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As we approach his truck, I yank my arm free, tears streaming down my face.
“Why do you always have to ruin everything?!” I scream. My voice ends in a whine, a fact that I resent almost as much as him ruining my life.
2
EDEN
“I don’t wantyou to get hurt, Eden.”
Dad opens the passenger’s side door when we get home. He stares at me, and I sit there with my arms folded as if I could defy him. But slowly, my resolve crumbles, and I leap out of the truck, running past him to the front door. It’s pathetic. I have to wait for him to open the door because I don’t have a key.
“There are things I need to protect you from,” he replies, unlocking the door. “Things you don’t know about.”
“Then tell me!” I demand. “You can’t keep me in the dark forever! It’s my life you’re ruining, not yours!”
“You’re like your mother,” he says quietly, taking in a ragged breath. “Maybe I wouldn’t worry about losing you if she was still here.”
He always wins our arguments when he mentions her. He told me that she passed away from cancer when I was still a baby, long before I could even form any memories. But whenever I ask for any details, he never goes into it.
Almost as if he can’t bear to.
Dad has raised me by himself my entire life. He’s handsome in his own way, and I’ve seen more than a few women checking him out throughout the years. But he’s never even so much as spared them a second look.
I guess he will never get over Mom. I think about her and wonder how different he must have been when she was alive. I’ve never even seen a photo of her. Dad said he destroyed them during a fit of grief—an act that still fills him with regret, or so he’s told me about a thousand times.
But that doesn’t give him the right to keep me from the world!
I hurry into our claustrophobic colonial-style house as soon as he opens the front door. Our quiet house is pretty to the eye but filled with tense silence. I turn on all the lights on the first floor; otherwise the darkness will feel like it will press down on me until I don’t exist.
My knees tremble before I toss myself into a chair in the living room, and Dad sits down in a chair across from me.
We don’t need to speak to keep on fighting. I refuse to look at him, but I feel the storm of emotions—anger, concern, and something else—radiating off him. I feel trapped and smothered by his love. Did Mom ever feel trapped too?
I refuse to be the first one to break the silence. It’s not entirely from spite. I can hardly breathe, much less say a word.
Finally, he speaks, and his voice is strained.
“I’m just trying to keep you safe, Eden.”
“You didn’t have to embarrass me in front of all my friends,” I mutter, staring at the empty fireplace. The overstuffed plaid furniture looks new despite being almost as old as me.
Dad never invites anyone, and I’m never allowed to bring any friends over either.
“Embarrass you?” He scowls. “Is that what you think?”
I turn to look at him and see worry lines etched deep into his rugged face. What is wrong? What is he afraid of? It can’t be me.
“What else would it be?” I demand.
Dad does everything he can to keep me from having any kind of contact with the outside world, even my cousin Mercy. Hell, with the outside world in general. I’m eighteen years old and still don’t have a phone or any social media profiles.
It’s like he wants to keep me hidden from the world. But he never tells me why. And the longer the two of us sit here, stewing in each other’s anger, the more curious I become.
I deserve to know why. I’m an adult now, aren’t I?
“Dad.” My anger dissolves into a mild headache. “Why do you keep me locked up like some princess in a castle? What are you so afraid of?”
“Eden …” he starts, but then stops himself, swallowing hard. The shadow of some secret hidden pain passes over him. And then he blinks, and the emotions are erased in an instant.
