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“That’s a good question, Nora. Because I don’t have a goddamn clue.”
“Oh, so you didn’t have Asher sent away?”
“Asher?” Mom questions. “What does that boy have to do with anything?”
I roll my eyes at her referring to him as that boy when she’s known him for years.
“Of course, I did,” he shocks me by saying, not an ounce of apology in his tone. “I get an anonymous email, at work, no less, containing a photo of my fourteen-year-old daughter lip-locked with the trash of the town.”
“Excuse me?!” Mom interrupts.
I’m fuming. My face and ears get hot, and my nails dig into my palms, leaving bloody, little half-moon indents.
“He was nearly an adult, preying on my child. A drug addict. He was corrupting both you and Dash. I could’ve had his ass thrown in jail. Probably should’ve. I was pretty generous, if you ask me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I stand, walking closer to him. He appears slightly taken aback. Like I’m overreacting, and he hasn’t a clue why.
“You have no idea what you set in motion. What your actions caused. He thought I betrayed him this whole time. That I sent him away and used you to do it.”
“No, dear daughter, that was all him. He’s responsible for his own actions.”
“You almost got him killed!” I scream, unable to stay calm any longer. “You sent him to someone even worse than his father, and he almost didn’t make it out alive.”
My mom’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of us, like she’s watching a tennis match, as she struggles to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
“How could you just play with someone’s life like that? You think you’re God? You’re a coward hiding behind money and power. And you’re not the man I thought you were.”
I’ve finally broken through that cool exterior. He takes a calming breath, nostrils flaring, as he steps closer, pointing a finger in my face.
“Not God. But I am your father. And I will do what I think is best for my children, regardless of how it rates on your moral meter. He’s bad news, Briar. A predator. And I wasn’t going to wait around until you figured it out for yourself.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, batting the angry tears away from my face. God, I’m so sick of crying. “Because you’ll never be half the man he already is. He’s kind and good and loyal and resilient. He’s overcome more in his twenty-one years than you could even dream of.”
He scoffs, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, and his reaction pushes me to hammer in the final nail in my coffin. What’s the worst he could do? The damage has already been done.
“I love him.”
My dad’s face reddens, and I think his teeth might crack under the pressure of his steeled jaw. Without saying a word, he turns on his heels, slamming the door behind him. He slams it so hard that the framed picture of Dash, Ash, and me falls from the shelf next and shatters onto my desk below it. My mom scurries over to clean it up, sweeping the shards into her hand.
“Mom. Stop.”
She doesn’t.
“Mom.”
She bends down, picking
pieces out of the carpet.
“Mom! I don’t care about the fucking glass right now!”
That finally gets her attention. Her head snaps up, eyes wide.
“Of course, you don’t. You’ve never cared about making messes. Someone has to care about the mess!”
I get the feeling that she’s not talking about the state of my room. She looks like she’s holding back tears, and I wonder if something else is going on. Her tone softens when she sees my shocked expression. She drops the glass into the trash can next to my desk and brushes off her hands.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I was so worried about you when I got the message. And then I felt like the worst parent on the planet. What kind of a mother doesn’t know her own child is in the hospital?”
