I lowered my hand shortly to speak. “I just wish it wouldn’t take too long,” I said quickly and then covered my mouth again.
He put the notebook down in his lap and focused on me with that intense gaze, no other expression on his face. My heart went wild. I wasn’t sure if he was displeased.
“What if it does?” he asked in a soft tone.
The question froze my brain the moment he asked it. I stared at him and then lowered my eyes to the maroon tie, the knot at his neck.
What if it did? What if it took two years? Or even longer?
What if I was stuck in that house forever?
The worst thoughts trampled through my brain.
He recoiled for a moment and then shook it off. He reached for me, quickly collecting my chin in his fingers and drawing me out of my deep thoughts.
His gaze turned more silver, his lips tilting down at the edges.
“What I meant was, if it takes a month, will you give up?”
Give up? Did he mean stay with Carol? Or simply walk out of the house recklessly? I blinked, shaking my head slowly against his fingers.
He held on for only a second before releasing me, but he leaned in a little closer until his chest was an inch from my knees that were drawn up between us. “If it takes two, will you want to stop and give up?”
“No,” I said quietly, although I wasn’t sure I meant it. However, when I thought about it, what was the alternative? Breaking down and storming out? That could result in explosions for the guys, not just myself. As much as I wanted to hurry things along, did I really want to risk everything?
“Then how long it takes only matters when you want to give in,” he said quietly. He motioned to the original list, the important things I’d written down. “You have a lot of goals, and a lot you want to get started on. I understand you don’t want to be in that house. No one wants you to be there. Not you. Not us. Not your father. Or even Carol.”
“You don’t think she likes me?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “You’re not her priority. Securing herself, her son, that’s what’s important to her. You and your sister were in the way, so she came to change that. She didn’t do it slowly, introduce herself, or ask anyone for permission. She just stepped in when she saw an opportunity.” He lowered his tone, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t mistake her offer for harmony for being on the same page with what you want.”
That confirmed my own thoughts on Carol, the doubts I’d had about her, yet I still hesitated. She was innocent, a normal person, so I didn’t wish her harm, but I couldn’t really pretend she thought she was doing the best for me.
He took up the notebook again and jotted down a few things underneath that first topic. As he wrote, he spoke, but not on what he was writing about. How he could do both at the same time amazed me. “Fortunately, her goals may give us the opportunity we were looking for. Before you can leave, we’ll have to secure a few things. First, she’s seeking divorce. With an Academy lawyer, one that we will be providing, she’ll get what she’s asking for.”
“She’s the one making calls? I thought she was getting him to do it.”
“She left messages a couple of days ago. She’s not leaving it to him alone.”
I frowned. To get what she wanted, she was willing to go around my father? I couldn’t tell him this without him wondering how I knew, and I doubted he’d believe me.
He continued, “It’s unlikely she’ll get an immediate response, and she knows it. This is probably why she seems to be focusing only on cleaning. Most likely on Monday, she’ll begin more calls. She’ll be redirected to the right people.”
What else would she do by Monday? “When I said things were okay at school, she claimed to want to check in, but...”
“We’ve got to focus on the immediate. We’ll get to that later, if we need to.” He finished what he was writing and showed me a list.
He arranged different questions, and then in little boxes, he put action items.
“Right now, our best chance is getting them both interested. Start with your father. He’s most likely to agree with you if you convince him that doing so will absolve him somehow of his past. With Carol, we just need to convince her that it saves her money and gets you out of her hair. Once we’ve got them on board, we’ll fake a few testing and interview appointments.”
I couldn’t help but wonder how long this would take. I was willing to do it. The work didn’t bother me. My going to a free school didn’t seem like a problem for my father.
For Carol, though? Would it conflict with what she wanted?
I wouldn’t give up after a month, like he’d said, but part of me wanted to be able to know when I could escape. With as nosy and interfering as Carol was, how much of this would we be able to get away with?
When he had written out the plan for a private school, he focused on the portion that allowed me to get out of the house as much as possible. He made a list that included keeping the planner I’d started with North updated. I’d need to call the guys in front of her, pretending to call girls via the house phone. They would get in contact with other girls within the Academy to pick me up, only to drop me off again shortly at the diner or the new trailer being installed.
“We’ll do this until you’ve got a routine,” he said. “You don’t want to be there. Let’s not get her used to you being around the house that often. We may also work in what we can do with your sister as well. She’s the most likely to let everything slip. It may be better to include her in the plan.”
“I should talk to her at some point. I didn’t want to last night.”
“It’s probably a good idea to allow her space to calm down. She may need a little guidance, but do your best not to share too much information with her yet. Not until we know what she wants that we can offer her in exchange for her silence.”
When he got to how to ask the guys how they felt, he hesitated over it, considering. “This one is important, but I think only you can do this. However, I do have a recommendation.”
I sat up, shifting my legs to the side, eager to hear it.
He put the notebook aside, leaning into me a little again. The steel in his eyes melted into silver. “When you get home tonight, find another journal or notebook. Take one from here if you’d like.”
“Okay.”
“Write out what you want to ask there. Any questions, any concerns.” He pointed to the bed with a forefinger, tapping it at each point he made. “We’ll all be able to read each entry and add to it. We can take our time with it. You’ll get something you can reflect and think about carefully.”