“Good.” I blinked several times. Crap—I always blinked when I lied. Worried they’d catch on, I lowered my head. Wait. Dad had attention issues and Ms. Scarecrow Brain wouldn’t notice a flying monkey if it smacked her in the face.
My father eased into his recliner and Ashley sat on his lap. Dear God, I am so sorry for whatever I did, but honestly, was my sin that bad? Dad kissed her hand. Swallowing bile, I turned my attention to the fireplace.
“Are you ready to take the ACT on Saturday?” my father asked.
Did chickens enjoy being put on trucks labeled KFC? “Sure.”
“You studied word lists earlier. Focus purely on math. That’s where you have problems.”
Problems? My math scores were way above average, but of course that wasn’t good enough.
Dad continued, “Did Mrs. Collins excuse you from some of your classes so you could prepare?”
“Yes.”
“I noticed fliers for the Valentine’s Day Dance in the office. Are you and Luke going?” When Ashley fished for information her irritating voice entered a higher pitch of annoying. Dogs in Oklahoma winced.
“Luke asked me today. Don’t worry. Our family’s precious reputation will stay intact. Mrs. Collins will never know that you lied to make yourself look better.”
“Echo!”
Crap. I cringed at the disappointment in my father’s voice. The automatic apology fell out of my mouth. “Sorry, Ashley.” Though it was true.
“It’s okay. When do you want to go dress shopping?”
Do what? I tore my eyes away from the fire and stared at her. My father rubbed her baby belly while she caressed his cheek. Gross. “I don’t need a new dress.”
“Yes, you do. Everything you own is either strapless or spaghetti-strapped. You can’t go to a dance with those scars showing.”
“Ashley,” my father whispered. His hand froze on her belly.
My throat swelled as if someone had rammed it with a two-by-four and my stomach cramped as if someone had whacked it. I sat up and my head swayed with the room. Disorientation in full force, I pulled down my sleeves. “I’m going … to go … upstairs.”
Ashley slid off my father. “Echo, wait. I didn’t mean it like that. I just want you to have a good night. A night you can look back at pictures of and remember how much fun you had.”
I brushed past her to the stairs. I needed my room. The one place Ashley’s bad decorating hadn’t completely ruined. The place where my mother’s colorful paintings hung, where pictures of me and Aires cluttered my desk, the only place I felt comfortable.
My heart ached. I wanted more than my room, but that was all I had. I wanted my mom. She may have been nuts, but she never put me down. I wanted Aires. I wanted the one person who’d loved me.
Ashley called to me from the bottom of the stairs. “Please, let me explain.”
I paused in my door frame. If she had never entered our lives, my mother and Aires would still be here, I wouldn’t be a scarred monster, and I would know love, not the hate currently boiling in my veins. “I liked you better when you were my babysitter. I hope when I graduate from high school I don’t turn into a royal witch like you.” I slammed the door behind me.
AFTER THAT LOVELY EXCHANGE with Ashley, I spent the rest of the night in my room hiding. I lay in bed and stared at the one part of my room Ashley had gotten to—my ceiling. She’d painted over my mother’s hand-painted constellations. The witch had done it while I recovered in the hospital. My mother used to lie in bed with me for hours staring at the ceiling, telling me Greek myths. Having few good memories of my mother, I despised Ashley more for stealing the one I had.
The knock on my door at 11:30 surprised me. The rule of thumb in the house required me to apologize first. Ashley probably wanted to show me in person why my current dresses wouldn’t work. No need to prolong the inevitable. “Come in.”
I bolted upright the moment my father walked in. He never came to my room. The first two buttons of his dress shirt were unbuttoned and his tie hung loose. Worry lines were carved around his tired eyes. He looked old. Too old to be married to a twenty-some-odd bimbo and too old to be having another baby. “She’s sorry, Echo.”
Of course he’d come on Ashley’s behalf. God forbid anything in this house not revolve around Ashley. “Okay. My apology will have to wait until morning. I’m a little beat.” We both knew what a cop-out that was. I’d be lucky if I slept for an hour.
Surprising me even more, my dad did something he hadn’t done since I came home from the hospital—he sat on my bed. “I’m going to contact your social worker. I don’t think this new therapist is working out.”
“No.” I said it too quickly and my dad caught on. “I already told you, I like her. She’s easy to talk to. Plus you said that you’d give her another try.”
“I know things between you and Ashley have been tough since you found out about our relationship, but you’ve been lashing out at her more than normal. She’s pregnant. I don’t want her under stress.”
My big toe began to rock. Would it kill him to love me? “I’ll try harder. Just let me keep seeing Mrs. Collins.” I needed to give him a reason to back off. “She’s the one that convinced me to focus on my friends and to date.” Lie.
Some of the worry lines disappeared. “I don’t think that’s her. That’s you. I’ll leave it alone if you try harder with Ashley. She loves you. And you used to adore her.”
Yeah, when on her eighteenth birthday, she let me stay up late and eat popcorn at the age of six or when she let me wear makeup on my first day of fourth grade. Crazy thing happened—she slept with my father and then left my family drowning in a wake of destruction.
“If you really want to show me you’re trying, let her take you dress shopping. She had a whole day planned and is devastated that she upset you. Let her have fun and I’ll drop the SAT retake.”
I raised an eyebrow. My father never negotiated. “Really?”