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I storm into the living room, and my parents look at me with wide eyes when I enter. My hair wasn’t very long to begin with, but now there are huge chunks just straight up missing. Everyone’s eyes move to Emilia. No one feels the need to point out the obvious. We all know she’s the culprit. I wonder if Mom will finally let her have it this time. If I did this to Emilia, I’d be grounded for the rest of my damn life.
Emilia looks at me, but instead of the satisfaction and victory I expected to see, her eyes are filled with horror and remorse. It’s not a look I like on her. Through all the shit we’ve pulled on each other, she’s never once looked remorseful, and I’ve never wanted her to.
My dad clears his throat. “That’s something, huh? How did that even happen?” he asks. Kate and I both inherited my dad’s eyes — the same eyes that are currently sparkling with amusement when he should be outraged on my behalf. Dad rubs his neck and tries to look stern, but I can see him trying to suppress a smile. Trust him to find this shit funny.
My mother looks at Dad through narrowed eyes. “William,” she says, her tone disapproving. Dad shrugs. It’s obvious he finds this funny as hell, and I don’t think Mom appreciates how hard he finds it to hide his glee.
Mom ignores Dad and instead looks at Emilia with disapproval, and though I’ve achieved what I wanted to, I find that I don’t feel pleased at all. “Emilia, sweetie... What did you do?” my mother asks, her voice stern. Emilia looks up at her and I see the panic building in her eyes. I can tell my mother’s disappointment hits her hard and I hate it. She trembles as her eyes fill with tears, and my heart starts to ache at the sight of her.
“You,” I say, interrupting the scolding my mother is about to give her. “Come here.”
Emilia jumps out of her seat and takes a step back, but I keep stalking towards her. “Shit. I’m sorry, Carter!” she yells.
I shake my head and point at my hair. “I’ll make you pay for this.”
She dashes into the hallway in an attempt to escape to her own house, but I won’t let her. I chase her and she looks at me with wide eyes as she tries to evade me. I chuckle as I lift her into my arms and right over my shoulder. She squeals and fights me, but I hold her down and turn back towards the stairs.
I carry her up the stairs with ease. I’m tempted to slap her ass for thrashing so wildly, but I know she’ll kill me if I so much as try. I walk into my bedroom and throw her onto my bed. She sits up, undoubtedly ready to argue with me, but I lift my arms and pull my shirt up and over my head. Emilia freezes and falls silent, her eyes glued to my abs, courtesy of hours and hours of football practice. She blinks as though she’s startled, and I grin when she fails to snap out of it. If I’d known that all it takes to get her to shut up was walking around half naked, I’d have started doing it ages ago.
“You’re gonna fix this,” I say, pointing to my hair. I walk into my bathroom and walk back out with an electric shaver. She takes it with trembling hands and I take hold of her chin, pinching it slightly.
“Mess around with me and it’s your hair that’s next. You’d better fix this, Minx,” I say, addressing her by the nickname I gave her years ago, back when I first learned the definition of the word in English class. She used to hate it, and in retaliation she started to call me Devil — the worst thing she could think of at the time. Little does she know that I hardly find it an insult.
Emilia glances at the mess that is my hair and the edges of her lips rise, as though she suddenly realizes how hilarious I look. My relief is instant. I fucking hate seeing her upset. If I’d known my mom would’ve been disappointed with her then I would’ve just thrown the whole damn shampoo bottle out. Mom never really interferes much, and I thought this would be the same. I guess I look pretty damn ridiculous though. In hindsight, it’d be more surprising if she did let this go.
“Yes, okay,” Emilia whispers. I turn around and kneel down in front of her while she rises to her knees on my bed. She shaves my hair carefully. Part of me was worried about putting a razor in her hands, but it seems my worry was groundless. She rests her hands on my shoulder and cups my neck as she works on me. I exhale in relief when she’s done and pull away from her. When she’s this close to me, it feels like I’m suffocating.
Emilia looks at me and I’m surprised when I see a brief flash of attraction in her eyes, followed by annoyance. I smile to myself. I don’t have to look in the mirror to know my new hairdo suits me just fine. Her face tells me everything I need to know.
Chapter 4
Emilia
I walk into my house to find it eerily silent yet again. We’ve been living here for years now, and it still doesn’t feel like home. I feel more at home at the Clarke's. It’s not exactly surprising either, since I spend more of my waking hours there than I do here. Thankfully, Helen wasn’t too angry after last week’s Nair prank. I hate it when she’s mad at me. I would’ve hidden out in my house without a doubt, but luckily she’s been acting like nothing happened. So has Carter — he hasn’t retaliated yet, and I wonder if it’s because he feels bad about Zach. I ran into Zach the other day, and he immediately made an excuse to get out of talking to me. I hope Carter feels terrible about ruining that for me.
I check my watch and bite down on my lip. It’s almost nine pm. When we first moved here dad would always be home by the time I got back from dinner at the Clarke's, and every once in a while he’d actually come back to have dinner with me. When did things change? I think we’ve only been having dinner together once a month in the last two years. Recently he’s been staying away until I’m already fast asleep.
My mood drops, and I walk towards the staircase. I miss him. I miss the way dad and I used to be. We used to hang out together, and he’d take me to eat junk food without my mom’s permission. It’s like I lost him when he lost my mother. I can’t even remember the last time we really talked. It’s like he stopped trying once he realized that I have Helen and Kate. Sometimes it feels like I’m a chore he puts up with. An unwanted reminder of my mother and the life he lost.
I jump when the front door opens with force. Dad walks in with a huge scowl on his face that transforms into pure anger when he spots me standing by the stairs.
“You’re home,” I say. He drops his briefcase to the floor and it pops open, a myriad of legal documents falling out. Looks like he’s preparing for yet another case. He doesn’t even glance at the papers. Instead, he’s looking at me with barely contained rage. I have no idea what’s wrong, but I’m certain I’m in trouble somehow.
“Emilia, do you want to explain to me why your mother called me to say you’ve been harassing her?”
My heart drops and I freeze. Harassing her? “I didn’t,” I retort. He narrows his eyes and stares me down the way I imagine he does criminals in court. I’m immediately intimidated. He is, after all, the John Parker, the public prosecutor that put a drug cartel behind bars a month ago.
“Did you send her countless emails and track her down on Facebook? She said you’re stalking her. Is that true?”
My heart shatters. She called dad to say I’m stalking her? Why didn’t she just reply to any of my emails? Why didn’t she just tell me she wants nothing to do with me?
“Is it true?” he repeats.
I nod and then shake my head instead. “It’s not like that, Dad. I found her profile on Facebook, and it had her email address on it. I just sent her a few emails to ask how she was doing.”
My dad walks up to me. I’ve never seen him look so mad before, and definitely not at me. I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong. Suddenly, he grabs my shoulders and shakes me. I’m so shocked, I don’t even know how to respond. Dad has never acted this way before — he’s never so much as punished me. It’s always Helen that grounds me when I deserve it.
“Emilia, why won’t you get it through your head? She left us,” he shouts. “She wants nothing to do with either of us. Today was the first day I spoke to her in years, and it was because you’ve been harassing her! Are you crazy?” He’s trembling, and the despair in his eyes is obvious. Just what did she say to him?
