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MOM: Do you see the color in his cheeks?
MOM: And he’s bugging the nurses for a hot dog. Ha. Back to himself for sure!
Allison frowned. Colin had dropped her off hours ago, and she’d been staring at the pages of an article on Victorian childhood ever since. She couldn’t seem to absorb a word of it. There were too many thoughts buzzing in her head about Colin and the mentorship and Sophie and what Allison was supposed to do about any of it.
And her mother’s endless texts werenothelping.
She didn’t want updates on Jed. After their conversation yesterday at the hospital, she was done. She wouldn’t cater to someone who’d caused her so much pain. It didn’t matter if he was her father.
Not that her mom was willing to hear that.
With a sigh, Allison tossed her phone in her desk drawer and slammed it shut. This was no time to resume the merry-go-round of guilt. She needed to get into the Homework Zone and that required silence.
So, of course, Sophie knocked on the door a second later. Her stack of dark curls greeted Allison first as she peeked her apple-cheeked face into the doorway. “You’re back.”
“I am.”
“Do you have a second to chat?” Her hand spun around the doorknob like she was polishing it.
Allison didn’t (or, more accurately, didn’twantto) but she couldn’t keep avoiding this conversation.
Sophie’s cinnamon-scented perfume filled the air as she crossed the room and dropped onto Allison’s bed. She hooked her heels onto the rungs and hugged Allison’s donut pillow to her chest, the same way she had at Brown every time they had a roommate heart-to-heart.
Some of the brittleness in Allison’s muscles softened. From the first day that she’d sat behind Sophie in English, they’d clicked. She still vividly remembered the initial words her soon-to-be best friend spoke to her: “That shirt is killer.” No one had ever complimented Allison’s clothes before.
The two of them understood each other perfectly. They were brain twins. Why had Allison been so certain that would change if other things did? Sophie was still Sophie, even from a distance.
“What’s the news on Jed?” Sophie rested her chin into the edge of the donut. Allison tried not to notice that it was a chocolate frosted with sprinkles, the same kind she’d eaten on her ride with Colin on Friday.
Allison shrugged. Which felt four different kinds of wrong given the circumstances, but it was how she felt. Apathetic, detached, indifferent. “I guess he’s fine? They did some kind of procedure today where they shocked his heart back into rhythm and, according to my mother, he’s doing much better.”
“It must have been weird, after everything, seeing him.”
“I kind of”—Allison’s eyes drifted to the ceiling—“had it out with him. Or as much as you can have it out with someone when they don’t give a shit about what you’re saying.”
“Are you serious?”
“He told me I was being dramatic.”
Sophie huffed a loud breath between her teeth. “Ihatethat word.”
“Yup.” If only Dante were still alive to create a nice nook for it at the center of hell. “I want nothing to do with him. Even if my mother keeps sending me updates like I signed up for a listserv.” Her hands were trembling a little, and Allison jammed them under her thighs. Of all the weird emotions to feel in this moment, she wasnervous.As if Sophie might judge her.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right choice.”
Her words were a breath of fresh air. Allison inhaled deeply, taking them in. “It feels fundamentally wrong to disown a parent. Like it’s a mortal sin. He’s myfather.”
“And he’s a son of a bitch. Just because they gave birth to us doesn’t give our parents free rein to abuse us. And that’s exactly what he’s done to you forever. All that stuff with your weight and the food and the way he dismisses all your achievements, that’s abuse. Something doesn’t have to leave bruises to hurt.”
Allison cringed.Abusehad such a strong connotation to it. She didn’t like to imagine herself as someone who could be abused. But that was bullshit. The idea that this only happened to certain kinds of people was victim blaming. More patriarchal assholery that had slipped beneath her skin without Allison realizing it. She made a mental note to read a new feminist theory book this week.
Sophie squeezed the sides of the donut until it looked more like a cruller. “You’re going to kill me for saying this, but sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a direct line of connection between Jed and Colin.”
Allison jolted. “Colin isnotmy father.”
“Maybe not, but he could be so full of himself sometimes. Remember how, every time we’d watch a mystery or thriller, he’d try to guess what happened and blame bad writing when he was wrong?” In a fit of gesticulation, the donut pillow tumbled from Sophie’s hands to the floor, prompting Monty to dive into its hollow center and immediately fall asleep. “Or the way he used to correct us whenever we usedfewerorlesswrong, like he was fucking Stannis Baratheon.”
Allison had no defense for that one. Colin 1.0’s admiration for one ofGame of Thrones’worst characters had always been a bone of contention between them. He and Ethan Windbag would probably have been the best of friends, rescuing the internet from grammar mistakes one pedantic comment at a time.
