Why would we need to talk? I feel like that’s a perfect place to leave our interaction.
Just … perfect.
Tess is waiting for me at the garage side entrance to the house, arms folded over her chest, her long espresso hair loosely tied and draped over one shoulder.
It’s dark now. I had Chasm drive me all over the Seattle metro area and then some. He bought me an iced coffee but mostly, he left me alone. I turned my phone off right after we left the cabin, and I left it off.
I climb out of the car in Chas’ blazer and nothing else before realizing how that might look. But then wondering why … I give a fuck how that looks? I just stare back at Tess and take a sip from my coffee. The slurping sound echoes around the garage as Chasm pauses beside me and hooks a what the actual fuck are you doing? look my way.
I pissed Tess off enough by being gone, I shouldn’t poke the bear. And yet … I’m going to poke the bear.
I let my hair out of its bun long ago, so it’s all mussed up. And my blazer is still wet because I’ve been sitting hunched up and didn’t give it a chance to dry. This must really look like something it isn’t.
I keep staring at my birth mother.
“What the—and excuse my language—fuck were you thinking?” Tess’ eyes water, but she manages to keep her expression what I’d call ‘bitchy neutral’. Like, she’s clearly ticked-off but she isn’t expressing that. Yet. Her eyes flick to Chasm. “I’m disappointed in you, too. How could you drive my daughter around all day and not think to bring her home or answer your phone?”
Parrish appears in the doorway behind Tess, frowning as he drags his gaze from my borrowed wet blazer and up to my face. My eyes catch his and stick there, my palms sweat, my heart begins to race.
Oh. Oh. Ohhhhh. I have a crush on Parrish.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I have a crush on my stepbrother. If I were at the screaming/silence cabin (how is that not a title of one of my bio mom’s books already?), I’d definitely scream right now.
I look back at Tess.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Vanguard,” Chasm says politely, which is as nice as I’ve ever heard him. He must be terrified of Tess to act that nice. I’m under no such curse. She’s done enough to me that I’m numb to it now.
“I’m not.” Shit, did I just say that?
“Excuse me?” Tess asks, blinking at me like she can’t quite believe I just said what I said. Parrish looks apathetic to all of it, as he always does, but I’m hyperaware of his presence in a way I wasn’t before. It just … happened today. Like lightning in a gray and distant sky.
“I’m not sorry because I told you I didn’t want to be interviewed, and you didn’t care. You knew my grandparents were going to be on the show, and you didn’t tell me.” I’m shaking with frustration, but I don’t move. Instead, I just stand there and squeeze my iced coffee like a stress ball. The sound of the cup denting seems so … loud.
“None of that excuses you for running away for an entire day.” Tess steps forward and holds out her hand, palm up. “Phone,” she says, wiggling her fingers. “Give it to me. I know you have it.”
“I really don’t though,” I say with a small cringe, shaking out the pockets on the blazer so she can see there’s nothing in them. I already thought about this and stashed my phone under Chasm’s seat. Like Parrish, he seems fine going along with it.
Tess drops her arm to her side with a dramatic sigh, but where can we really go from here?
“You’re grounded again, Dakota. For a month. How does that sound?”
It sounds like I made the right choice when I threw your envelope away, that and the stupid key you have yet to explain. Doesn’t matter. I’d throw the tennis bracelet away, too, if I didn’t think I could sell it and buy myself a plane ticket back home instead.
“Dakota,” she says, and it’s clear in the way that she chooses to emphasize my name that she’s trying here. It feels ‘too little, too late’ to me. “I understand why you’re upset—”
“Do you?” I ask, wishing I could just open the garage door and start running. Couldn’t I? Would she physically chase me down and drag me back here? Or could I escape? Permanently. The thought crosses my mind and disappears just as quick. Of course I wouldn’t do that. Not to Tess or my grandparents … That moment of selfish introspection at the cabin makes me feel jittery. “If you did, you wouldn’t be trying to punish me right now, would you?”
