"Brittany . . .” I said, then sighed and dropped my head. Reaching over, I grabbed my backpack and pulled out my smartphone, holding it out to her. "It isn't right."
For the first time I could think of, I saw frustration in Brittany's face while she took the phone from me and held it while she crossed her arms. I'd seen her piqued plenty of times, usually due to something I did, but I'd never seen this level of pure frustration before. She looked up to the ceiling and took a deep breath, then spoke. "You know, both of you are wrong in this instance. Maybe it’s not my place to say it—but it's true."
"What do you mean?" I asked, shocked. I'd rarely heard Brittany talk in this way before, and I had certainly never heard her say something negative about Daddy. If she had ever criticized him, she must have done it just between the two of them.
"I mean, Abby, that Patrick is wrong in the way that he’s handling this, while you were wrong to have met with that man in the first place. What do you even know about him?"
"A lot," I said, the fire building in my temper. I may not have inherited Daddy's size or physical strength, but I did inherit his stubbornness, even as much as I tried to control it. Sometimes that comes out as anger, whether I want it to or not. "He's not as bad as Daddy thinks he is. He's actually a good man, Brittany."
"That doesn't really matter now, does it?" Brittany asked. "You lied, Abby. Maybe not explicitly, but you lied by omission. Patrick and I both thought that your stress over the past month has been because of your upcoming finals and graduation. Now we find out that it was over some . . . some boy!"
"He's not a boy,” I said simply. “If you saw him, you’d never say that again."
"You think that makes it sound any better?" Brittany asked. She held up her hand, silencing me. "Whatever the case may be, I suspect this has roots going all the way back to that morning you came home after staying out all night. I'm not going to give voice to my suspicions as to what happened that night, although I'm sure Patrick is thinking about the same thing."
I couldn't say anything but just dropped my head, unable to answer. Brittany sighed, then bonked her head against my door, a sound so natural and unlike her that I couldn't help it, smiling for an instant before disappearing into my other feelings. "That doesn't mean that Patrick has been blameless in his actions either, Abby. There was no reason for him to blow up at you like that, especially not in a public place. God knows what is going to happen to his account that he stormed out of."
I raised my head, surprised. "What are you talking about?"
Brittany huffed through her lips, pondering me for a second before answering. "Lake Automotive is looking at expanding, adding a heavy equipment dealership to their lineup. Patrick was meeting with Hank Lake to discuss the possibility of Rawlings Construction building it for them. As Hank is also a rather working-class man, they decided that a casual meeting over beers and some burgers was better than business suits and lawyers, at least at first."
It answered a question I'd had, and I let my breath escape in a whoosh. "So Daddy wasn't spying on me or following me."
Brittany chuckled darkly and shook her head. "No, he wasn't. You got caught by pure bad luck, Abby. Basically, at least according to what Patrick said to me, he looked around stretching, only to see you, your friend, and that man talking. He said something, and Hank looked up and remarked that it was . . . what's his name again?"
"Dane Bell," I answered hollowly.
Brittany clicked her fingers, nodding. "That's right. Dane Bell. In any case, you know your father. He never forgets something like that, and when he made the connection, he lost his temper."
"So what now?" I asked. "Brittany, I know you don't want to hear this, but I like Dane. A lot—”
“Just stop there,” Brittany snapped, cutting me off. I closed my mouth, and she shook her head. “Just stop, please. I know what you want to say, and I'm not going to argue with you. If you're trying to get me to lessen your father's punishment on you, it won't work. But I do want peace in this house, and I do want us all to be a family. This past month, at least until tonight, has been some of the best for me and you, and I'd hope we could continue that. So don't throw a monkey wrench into that just yet. I’ll talk with Patrick, see if he's willing to calm down. I do guarantee you that you will be taking that European History final tomorrow with him sitting in the parking lot—if not in the hallway outside the lecture hall. I guess the housing development in Douglas County will have to get along with just the foreman tomorrow."
Lessen my punishment? What am I, thirteen? Daddy’s overprotectiveness was never really a problem until now. Things are starting to go a little too far. I’m a grown woman, and at some point, it has to stop.