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He visibly flinched at the harsh words, then silently drew back. He looked suddenly old, wrinkles caving into canyons on his face. I stormed past him and headed out, slamming the door behind me like an eight-year-old. The house shook and a shingle slid off the roof and landed with a plop in the overgrown grass.
I climbed into my car and gunned it out of there. I looked back in the rearview mirror, expecting to see my dad in the doorway, watching me go, like you’d see in one of those tearjerker Lifetime movies, but the door stayed closed.
I was crying by the time I reached the end of the driveway. By the time I hit the highway I totally hated myself.
Who was the loser here?
Chapter 27
Hunger prodded me, as if to taunt me about the loss of my brains. I let out a harsh laugh—yeah, I was brainless—then scrubbed at my face with the back of my hand and made myself take several deep breaths. Great, so I finally stood up to my dad. Told him all the things that I’d been wanting to tell him. Told him stuff I knew would hurt him. Now I felt like total shit, and I had no place to go.
I slowed down to the speed limit. The last thing I needed was to get pulled over. Plus, it wasn’t like I was in a hurry to get anywhere. Where the hell was I going, anyway? I could probably afford a hotel for one night, but more than that would eat my savings up pretty quickly. I needed to be thinking like a damn grownup. Budgets and shit like that.
I pulled into the parking lot of a SpeedE Mart and tugged my phone out of my purse. I started to punch in Randy’s number, but then I hesitated. I barely even thought about him anymore. I said he was my boyfriend, but when was the last time he called me? My finger hovered over the keypad as I chewed my lip. Okay, so we’d never had that sort of super-deep, madly in love kind of relationship where we called each other up and talked on the phone just to talk. Mostly we hung out together. It’s comfortable, I admitted to myself. But who else was I going to call? Marcus? I let out a bark of laughter. Yeah, right. Even if I had his number, there was no way I was going to ask him to get involved with my fucked up personal life. He’d already seen enough of that. Besides, he’d probably get on me again about getting away from my dad.
Well I was finally away from him. Go me. Now what the fuck was I supposed to do?
I sighed and finished punching in the number.
“Hey, Randy,” I said when he answered. “I’m fighting with my dad. Can I come by?”
He greeted me with his usual hug and kiss then went back to working on a Toyota Camry. I went on into the trailer, dropped my purse on the end of the couch, and stood there for a moment, looking around as if I was seeing it for the first time.
Randy’s trailer was far from nice, but it was a shitload better than my house. Still, he had dishes piled up by the sink and laundry in a pile in the hallway. It had always been like that, I realized, but this was the first time I’d really seen it. Maybe it was because I’d spent the last couple of months where half my job was cleaning—and I didn’t mind it. Or maybe it was that I’d finally had the chance to see that most normal people didn’t live like complete pigs. In the past several weeks I’d been inside dozens of houses. I’d been in million dollar homes and barely standing shacks, and I’d seen the difference between the places where the people took pride in themselves and their homes, and the shit dumps—like where I lived with my dad. And the price of the house didn’t mean a damn thing.
I was drying the last dish when Randy walked in. He gave me a funny look.
“What are you doing?”
I stacked the plate in the cabinet. “Doing your dishes. Duh.”
He gave a dry laugh. “Okay. Just never seen you do that before.”
“I figured I’d help out, y’know?”
“Um, okay. If you say so. Doesn’t fucking matter to me.”
I found myself scowling. Did anything matter to him? I used to love how laid-back he was. About the only times he ever seemed to get worked up was when another guy showed interest in me, and even that never lasted for long—only until he was sure I wasn’t going anywhere. Then he’d be back to being all calm and laid-back, comfortable, with everything the way he liked it.
I was beginning to see that “laid-back” was simply a nice way of saying “doesn’t give a shit.”
“I’m trying to get my fucking life back on track,” I said. Then I shook my head. “No, it’s never been on track. I’m sick of being a loser.”
He plopped down onto the couch and shrugged. “I don’t think you’re a loser. You don’t rape old ladies or steal from welfare moms, right?”
I wiped the water off the counter. “No, but that’s not being a loser. That’s being evil.”
“I s’pose. Hey, grab me a beer since you’re up?”
I pulled the fridge open, snagged a beer, and handed it to him. “See, I think losers are people who don’t want anything for themselves. Or who don’t do the shit that needs to be done to get anywhere in life.” I handed him the beer.
He cracked it open, then glanced at me. “You’re not drinking?”
“Nah. I’m wiped,” I lied. “If I drink I’ll fall asleep.” I paused. “So what do you think?”
He took a swig and then gave me a sideways glance. “About what?”
“About being a loser.”
