“I...” I didn’t even want to ask, but I had to know. “I just...”
“You should look at the person you’re talking to in the eyes,” she said.
I gazed at her face, but found I avoided looking at her eyes directly by staring at her cheeks or chin. Suddenly I’d become my old self, unable to look anyone in the eyes for fear of them seeing the real me.
The real me was crying inside, afraid of this change. “How...how long will you be...”
“You want to know how long I’m staying?” she asked and smirked. “Dear, we’ve sold my house. This is our new home. For now, at least. Once the divorce is over, we’ll sell this one, too. We’ve been talking about moving to Savannah. I love that city. I think it will make a great new start for all of us.”
Savannah! Another state away, where the guys might not be able to get to. Most of them had family ties and jobs here, including the Academy.
I closed my mouth, swallowing. In a few moments, my entire life had been flipped upside down, again. A new stepmother. Divorce. Exposure. Moving to a new town.
The boys.
The Academy.
Could it all be over?
My brain quit on me, all questions paused. It was all I could do to keep standing where I was and not break down in front of everyone.
“Where are we supposed to go if you sell the house?” Marie asked.
Carol interlaced her fingers and covered her midsection in a relaxed pose. “I know you girls just moved here, but your father has been promoted. He’ll have to travel more for work, but it means we can move wherever we want. I picked a lovely city with a lot of culture. If you help me make this work, we can get a bigger house with room for everyone.” She gazed with a smile to my father. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
My father nodded, with a small but tense smile in return. “Of course,” he said.
My face fell, shocked at the banter of what seemed like flirting from her, and his almost-masked terrified look. My skin rippled with goose bumps. How soon would a divorce be over? How soon could this house sell that we’d be gone?
Could it be a couple of weeks? Everything inside of me electrified with fear, and a tight ball formed in my stomach.
Could I stop this?
“Now, up to your rooms,” she said quickly and gave us a dismissive wave. “And, Sang, I’m sorry, but your room was bigger and had all that extra space in the attic for storage. You’ll have to make do with a roommate until we move. You can move your things in with Marie, or sort it out with my son. Split the room in half, maybe.”
Her son? My room?
I looked to Marie, who scowled, silent. This wasn’t a surprise to her.
Carol waved us off again with a harsher stare. She was displeased we weren’t obeying her instantly.
Our father disappeared into the kitchen, his footsteps fading as he went back toward his bedroom. Carol went back to vacuuming.
Marie and I slowly made our way from the family room into the living room.
There were noises above me. Footsteps.
Her son was upstairs.
In my room.
Jimmy
––––––––
Walking was almost painful with the ball of tightness in my stomach. My body wanted to fall to the floor, just to stretch out and absorb what happened.
I wasn’t hurt. It wasn’t a good situation, but I wasn’t hurt. Should I leave and talk to Kota? It seemed that might make some trouble with Carol and my father right off if I just disappeared again. Since I wasn’t in immediate danger, I felt I should get to know the situation fully.
If the guys felt I needed to leave right now, they’d come get me. I had to trust in that.
In my heart, I wished they would come to get me. I didn’t like this. I did my best to hide my shaking, to keep myself from just running out the door, finding one of them and hiding in their arms.
Moving to Savannah. A divorce. Exposure was inevitable.
We’d move, and they would be too far away to help me anymore.
Marie and I paused at the bottom of the front staircase. For a minute, I listened to Carol vacuuming, feeling very awkward that a stranger was cleaning my house, on top of everything else. What about her stuff outside?
Was the house not clean enough for her to bring her stuff inside?
Marie whispered to me. “She wanted to put us together in a room, and then he said he didn’t mind sharing.”
I wasn’t sure it mattered.
Or maybe it did. Did I need to find out more information? Did I need to stay close to him to learn what I could?
However, this caused a problem for the immediate future at least. There wasn’t a place for the guys to sneak in if her son was in my room. And Marie might tattle if there were boys going in and out of her room every night.
She’d already tried ratting me out for her own benefit. She’d do it again. “She doesn’t care if her son and I sleep in the same room?”
“Someone may need to. Dad somehow got it in her head that once Mom gets back, they’re going to put her in there with me. She says they want her out of the hospital so she’s not driving up any more bills before a divorce. If she comes here...” Marie frowned at me, with a steady gaze.
I pressed my palms to my thighs, fingers itching to shake but not showing how frightening the thought was. Her mother hated me. Sleeping in the same room would be a nightmare. I wasn’t totally sure my stepmother would even allow it. I’d be forced to sleep in the other room anyway.
It hadn’t even occurred to me to think of what might happen if her mother, my stepmother, returned. I wanted to laugh, in an awkward way. Did our father really think she’d just live with Carol?
This was a disaster. I tried to be calm despite how much things had changed in a few minutes, but this was like another dimension, a wicked nightmare that I’d stepped into.
Footsteps continued upstairs, inside my room.
“He’s nosy,” she said as she took a few steps up the stairs. “I had to kick him out of my room twice already. They’ve only been here since this morning.”
Nosy.
My room.
The attic! There were pictures of all the guys up there, and a secret wardrobe and other stuff. Had he seen it? Had he shown Carol?
I followed Marie upstairs, dreading discovering what he knew. I didn’t know him, and his loyalty was not to me, but to his mother. He had to have seen the attic by now. Would he tell her about the things inside? Had I left anything behind that would let him know about the Academy or about my past? Or my relationship with the boys? What if the boys had left some clothing item in there?
We stood together silently in the second-floor hallway and listened. My door was closed. My muscles tightened, my body stiffening. I expected someone as abrasive as his mother and I didn’t feel prepared for it.
Rock music played quietly. Footsteps shuffled across the carpet. Back and forth.
Marie was the first to reach for the door handle, and she opened it before I was ready.