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“Do you hate him still?” Cat asks.
I know she means Leo, not my father.
“No,” I sigh. “I’m tired of hating him.”
“It’s so sad,” Cat says. “That your father did love your mother once . . .”
“The more he loved her, the more he felt he wasn’t worthy of her,” I say.
“That’s just wrong!” Cat cries.
I nod.
But deep inside, I fear that I might feel the same.
14
CAT
I’m amazed at my own boldness in asking Dean personal questions.
Even more amazed that he answered.
To me, that interaction was more shocking than Dean’s apparent superpower for multiple orgasms.
He looked like the same devastated ten-year-old he must have been the day he came home to that empty house. He struggled to keep his face stern and composed, but I could see the awful pain in his eyes.
Dean’s past does not justify his actions. However, it certainly explains them.
He’s never known anything but shame and abandonment.
I understand the torment of a cold and demanding father, and the absence of a mother. But unlike Dean, I had Zoe by my side, always loving me, always keeping me safe.
Dean was completely alone.
My heart aches for him.
I wish I had Zoe here to tell me what the fuck to do about Lola Fischer. If Lola disliked me before, it’s nothing compared to her hatred of me after her disgrace in theQuartum Bellum—eliminated after the first round, she’s biting the head off anybody who even mentions it.
And she’s harassing me every chance she gets.
Which is very inconvenient with exams right around the corner.
I’m trying to study in the library when she attacks me yet again.
Rakel and I have our textbooks and half-finished papers spread out across our table. Rakel is arguing with me over the benefits of a wireless security system. We’re so engrossed in quiet debate that I don’t even hear Lola and Dixie creeping up behind me until Lola dumps an entire bottle of milk over my head.
My textbooks and papers are drenched, not to mention my hair and blouse. The milk is cold and sickly sticky, dripping down into my eyes. The papers are all ruined, the ink smeared into oblivion.
“Oops,” Lola giggles, shaking out the last few drops all over my history textbook.
Rakel leaps up from her seat, immediately shoved back down by the burly, freckled Dixie Davis.
I look up at Lola with cold fury.
“It’s your fault you lost,” I tell her. “You’re a shit leader.”
Lola’s smirk turns into a snarl of rage. She has such pretty, doll-like features that anger distorts them to a disproportionate degree. She’s like a harpy, transformed by fury.
