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“Cassandra will probably be mad at you. You know how weird she is about you having a relationship with your father.”
“I don’t have a plan for that one,” Allison muttered.
Being an adult was supposed to mean steering your own ship, acting independently of the people who raised you. So then why, with the exception of graduate school, did every decision Allison made feel infected by one (or both) of her parents?
Sophie scooped Monty into her lap and stroked his head. “Listen. I know I’m like the last person to give advice on this, since my family is disgustingly functional, but I don’t think anyone could blame you for not responding. Or ever reaching out to him again.”
Allison dropped her head back with a groan. “That doesn’t seem like enough. He’ll probably forget we haven’t spoken. I want him to know I’m upset.” Her fingers dug at the chair’s arms. “No. Not upset.Mad.”
Now that she’d said it out loud, she felt the truth of it. Most of her life, Allison had dealt with her father by minimizing contact. If she didn’t see him or talk to him, he couldn’t harp on her weight or remind her what a waste of money her private schools were. He couldn’t degrade her life choices if she didn’t tell him about them.She’d learned these tactics from her mom, whose whole adult life had revolved around deescalating Jed and his insults.
But all that did was protect him. And the last thing he deserved was protection.
“What do you want to do, then?” Sophie asked. She tossed Allison her phone.
Allison opened it and tapped back into the email.
“I think I need to respond and tell him exactly how I feel.”
Chapter 12
A spicy aroma burned pleasantly in Allison’s nose as she pulled open the door of the Thai restaurant.
Even though she was already late, she stopped and inhaled, letting the air linger in her lungs for five beats before breathing out again. She felt her heart begin to slow. The last thing she needed was to show up frazzled to this lunch with Wendy and Colin.
For the last few days, Allison hadn’t been able to think about anything but that email from her father, and it had thrown her completely off balance. She was behind on all her course work, and her latest set of recitations had gone more abysmally than the first few. She needed to write Jed back, to close that door like she’d told Sophie she would, but she had no idea what to say.
How the hell was Allison supposed to excel in the present and secure her future when her past wouldn’t stop barging in to ruin everything?
As if on cue, her eyes settled on the most troublesome piece of her history sitting at a table for four near the front window. Sunlight feathered his features, drawing out the golden hue in his bronze hair and the smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose. Once, Colin had let Allison connect them using a light shade of eyeliner. They’d beenloopy from finals stress and lying awake in her bed too late at night. His head was in her lap and she’d been lazily tracing shapes across his cheeks with a finger.
“I wonder if they make anything?” she’d mused.
He’d murmured noncommittally, already half asleep.
“Like constellations.”
“Find out,” he’d mumbled.
She wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to do, but his eyes had shot open and alert when she returned with her eyeliner.
“It washes off,” she’d promised.
On his left cheek, she’d found an hourglass. On his right, a heart.
They’d stood side by side in front of the mirror above her dresser as Colin inspected her work. His fingers played lightly over the drawings, though his eyes, the yellow-green of leaves ready for autumn, had been pinned to her. “Time and love,” he’d whispered. She’d smiled.
In that moment, they’d thought they had plenty of both.
Now, though, Allison knew it was the opposite. Each second together had been ticking them closer to Colin snapping them in half.
She swallowed hard against the lump forming in her throat. The more determined Allison was to forget her past with Colin, the more stubbornly it clung to her.
Dragging her hands over her face, she squared her shoulders and stalked across the restaurant.
Eyes on the prize, Avery.
Right now, her life was about that advisee position. Nothing else. She opened two imaginary boxes in her mind. Into one, she threw Colin, slamming the lid and shoving the box on the highest shelf. She tossed Jed in the other and put it aside to deal with later.
