High and Dry | miguel diaz

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"NO." IVY SAID AS she looked for her keys. It was Wednesday which meant she had to give her friends rides to school since Dimitri's mom worked early mornings and she was their usual ride. Ivy hated her car since her dad had given it to her as a sorry I walked out on you present, something he did too often. He would give her stuffed animals when she was a kid and moved onto electronics when she was in her preteens. He was pretty much buying their relationship, he was too happy with his other family to try to get his first kid.

"Don't be like this, Ivy."

"Have you seen the keys?"

"Ivory, I'm talking to you."

Ivy turned and looked at her mom who's face was now red, "I said I'm not going."

"You have to."

"Not unless court says I do." Ivy threw the keys in her pocket as she shrugged on her backpack.

"I am making you go. I don't understand why you can't make amends with your dad. He is trying so hard —"

"He's too late!" Ivy snapped, "Ma, he left us, he left me and he left you. If he cared about our relationship so much, why did he find another woman to make a new family with so fast? My only job is to pretend he doesn't exist just like he did to me for a month."

"He's trying."

"He ignored me all summer! He only talked to me when Rachel told him to and even then he was reluctant. He gives me things because he feels bad now — every holiday, he was out, for each birthday I can remember, he didn't see me blow the candles and he showed up four hours late to my fifteen with a cowboy hat he found at a bar. You really think that man deserves me to show up to some .. event? You can go, but I'm staying."

Veronica shook her head, "he told me that he wants you to be there. Rachel wants you to."

"I wanted his attention since I was a kid and he obviously didn't care," Ivy's cheeks were now stained with tears as she and her mother looked at each other, knowing Ivy was right about her scumbag dad, "I have to go before Dimitri starts blowing up my phone." Ivy quickly walked to the front door and pulled it open only for Dimitri and Eli fall into the house. The two shot up to their feet and rushed to Ivy's car, staring down at their shoes and at anything that wasn't the crying. Usually, she'd cuss them out and yell at them for being nosey, but she was too tired to do so.

Ivy had spent the last three days sulking about in her room at the announcement of her father getting married. She didn't even know he had gotten engaged but apparently it happened two months ago, just before she came to visit him. The wedding was in a few months and Rachel, his new, soon to be wife, asked Ivy to be one of the bridesmaids since her daughter was too young to be one. Ivy asked if she didn't have any other woman in line and Rachel said no, all her friends didn't seem long term — family is above all, alongside God. Ivy rolled her eyes at those words. Rachel must have no idea what happened to her parents marriage and how she was part of the reason she hated her dad even more.

The three sat in the car in silence besides the radio announcing the weather and how traffic would be backed up due to some fire. Dimitri tried to make comments about it, hoping he'd get a smile or corner lip twitch, but received nothing. Eli sunk in the back seat and glared at Dimitri's horrible jokes, hoping he'd get the hint and leave their friend alone. But Dimitri was hopeless.

The three walked into school and went to Ivy's locker, Dimitri didn't stop talking the entire way there and didn't seem like he had any plan to do so anytime soon. Ivy had tuned him out after the first two weather jokes but the sound of him talking made her want to turn around and kick him in the face. It wasn't until Miguel came up to them that she felt her annoyance really start to rise, "what's wrong with you? You look like a dog put out in the rain." He snickered. Ivy slammed her locker and shot them a look, rushed to her biology classroom, not in the mood to hear more jokes or hear anyone talk, and sat in her usual chair.