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Dad and Mom made sure I had everything I would need, replacing all of my school uniforms and school supplies to make sure I would meet Highland Park Academy’s standards.
They had a driver drop me off at school and pick me up, and although I wasn’t officially confined to the house the rest of the time, I was sure he wouldn’t drive me anywhere else if I asked him to.
I walked through the halls on my first day back feeling like a stranger in my own skin. Kids I hadn’t seen in months, ones who had avoided me after my father’s arrest, smiled at me in the corridors. A few underclassmen came up to me to tell me in breathless voices that they’d always known he was innocent—but that their parents hadn’t allowed them to speak to me.
I knew, for the most part, the claims were bullshit. I might’ve believed such a thing months ago, I knew better now. I smiled and nodded, slipping back into my role of dutiful daughter and well-behaved student, but my heart wasn’t in it at all. If friendship was so easily lost and gained, I didn’t want that kind of friendship.
It was jarring almost, seeing people act as though nothing had happened and nothing had changed, as though my father hadn’t gone to prison after being accused of a serious crime.
The boys still spoke to me. Daily.
I got messages in the morning telling me they hoped I had a good day. They told me when they were on a job and when they were done. They never, ever failed to tell me goodnight.
It was the only thing that kept my heart beating as I tried to readjust to my old life.
But it was barely enough.
By the end of my first week back, I felt exhausted, strung out, and emotionally drained.
I arrived back at home on Friday afternoon to a cacophony in the house. Mom and Dad had rehired a bunch of staff—although Ava had never come back to us—and things were being moved and arranged in nearly every room.
It was like my mom thought if she could just get the furniture back to the way it had been, everything else would fall into place too.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
I suppressed the thought as I made my way through the zoo of people. It was a relief, in a way, to have all these extra bodies in the house. The first few days, when it’d been just the three of us, had been almost unbearable.
Tension hung like a fog in the air between myself, my mother, and my father. True to my word, I said nothing to my dad about Mom’s… extramarital activities while he was in jail. And my mom, true to herself, said nothing either.
But there was a different dynamic between the two of them that either hadn’t been there before or that I’d been too blind to see before. She danced around him, never staying in the same room with him long, always finding ways to dodge his kisses, touches
, hugs. They had never been overly affectionate in public; that wasn’t the sort of relationship they’d ever had.
Her outright rejection, however, had even my busy, distracted father shooting questioning glances at her.
Part of me wondered if he suspected that she had had a lover, but I couldn’t imagine my father not addressing something so important if he did.
Regardless, they played their parts well around others—and that was maybe the thing that frustrated me the most. They could act loving when others were watching, but when the need for performance was gone… so was the love.
Strangely, it made me think back to Nathaniel and Josephine. Their love had seemed effortless. I had no doubt in my mind that how they behaved in front of others was how they were with each other all the time. A man who was pretending for the sake of appearances wouldn’t have spared the Lost Boys just because his wife had appealed to him.
Fortunately, I managed to avoid both my mother and father as I made my way up the stairs, weaving around movers carrying furniture. I’d been retreating to my room more and more, anxious to avoid the weirdness that infiltrated the entire house.
Will things ever get back to normal?
What the hell is normal anyway?
As I slipped into my bedroom and closed the door, I couldn’t help but think of my own strange, unconventional love life. My heart effectively held space for three boys—men, really. It was far from what my mom and father would expect for me, but it felt right.
It felt real.
The longer I was away from them, away from Slateview, the more clearly I saw what I truly wanted. Before all of this, I would have thought something like that was impossible. How could one woman truly be with three men? But I had faced heavier, harder things at this point. Sorting out my love life? A piece of cake.
I knew what I wanted. And I wasn’t going to let any amount of distance separate us. We’d find a way.
My heart gave a little thump in my chest, and I grabbed my phone out of my bag, finally giving in to the impulse that’d been growing stronger and stronger all week.
ME: I miss you guys. Need to see you.
