I was midway through making the word swimming when my phone buzzed. I had a text from Bailey: Where are you, girl? Let’s do something.
It was stupid to lie, to tell her I was home working on my common app essay. Andrew, Ashley, and I would be home by early afternoon the next day, and she and Jade would never know the difference.
I really thought it would be that easy—just for one night, to have something to myself. A conversation by the fire with the only person I’d ever really been able to open up to completely. I was tired of feeling like every move I made had to be accounted for and approved by my friends.
But Bailey had caught me after all. And when she couldn’t have me, she’d taken Lauren in my place.
—
Gonzo and a security guard are waiting for Tyrell and me at the front steps, like we’re fugitives about to turn ourselves in. Ashley must have called and told the school we were coming back.
There’s really no point; the day is practically over.
Gonzo stirs when she sees us. I have to stop myself from holding up my hands and saying, I’ll come quietly, Officer. None of this is funny, but it’s also so pathetic it’s hilarious. If you’re going to cut school, you don’t show up at all. Ditching halfway through the day was a classic rookie mistake. It’s like I can’t even fuck up properly anymore.
Meanwhile, my friends managed to sneak my sister out to a party in Milwaukee and keep it a secret from me for months. I imagine blurting this out to Gonzo, like it’s some sort of defense for my behavior. Did you know that Bailey Hammond brought a thirteen-year-old child to a college party?
Gonzo brings Tyrell in for questioning first. I sit outside her office in the chair of shame, tears streaming down my cheeks. I’m not embarrassed; I’m enraged, and crying seems like the least self-destructive reaction right now.
I feel so goddamn stupid. I think of Jade’s face when she saw Lauren the night of the barn, the way she looked at Bailey and said, She’ll tell. They weren’t afraid that Lauren would rat on us for sneaking out—they were afraid she would tell me about the frat party if they didn’t let her come to the barn.
From across the room, Gonzo’s secretary makes a sympathetic face at me. “You want a tissue, hon?”
“No, thanks.”
“Ya know, your mom was really worried about you.” She gives her desk a reassuring pat, realizing she’s too far from me to be of any comfort. “I’ll bet Mrs. G will go easy on you. Maybe just detention and not a suspension.”
I close my eyes, bite my tongue, because she really is trying to make me feel better.
Some murmuring behind Gonzo’s door. Tyrell walks out. Glances at me and mouths detention, and shrugs. Gonzo raps her red-lacquered nails on the door frame, and I get up.
I keep my eyes on the window behind her as we sit and she starts her spiel about how very concerned she and my parents are about me. Gonzo and I have never even spoken before this moment. Outside, the buses are beginning to pull up to the curb.
“When would you like to fulfill your detention?”
I meet Gonzo’s eyes. They’re apologetic, like she’s the one who did something wrong.
“Um, today, I guess.”
“Okay, then.” Gonzo selects a pen from the cat-shaped mug on her desk. Starts to fill out the details of my crimes on a pink notepad. A flash of black between the buses. An SUV curves around them, finds a spot in the strip marked for visitors.
Detective Burke gets out of the driver’s-side door. Shields his eyes from the sun and takes in the school.
“Kacey?” Gonzo raps her desk with her pen. “I asked if you have a way of getting home after detention.”
“My brother—or I can take the bus—” I can’t tear my eyes from Burke ascending the ramp outside. He disappears around the front of the building as the bell rings.
Gonzo tears the pink slip from her notepad and hands it to me. “Go straight to the basement, okay? No side excursions. They’ll be expecting you.”
I nod and stuff the slip in my pocket. I throw my bag over my shoulder and hurry out of Gonzo’s office, but it’s too late. Burke is already here, signing in with the secretary.
When he sees me, he smiles. I pretend that I didn’t see him and head for detention.
He doesn’t follow, which is how I know he’s not here for me anyway.
—
Ashley is so mad she barely speaks to me when I get home except to tell me I’m officially grounded. I’m to go to school and come straight home.
But perhaps the worst punishment of all is her telling me my father wants to speak with me. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, the chair across from him pulled out and waiting for me.
“I understand you’re going through a really hard time right now.” My dad draws in a breath. “But you are not the kind of kid who skips school.”
You don’t know what kind of kid I am, I want to say. You’ve only known me for a year.
The only time I really get to see my father is on Sundays, in front of the LED flat-screen he indulged in for the very purpose of watching the Packers. Even then, with all of us piled in the room together, he’s usually only interested in talking to Andrew. My most noteworthy interaction with my father was the day Ashley told him one of my sculptures was being entered into the county art fair; he gave my shoulder a squeeze and said, Well, isn’t that something.
I don’t take it personally; he has nothing in common with Lauren and me—we frighten him, with our foreign interests in books he’ll never read and the ever-present threat of finding a tampon in the garbage. Some men just aren’t cut out to be fathers of teenage girls.
But at least Lauren has memories of a time when their relationship was different. When my father was the type of man to play Pretty Pretty Princess with his little girl and would allow a photo of him adorned in a crown and clip-on jewel earrings. When Lauren used to cry over problems he could fix, like a skinned knee or a favorite stuffed animal left behind in a restaurant booth.
I don’t have any of that to look back on. I wish it only made me sad, not pissed off, but my anger and sadness have always had a codependent relationship. I don’t know not to be angry at the fact that who I am now isn’t good enough; that I’m not a little girl.
Because that’s what no one wants to talk about. That at some point, every little girl grows up and gets ruined.
“Okay,” I tell him. “It won’t happen again.”
My dad’s lips form a relieved smile, and it hits me: the words that just came out of his mouth are Ashley’s. It’s the same thing she said to me the other day: You are not the kind of girl who sneaks out. All of this was staged so we could have a deep father-daughter moment.
He picks up his plate, and I have to swallow back the bulb of anger stuck in my throat. “How can you do that? Pretend I’m—you have no idea what kind of life I had before you took me.”
My father turns. Looks at me as if he’s never seen me before. “What?”
“I was a bad kid. I cut school all the time. And when my mom and I fought, I went crazy.”
“Stop that,” he says. “You’re not crazy.”