I glare at my plate and shove a forkful of couscous in my mouth. Little balls of grain bounce off my fork and past the edge of my plate.
I catch Caleb’s eyes tracking each piece that falls—three on his side, two on mine. His jaw tightens like he’s in physical pain, his hand already moving toward his napkin before I even register the mess.
Caleb and I reach out at the same time.
It’s like a little bolt of lightning going from his fingertips into mine.
My chair jolts back from the table, and I shoot to my feet, all the confused, explosive feelings in my chest erupting.
“Oh!” Helen immediately stands up, too. “Is there something you need, honey? I’m happy to get it. I hope you know how happy your father and I are that you’re here?—”
“Is that why he waited until I was almost eighteen to remember I existed?” I bark in my father’s direction. “Because he wassoexcited to have me?”
Caleb stiffens beside me. I can hear his breathing—it’s gone weird. Controlled. Like he’s counting. Three counts in, hold, three counts out. His hand grips the edge of the table, knuckles white.
I’m immediately humiliated at my outburst, but this is who I am, isn’t it? The girl who can’t hold her temper.Just like Darlene. I know the truth; I’m doomed to repeat my mother’s mistakes in life, to a one. She had shit taste in men, too.
“Harper, that’s enough,” Dad snaps, and there it is.The edge in his voice that used to make my stomach go sour when I was young, because I knew it meant he and Mom were about to have another blow-up. She could scream so loud, I always swore it’d peel the tin right off the roof of the trailer.
“Enough?” I laugh, and it sounds harsh even to me. “I’m just getting started. You want to talk about family? Let’s talk about how you abandoned me with Darlene and her parade of handsy boyfriends. Let’s talk about how I learned to make mac and cheese when I was seven because there was no one else to feed me. Or when I was twelve and you got thrown back behind bars instead of?—”
“I saidenough!”
Dad’s voice explodes across the dining room, loud enough to rattle the china. Helen flinches. Caleb goes completely still beside me, and I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves.
For a second, I’m eight years old again, watching Dad scream at Mom while she tries to explain why she just snorted all the rent money up her nose.
Helen makes a small, wounded sound.
Caleb stands up, forehead creased like he’s in pain as he looks at his mother. His hands open and close at his sides—twice, three times, like he’s trying to reset something.
“Harper, please?—”
But I’m already moving, snatching the fish up in the fancy cloth napkin and storming out of the dining room. I take the stairs two at a time, and my face burns as humiliated tears burn down my cheeks.
I feed Sox tiny bites of leftover salmonon the floor with my back to my bedroom door. She purrs so loud I can feel the vibration against my palm.
“We’ll have a beautiful life one day,” I coo to her. “We’ll fly away from here and have a beautiful life, I swear it.”
Sox headbutts my chin, and I laugh despite the tears still wet on my face. At least somebody’s glad I’m here.
SIX
CALEB
Addassholeto the column besidecoward.
I glare down at the calculus homework on my desk.
The numbers keep blurring together, and every time I try to solve for X, my brain goes right back to dinner. Harper slamming her fork down. Mom’s face crumpling. The way Silas looked like he wanted to murder someone.
Everything just devolved so quickly. One second, I was trying to remember how to breathe because Harper and I had just accidentally touched, twice, and I couldn’t stop remembering that kiss earlier, and then?—
Then everyone was yelling at each other, louder and louder. And instead of being any sort of helpful, I was nailed frozen to the floor.
By the time I pulled myself out of it to try to help de-escalate things, Harper was already halfway up the stairs.
I chuck my pencil across the room and lean back in my chair.