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Mo is right.
I never hated her.
I hated that she was her mother’s daughter. I hated that she reminded me of my past.
I hated the fact that I punished her needlessly for something that wasn’t even her fault.
And that’s why I kept my distance.
That’s why I removed myself from her presence, from her proximity, and left for Italy.
“And just as you asked me to do, I made sure that I was always available for her,” Mo continues. “I made sure that I became her friend, her confidant. I even kept my mouth shut at your decision to send her to that awful school.”
“You know why I sent her to St. Mary’s,” I snap, my body getting even tighter.
Why I had to.
It was because of my own mistakes and crimes that I’d committed against her.
Because of them first came the nightmares.
For some very strange reason, she has always been able to make my chest burn. To set it on fire.
Initially, it was because of who she reminded me of and so the fire inside me burned in anger. But once her nightmares started, that fire became something else. It became one of guilt and self-recrimination.
It became one of protection.
I wanted to make it go away, whatever it was that was haunting her. I wanted to make it… better.
Even though I knew I was the cause of it.
That’s why I’d send Mo.
Because Mo was her confidant, and I’d pace the hallway until Mo would come out and tell me that she was okay and sleeping. And I sent her to a doctor for that very reason as well. And it helped, I think.
But while her nightmares abated, other things started.
She was failing all her classes and she was doing it on purpose. She would stay out late, way past her curfew. She’d cut school; get into fights with students and teachers. Not to mention her pranks and little revenge schemes at home. And though I could handle — sometimes even ignore— all of the above, there was one thing I couldn’t tolerate.
One thing that pushed me over the edge.
Her boyfriend.
First, she shouldn’t have been dating back then at all. She was fucking fifteen and running after a seventeen-year-old douchebag. And second, fuck being fifteen. She shouldn’t be anywhere near a douchebag with a guitar, period.
She tried to keep him a secret for the longest time and she was fucking smart about it too. Took me a few months to figure it out. Where she was disappearing off to when she cut school; why she’d stay out past her curfew.
But when I did, I knew it was time to fix the damage.
It was time to fix what I had done.
Because it was me, wasn’t it?
She was doing it all, spiraling out of control, because of what I had done to her. How I took away her choice. I’d already sent her on a path of rebellion, I wasn’t going to stand there and let her ruin her whole life for a stupid fucking boy.
Hence St. Mary’s.
“Yes,” Mo agrees. “I knew why. And that’s why again, as much as I hated that school, I didn’t say anything. I even agreed to break the news to her myself. But it’s enough now, Alaric. As I said, it’s time for you to do the right thing. It’s time for you to let her go.”
I knew this day would come. When my guardianship would be over and she’d leave.
In fact, that’s why I came back from Italy. Because it was time. To not only get back to my own responsibilities but also to settle everything with my guardianship, hand over the money, send her to New York, plan for the future.
But then I had to take on the job of fixing this school. And in pursuit of that, I had to stop her graduation.
And now we’re both stuck here and she has changed and how I look at her changed and…
It makes me so angry that I grip the phone tighter. “I can’t. It’s school policy.”
But you can still expedite things, can’t you?
“But you’re the principal. You’re on the board, Alaric,” she tells me, unaware of the turmoil inside of me. “You can help her. You can do something to let her graduate.”
“I’m not going to ignore or bend the rules for her. She’s just like any other student here.”
What a fucking joke, isn’t it?
Bending the rules.
When I’ve already done it once before, with her lawyer.
When I’m ignoring them now by not listening to her and letting her graduate early.
“But she’s not like any other student, is she?” Mo insists. “She’s your responsibility. Not to mention, she’s Charlie’s daughter.”
“Oh, is she?” I snap out, sarcastically. “It makes so much sense now. Why my life has been such a shitshow for the past four years.”
Why I made her life such a shitshow by punishing her for things she never did.
