Page 100 of Harbor

Lucia never realized just how much anger and contempt she could harbor for someone she loved until now. And what a fucking complex that was, really. To love and hate someone at the same time. Still, she wasn’t the kind of person to blatantly hurt someone just because she couldn’t get in control of her feelings, except she had done that to her father before leaving for California, so she knew putting distance between them was the best option.

That distance was closing now.

By the second.

Lucia still wasn’t sure she was ready for it. In fact, that anger was already starting to burn hot and destructive inside her gut all over again. She was going to have to face her brother, who took Renzo away. And her father, who didn’t seem to understand all he had done to hurt her. She was going to have to make nice, or try, and it was the very last thing she wanted to do, really.

Maybe coming home for Christmas break was a mistake. Not that she had really been given a choice. Her father left a message on her phone—because she still refused to pick up a call from him directly—stating he had bought her ticket, and she would find it in her email. She was to make sure she was on the plane to come home for Christmas … nothing more, and nothing less would be acceptable.

She shouldn’t be here at all.

It was too late to back out now.

“What are you trying to find over there?”

Lucia was quick to turn the screen of her phone off and shove it back in her bag at her mother’s question. In the driver’s seat, Jordyn offered her a small smile and Lucia did her best to return it. She didn’t think her smile reached her eyes like it usually would because Jordyn was quick to press her lips together in a thin line before going back to watching the road as she drove.

“You’re still angry, then,” her mother said softly.

Was it that obvious?

Did that agony in her heart just burn through her eyes?

“I feel like I wasn’t given a choice about coming home for Christmas, and I don’t feel like this is the best time of the year to make nice with Daddy and John … or anyone, really.”

“Lucia, they love you.”

“I’m not sure that makes it better. Worse, actually.”

Jordyn sighed, and shook her head but never took her eyes off the road in front of her. “Okay, well then let’s talk about something different. Not them … how about you?”

Lucia eyed her mother from the side, not at all sure where Jordyn was trying to go with this conversation. “What about me, Ma?”

“How’s prep for starting school?”

“It keeps me from wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning.”

Lucia didn’t miss the way her mother’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel so much that her knuckles turned white from the pressure. She figured her mother didn’t want to think about her daughter depressed and alone in California, dealing with the kind of emotional baggage that no eighteen-year-old should have to deal with … but she asked.

Hadn’t she?

Lucia was trying to tell the truth more often, now.

It was freeing.

Too bad it wouldn’t get rid of the contempt that she constantly harbored, now.

“You know,” her mother said, her voice barely above a whisper, “even if you don’t want to be here with us for Christmas, just know that we want you here, Lucia. I know you’re angry. I know you feel alone, but we’re still here, too. Okay?”

Lucia heard her mother, but she didn’t feel very much about her words. She watched the buildings pass them by in the city as they headed for the suburbs going ten over the limit.

“Lucia,” her mom said again. “Okay?”

She turned to glance at her ma, then. “No, it’s not okay.”

That was the problem.

She wasn’t okay.