Page 59 of The Secret Girl (Adamson All-Boys Academy 1)
He acts like he doesn't notice or care how close we are, and I let the farce stand. I'm not about to suggest anything, not when I just broke up with my boyfriend of two years last night. And not when I think about Spencer every fifteen minutes or so.
“Thank you guys … for everything,” I say, exhaling as I climb out of the car with my bags. They both look at me from matching emerald gazes, and I try to decide if maybe … just maybe, we might be friends now?
“You're welcome, Chuck the Micropenis,” they say, and then Tobias reaches out with that damn skin marker and slaps a quick dick on my arm before I get a chance to pull back.
“You freaking pricks!” I shout as they pull away, and I frantically dig around in my bag for a hoodie. I'm not about to explain to Archibald Carson, Headmaster of Adamson All-Boys Academy why I have a giant, red penis drawn on my forearm.
Once I've got the sweater on, I head inside and take the elevator to floor six, knocking on the door and then scrolling through my messages while I wait for Dad to answer it.
There's not a single message from either Cody or Monica.
Not one.
They don't even care enough about me to apologize.
With a sigh, I tuck my phone away and force a smile as Dad opens the door with his brows raised.
“Charlotte, what are you doing here?” He moves aside for me to come in, and I scoot past him, depositing my stuff on the perfectly made queen bed on the left. The other is rumpled and has his suit laid out for the day. Dad's still in his pj's.
“Cody and I broke up,” I tell him, spinning around to face him and tucking my hands into the pockets of my new dress—ugh, don't you just love dresses with pockets?—and smiling. “It was necessary. I'm over it. I just … Monica wasn't very supportive, and I felt like I'd rather be here.”
Dad nods, but he doesn't seem entirely convinced.
“Okay, Charlotte,” he says with a sigh. “Look, I was about to call you …”
The blood drains from my face, and I sit down hard on the edge of the bed. No sentence that begins with I was about to call you ever turns out well in the end. My heart starts to race like crazy, and my hands begin to shake.
“What? What is it? It's not Mom, is it?” The way Dad's looking at me, however, tells me that it is, in fact, Mom. “She's not dead, is she?”
“Don't be dramatic,” he chastises which really isn't fair of him. Mom does drugs. She puts herself in dangerous situations. It's been a fear of mine for years. “She's not dead, but I'm taking her today to enroll in a rehab program.”
The air rushes out of me, and I put a hand to my chest, feeling like a deflated balloon. Too many emotions in too short of a time. I'm sort of … numb now. My plan for the last three months was to dig my heels in and stay here, return to my life in California.
Now, all I want to do is sit in that abandoned girls' dormitory and read a book. Pushing my glasses up my face, I give Dad a raised eyebrow.
“Can I come?” The way he frowns answers that question for me. “Why not? You said I could see her for Christmas, but if she's in rehab then I can't see her at all!”
“Don't be selfish, Charlotte. Your mother's making a conscious choice towards her own recovery.”
“I don't understand why I can't just come with you to drive her there,” I start, feeling tears prick my eyes, but Dad's clearly done with the conversation. He grabs his clothes off the bed, and heads for the bathroom. “This is fucking bullshit.”
“I am getting tired of your crass language. It makes you sound uneducated. Is that how you want people to perceive you? As willfully ignorant and uneducated? Because you won't get very far in life, Charlotte.” My mouth purses into a thin line, but there's no point in arguing with him. He makes sure he wins every single one. “Besides, you need to respect your mother's wishes.”
“How so?” I ask, following him a few steps toward the bathroom door. “Her wish is not to see me?”
Dad says nothing, but I can see it written into the lines of his face.
“She asked me to pick her up alone because she doesn't want you to see her like this. It's because she loves you, Charlotte, that she doesn't want you to come.” He heads into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. Meanwhile, that numb feeling just creeps into all my fingers and toes and stays there, even as he walks out the door, even when he comes back, and it holds onto me all the wat back to Connecticut.
