“Mrs. Reese,” she supplies for me, giving me a knowing grin.
“Oh, that’s weird,” I say. The realization that we have the same last name makes me forget the speech I was about to give.
“It’s not that weird,” she says, folding her hands over her chest in a way that shows off the diamond ring on her finger. “Surely you knew it was coming?”
“Uh…what?”
She chuckles and holds out her hand to me. “Your father and I got married, silly. It’s been two months, of course he told you by now.”
Chapter 4
I stare at her so long I’m surprised she keeps the smile on her face. Of course I understand the words she’s saying, because I speak English and she’s talking in plain English. There’s nothing to decipher here, but I don’t exactlygetit.
“Edward Reese?” I say flatly. She nods. “He’s not my dad. He’s nothing to me.”
Her cheerful expression falls. “Well…I know it may seem different since he’s not your biological—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off. “He’s nothing to me. He’s a guy who used to be married to my mom and now he’s not and apparently, he married you, but I didn’t know that.”
“He didn’t tell you?” she says, her tight lipped smile turning into a frown.
I shake my head. “He doesn’t talk to me.”
She sighs, her hands folding back in her lap. “He wants to be a part of your life, you know.”
“No, he doesn’t.” I stand up. This sudden revelation came from so far out of nowhere that I’m not sure how to process it. Who even is this lady? We’ve never spoken in my life and now she’s married to my ex step-dad and thinks we can be friends? Um, no. “Can I go now?”
“No, dear, sit down.” She motions for me to sit and I do, although I’d want nothing more than to march out of this office then out of the building and all the way back home. But although I don’t care about school at all, I do care about getting into trouble, so I sit down and stay where I am.
My mind wanders back to thoughts of my ex step-dad. Has it really been about three years since we last talked? Hehadreached out to me shortly after moving out. He left me a voicemail saying I can call him anytime I want. But the next day, Mom cancelled our phones and moved us to a prepaid plan to save money, so he lost our numbers. Good riddance, though. We live in the same house, so if he’d wanted to see me, he could have. Mom said it would be a huge hassle to change our last names, so we never did. I didn’t really care about it because Reese is the only last name I’ve ever known. Now I kind of wish I had.
Mrs.Reese—ugh, I can’t stand calling her that—begins discussing my poor attendance record. She’s reading off absences from a printed piece of paper, but I don’t pay much attention. I already know I’ve missed a lot of days. I’ve tried to excuse most of them because I’m sick of detention.
“So needless to say, you’ll be making up time.”
My head snaps up when she says these words. “I’ve already made up time for my unexcused absences,” I say. “The rest of my absences have been excused.” Detention sucks for the normal high school student, but it’s even worse when you have a store to run in the evenings. I cannot waste any more of my life sitting in this stupid school.
Mrs. Reese presses her lips together. “Have you been listening, Natalie? After eighteen missed days in a semester, you’re no longer covered by excuse notes. The state requires that you make up the time regardless of the reason you were absent.”
My body deflates. Shit. “So how many days do I need to sit here and waste my life when I could be working instead?” I say, the sarcasm evident in my voice.
“Tuesday and Thursday, two hours each day.”
“That’s not too bad,” I say. Last time I had to make up time for four hours on a Saturday and that totally sucked.
“For the next two months,” Mrs. Reese adds.
My jaw drops. “Are you serious?”
“I’m afraid so, dear. It’s either making up time or summer school.”
“And how long is summer school?” I ask, secretly hoping she’ll say one week or something equally impossible.
“All summer long.”
This revelation is even worse than hearing that my dad has remarried and still doesn’t even talk to me. Two days a week for two months? What the hell? This is total bullshit.
I grip the textbook in my lap and struggle between totally losing my shit and screaming or trying to stay calm. I choose to stay calm. “What happens if I can’t do this?” I ask politely. “Like…if I have a store I have to work at or else I’ll be homeless?”
