as needed, and Eden and I have grown close, as the semester has gone on.
I’ve just told her everything I had to tell. About my first meeting with Dean Baker, my most recent one with him and Roland, through the phone conversation I just ended with my feral-voiced mother. Conversation is a loose term for what took place, given I said about ten words during the fifteen-minute tirade that started with how dare I go to Trent’s house and put myself in that position (despite her knowing exactly where I was going that night), through how dare I request to spend break with Roland. I know she knows the last part was far more complicated than a “request,” but she was angry.