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I climbed to my feet, forcing myself to take a breath. Restrained anger still radiated inside me, making my skin vibrate. He stared at me with wild eyes. Eyes I knew we shared. I half-expected him to come at me and finish what he started on the floor. But he didn’t. The air was thick, strained with the hatred between us.
“You’re just like her, you know?” he said quietly.
No, I wanted to roar. I’m just like you. Angry. Bitter. Broken.
Swallowing the words, I lifted my chin in small defiance.
I couldn’t remember a time when we didn’t hate each other. The only difference was when I was a kid, part of me had craved his approval, his acceptance. I’d been desperate for whatever scraps of his attention I could get. But I quickly learned. I quickly learned that it was a fool’s hope.
“I want you gone.” His words were like a blow to the stomach.
“What the fuck do you mean, you want me gone?”
Jessa.
I couldn’t leave Jessa. I wouldn’t.
“After graduation, I want you out of here.”
“You know I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t—”
“Not my problem, kid. I’m done carrying your dead weight. Finish high school, figure out a plan, and get the fuck out of my life.” He stared past me, through me.
“Jessa won’t—”
“Jessa isn’t your responsibility and it isn’t her decision what happens in my fucking house,” he spat the words, full of venom and fire. “She’s mine, Nix. Mine. She isn’t your mother, thank fuck for that. She’s a good girl and I—”
“You don’t deserve her.” I stepped forward. “And you didn’t deserve my mother.”
“Watch it, kid,” he sneered. “If it wasn’t for Jessa you’d have been long gone by now.”
It shouldn’t have hurt. It shouldn’t have mattered that the man I hated with every fiber of my being felt the same. But it cut like tiny knives, slowly slicing me open, and leaving me to bleed out.
My mother hadn’t loved me enough to stay. And my father hated me enough to send me packing the minute he could.
Whoever said you could always count on family had clearly never met mine.
“Don’t worry,” I drawled, wrapping my words in false bravado. Because I would never—over my dead fucking body—let him see his words affected me. “I won’t outstay my welcome.”
“Good. And pull that shit with me again and you can pack your bag. We might not like each other, but this is my house and you will fucking respect that.”
Go fuck yourself. I imagined myself screaming the words at him. Grabbing the nearest thing I could find and throwing it at his smug fucking face. But I didn’t. I just stood there, teeth grinding behind pursed lips, glaring at him. Waiting for him to walk away. It wasn’t exactly a small win. I’d still be homeless come graduation. But at least I stood my ground.
It worked. He blew out an exasperated breath and stormed off toward his bedroom, no doubt going to grovel to Jessa.
I grabbed my keys and cell phone and shoved my feet into my sneakers and left, wondering if I’d even make it to graduation. It was getting harder to bite my tongue, to rein in my fists. But I had nowhere else to go.
I’d never given much thought to what happened after graduation. I wanted to get out of The Row, of course I did. But it was a dream I couldn’t afford to allow to take root. Because I had Jessa to think about. So I took each day as it came and hoped to God that one day she would wake up and smell the roses and leave my old man’s sorry ass.
But maybe she was right. Maybe loving someone meant setting them free. Letting them choose their own path. Even if that path was steeped in mistakes and woven with pain.
Even if it meant that in the end, you lost them…
Forever.
