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Thunder boomed outside as I shut the door behind me.
“Back here,” Mom called.
I found them in my mom’s studio. Dad had long ago set up a recliner in the corner where he’d read or watch sports with headphones on so he didn’t bother my mom while she painted. He sat with his phone propped up while my mom regarded her latest painting. She had a small brush in her hand and a palette sitting nearby.
Dad set his phone on a side table and took off his headphones. “Hi, flower. Is something wrong?”
I probably looked oddly disheveled with stringy damp hair and an unbuttoned coat.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Sure, what’s going on?”
“Did you pay Zachary Haven to take me to prom?”
He hesitated, and I could practically see him trying to figure out how he was going to spin this. “That was a long time ago.”
“Yes, it was, but I’m sure you remember. Did you?”
“Flower—”
“Dad, please just answer my question.”
“That dance meant the world to you. It was all you could talk about. You had a bulletin board filled with prom dress pictures you cut out from magazines. You started it when you were a freshman.”
That was true, I had done that. “I remember.”
“First Isabelle had a date. Then Annika. And you were left wondering if your prom dreams were going to come true. I kept hoping you were going to come home and tell us someone had finally asked. And believe me, a father wanting some teenage idiot to ask his daughter to a dance is rare. I didn’t want you to go, so you could be safe at home with us, and wanted you to go because you wanted it so badly. So I decided to step in and make sure you had your night.”
Mom’s eyes widened in shock. He’d probably kept it from her too.
“But why Zachary? If you were worried about me going out with a boy, why choose him?”
“Paul and Marlene love you almost as much as we do. I knew they’d never let one of their sons treat you badly. And let’s be honest, you only had eyes for Zachary, even back then.”
“So you bribed him.”
“It wasn’t a bribe. I gave him what he needed to cover the cost of the dance.”
“How is that not a bribe?”
“I was just trying to help.”
“Paying someone to date me did not help. Do you have any idea how mortified I was when I found out?”
“That’s his fault.” He crossed his arms. “He was sworn to secrecy.”
“But that’s the thing. How could you have expected him to keep that a secret? What if we’d gone to that dance and had such a good time that he asked me out again and we started dating? He’d have had to come clean eventually. What was I supposed to think?”
“It was just a prom,” Dad said.
“What you don’t understand is what that says about how you see me as a person. It’s like you don’t think I’m capable of doing things on my own.”
“That’s not true.”
“Maybe you don’t mean it that way, but how else am I supposed to see it? How often have you intervened in my life because something wasn’t going my way or I was in danger of being disappointed? It makes me feel like you don’t think I can face hard things or make my own decisions or even find love on my own.”
“I only want you to be happy.”
