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“Oh. Well… I’m sure it’ll be okay…”
“No, because she’s probably going to divorce him.”
“Oh.”
“But that’s not even the thing that upsets me,” I sniffled. “He was really, really mean to me just now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered into his chest. “But I want to leave.”
He pulled back and looked at me in bewilderment. “Now?”
“No… tomorrow. I want to leave tomorrow morning.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you should just stick around…”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll come around.”
“Not likely.”
“What about your mom and brothers?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my chest filling with guilt. “I don’t know. All I know is I just need to get out. I can’t deal with it. I don’t
want
to deal with it. Not now. Can we please leave tomorrow?”
“Yeah, of course. If that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want. If I only get to spend a little bit of time with you before everything blows up, then I want to spend it with just you and me.”
He knew exactly what I was talking about: when Derek got back from rehab. When that happened, Bigger was done for, and everything was going to hell. I was sure of it. In fact, I had never been more sure of anything else in my life.
“Okay,” he whispered as he held me close to his chest.
70
Ryan and I slept in separate beds. My mother wouldn’t have minded at all if we slept together, but my father would have – and Ryan was intensely uncomfortable with doing anything to piss him off. So I slept in my old bedroom. Tim volunteered his bed to Ryan, who took it only after much protesting.
We got up the next morning and broke the news at breakfast. Ryan took the hit, saying that he had gotten a call late last night and had to get back to Athens on urgent band business. He apologized profusely.
I said I wanted to go with him to support him. I gave a pretty convincing performance.
Rob and Tim were crushed – about Ryan leaving. Me, they couldn’t have cared less about.
Mom was disappointed, too, but she took it in stride. Though I was pretty sure she knew I was lying.
My dad
definitely
knew I was lying. He was close-lipped at breakfast, but he cornered me when I was alone in my room packing.
“You know, you don’t
have
to leave,” he said. His voice was much nicer than the one he’d used in the study last night, but there was an undercurrent of resentment. A kind of passive-aggressiveness.
“I want to be there for Ryan.”
“I don’t believe this is about Ryan.”
“Believe what you want,” I said, focusing on my suitcase as I continued to pack.
“Kaitlyn.”
“What,” I said, still not looking at him.
“I’m sorry for the way I reacted last night.”
I looked up, stunned – and hopeful. My father hadn’t ever apologized to me about anything my entire life. Maybe this was him turning over a new leaf; maybe this was him coming around!
“But you really shouldn’t have said those things,” he continued, his voice now chiding me.
My stomach clenched in anger. I was pissed.
But there was another reaction I was having, too. Like déjà vu.
His tone seemed really,
really
familiar…
“I was just trying to talk to you,” I said angrily.
“I understand that,” he said softly – and then slipped in the knife right afterwards. “But that’s your mother’s and my business, not yours.”
“It’s the entire
family’s
business, Dad,” I snarled. “We all went through it, not just you.”
“Okay, okay,” he said gently, placating me.
I relaxed the tiniest bit.
“…but you don’t understand because you’re not married,” he said condescendingly. “You just don’t understand what a married couple goes through.”
And then it hit me:
Kevin.
He sounded like my high school boyfriend – the one I had cheated on with Derek.
It was the
I’m sorry
voice followed by
But you were the one at fault
. The immaturity and anger of last night, then an apology that wasn’t really an apology, but a wheedling attempt to still get his way and show you that
you
were the one in the wrong.
