The edge of my bed depresses as someone sits on my mattress. It's blissfully dark underneath my cloth, but my face is now damp. I don't move, not to take the towel of, and especially not until I know who is sitting there. Is it my mom or the Henry Williams? Which lecturer am I going to get tonight? Who is it going to be?
I press my eyes shut and wonder how much longer I can spend pretending to be asleep. Surely, they'll get frustrated and leave. But my mom eventually clears her throat, and I know my mom will never let something like this go. Not in a million years, and neither will my dad. I want to make it worse for them. I feel like making it worse. There's a growing part of me that wants to put so much distance between us that they won't recognize me anymore.
My thoughts are becoming self-destructive, and this isn't me. At least, it never used to be. When did I become the person hiding under the towel? When did malice start poisoning my heart?
"We need to talk."
Of course she thinks we do, but I disagree.
The medication for my headache is making me feel lop-sided, like I weigh more than I should. It's a strange wooziness that has overtaken my limbs, creating a numbing sensation across my body.
"About what?" I ask, still with the towel over my eyes. It's muggy, humid, and now that I've woken up from my nap, it's rather unpleasant, but it's easier to face her this way, when I'm not facing her at all.
"About what's going on with you." She sighs, and the sound of defeat in her voice is the thing that finally gets to me.
I take the towel off my head, grateful that the throbbing in my brain has died down to a distant lull. It reminds me of how some movies portray tinnitus. A small thing in the background, but lingering. A constant hum just along the edge of the surface, making it hard to focus.
At least the pain is over. Mostly.
"What do you mean?" I try to play it off, like this has been no big deal, like everything is okay.
My mom presses her lips into a thin line, flattening her features into a malevolent, twisted expression. Her cheeks are sharp and drawn, her eyes daggers, and her lips poised to kill. "I mean about whatever this teenager thing you are going through. Your father and I are trying to be there for you, but we're not sure—"
"Trying?" I cough out the word, slide it between my teeth. "Mom, do you know what my favorite subject in school is?"
She looks at me, tilting her head to the side. Her eyes are wider now as she watches me. "Well, I imagine sciences are taking most of your priorities, as that's the most practical—"
"Music, Mom. Clarinet, specifically, and band."
"You quit marching band—"
"I quit marching band because you made me. You told me it took too much time away from the rest of my studies. You told me it was a waste of time."
"Well, wasn't it?" Her voice turns indignant, like she's astonished her precious daughter would ever say these things to her. Her daughter is in love with band, the horror. The crushing, disgusting horror of it all.
"No. Not when it's what I want to do with my life." There, I said it. Loud and clear.
Her lips curve, and for a moment, not a single sound escapes her. Then there's this little "hmph" noise, like she's thinking everything over as brand new information. My parents can't be that dense, can they? How have they managed to be so oblivious?
My stomach grumbles, and it feels hollow. I haven't eaten since I got home from school, and it must be from a lack of dinner. I glance at the clock and realize it's past eight thirty. They didn't bother waking me up for dinner.
"Well," my mom says, pointedly. "There's something else we need to talk about, and I wasn't sure how to broach the subject, but since you seem keen on being blunt tonight, I'll just throw it out there. I saw Nicholas Daniels' mother at the PTA meeting." Her eyes narrow again, and I swallow.
"Oh?" I ask, copying her reaction, because I don't want to insinuate anything.
"Yup, and imagine my surprise when I asked her how, exactly, the date went on between you two, and she told me as far as she knows, her son isn't dating anyone." My mom leans back slightly, a snarl coiling on her face. "Her son hasn't been on a date since Sasha Greyfield last year. People are too intimidated by him, it seems. I told her not my daughter. There must have been some mistake, some misunderstanding."
I blink at her, not knowing what to say.
"Is there some misunderstanding?"
"I didn't go on the date with Nicholas."
"That much is obvious, Emma. So what are you hiding from us? Obviously, Nicholas would have been the best choice, but I can't imagine you are dating anyone less than magna cum laude. It can't be that hard to find a decent guy at your school. So who is it?"
I don't answer her, looking instead at the damp towel in my hands. It's a pale blue, and I want to dive back underneath it and pretend this conversation never happened.
"Who is it?" Her voice dips into a low growl.
"It's not important," I say, hating the words when they come out of my mouth. It's a lie, and the worst kind, because Carter is more important to me than they are. And I should just say it, rip the bandage off, because now that my mom knows I've been lying, she'll never let me out of the house again, no matter who was on the other end of the dates.
"Are you gay? Is that it?"
I narrow my eyes, wondering if that would be easier for them to accept. My parents have always been particularly narrow thinkers, but never to the point of phobia. "No, but would it matter if I was?"
"Quit stalling and tell me who it is." Her voice edges on dangerous now. My mother is so pissed I can almost see heat radiating off of her reddening face. And pretty soon, if I don't tell her the truth, she'll get Henry Williams, and then I'll get even more inundated with how much of a failure and a terrible human I am. This is not what I want to go through tonight, especially not after getting over the worst headache ever.
"Carter."
My mom stands up and comes toward me. She gets so close that I can smell the glass of wine she must have had while I had been sleeping. Red. Something expensive. Something someone like Henry Williams would purchase to celebrate. Or drink to get over his naughty, awful daughter. "Stop lying to me."
"I'm not lying." As I say it, I feel the strength of the truth reach into my bones. Our faces are inches apart, and now I'm just as furious as she is. "I asked him out on a date, he said yes. We're dating. We've been dating, and we're going to keep dating."
There's a few moments where all she can do is stare at me.
"Henry!" she screams, backing away from me. Her voice cracks. "Henry, get up here!"
The piercing shrill shakes into my brain, dislodging the headache that I been barely keeping at bay, and I wince as the pain meanders back into my temple. Sitting, throbbing, trampling the last of my sanity.
"Henry!" She turns through the doorway. Based on how my mother is reacting, I've declared that I have leprosy. The look of disgust dawning on her face, like she's realized just how far away I've fallen from the tree, the tree that was set up to produce the perfect offspring. Her fingers go in front of her lips, and she's trembling.
I might as well have told her that I'm pregnant. Or running off to join a convent. Or am addicted to heroin. This is the reaction I'm getting, the kind from some nightmarish truth.
But my truth, that I am slowly and deeply falling in love with a guy who should have never been in my life in the first place, is somehow worse to her. And she doesn't even know about the falling in love part.
My father, Mr. Henry Williams himself, appears in the doorway. "What?" he squawks. His cheeks are rosy from the wine, his eyebrows are arched into the sharpest points, and his nostrils curl in as he wrinkles his features, assessing the situation.
"Your daughter just told me she's dating Carter."
"Carter," Henry Williams says. He places his glass of wine on my white bookshelf, and I can see the red rim starting to form underneath the stemless glass. Clearly, they have both had more than one glass, because normally, Henry Williams wouldn't be caught dead ruining his pristine furniture. "Carter, Carter, Carter." My father repeats the name several times, as if searching for a meaning behind it.
There are no other Carters in my grade, let alone my school, but I can see my dad mulling this over, like he must have misheard my mom or perhaps he's misremembering the name. Maybe, it's a guy from another school, and not the Carter Ortese. His daughter would never date him, would she? His daughter wouldn't be that much of a mess up to get involved with someone like that.
"Carter Ortese," my mom spits the name out, as if she can't stand this cat and mouse game for one second longer. I realize something as I gaze at her expression, she wants my father to be angry with me. She wants him to be just as livid as her. It's all they seem to share in common. "As in, from the Ortese family!" As if giving his last name away initially wasn't enough of a clue.
"Ortese," Henry Williams snarls. "You're dating an Ortese?"
"An Ortese, there's only one. And his name is Carter. And yes." I don't care what he does to me anymore. This reaction is outlandish. It's absurd, and the worst my parents would do is ground me until the end of high school. It's not like I'm allowed to go out with friends anyway. They make sure of that.
His nostrils flare, nose twitching, and a sneer turns his mouth down. "You said you were dating Nicolas Daniels. Once. One time, Emma."
"She lied." My mom sticks her nose up.
She's as bad as the gossipers in my school. She's practically giddy over this opportunity to tear me down, and I'm not sure why. My mom and I have never been close, but I've also never lied to her until now. Is lying the thing that makes her turn cold?
I shake my head. No parent should be this cruel.
"You lied," Henry Williams echoes. "So you could go on a date with that boy." It's a simple statement, but something about the way he phrases it makes the hairs on my neck rise.
I want to defend myself, but my mouth opens, unable to find the words.
"How many dates, Emma?"
I add up how many times I've lied to them, and it's a lot. Mostly because I've been lying about wanting to pursue chemistry, engineering, or any kind of science. I've led them to believe that I'm the girl they've always wanted me to be, and that feels more like a lie than negating to tell them the truth about Carter.
"How many dates?" Henry's voice dips low, like the bottom of an iceberg stretching into the frigid ocean.
"I don't know, three? Officially? It's no big deal."
"No. Big. Deal." Each word is accentuated with a period. "You do realize a boy like that will ruin your reputation?"
"What college is going to care about my reputation?"
His face is turning beet red. "Which colleges don't?"
"It's not like I'm blasting anything on social media. This isn't some public affair. It's a relationship." I grab my pillow and pull it into my arms, crossing my arms over it like it can separate myself from this conversation.
I want to be anywhere but here.
"Don't forget he's a terrible distraction from your future," my mother helpfully chimes in. "You don't have time to be dating boys at all, let alone boys like him."
"You think someone like Nicholas Daniels would be better?" I snarl, frustration boiling into the pain in my head. "He's a self-centered prick. He thinks he's going to be the next President!"
"That's because boys like him succeed." Henry runs his tongue over his teeth. His gum line is purple from the wine. "Boys like Carter don't. And boys like Carter drag other people down with him. Were you on drugs when we got home today?"
"What?!"
"Were you on drugs?"
"No, I—"
"You looked pretty out of it, honey. You can't ask us to stop being concerned." My mom tries to play the nice card, after feeding into my father's anger.
"I'm not on drugs!"
"We can get you help if needed. There's a good place—"
"I am not on drugs," I spit.
There's quiet in the room for a minute. I glare at both my parents, and they glare at me. After a beat, Henry Williams picks up his wine and rubs at the ring it left behind with this thumb. It smears the deep reddish purple further into the varnished white.
"You are not to see him again."
I nod, but I have no intention of listening to them. It's easier than arguing at this point.
"And you are grounded."
I nod again, because this is the expected outcome of this conversation. Plus, it's not like I went out much to begin with. With the amount of pressure they put on me to succeed in science, I haven't had much time for anything.
"And we're taking your phone."
My phone. My jaw slackens, because this is my last lifeline to Mika, to Carter, to Stacy. And now that I know the truth about Stacy, I want to be able to talk to her if she needs me. I need to be there for her. "I need my phone."
"No, you don't." Henry Williams crosses the room and snatches it off of my end table. He tries to unlock it, but my privacy settings are too high. He growls and shuts it off instead. It passes from his hands to my mother's. "I grew up without a cell phone, and it's time for you to learn to live without one."
I grit my teeth.
"You'll thank me someday, when you've focused more on your studies." With that, my parents exit my room. But before the door shuts all the way, Henry casts a glance over his shoulder. "Get this cleaned up before the stain sets in." He points to the ring he created on my bookshelf, then leaves, shutting the door behind him.
I'm shaking. Anger floods my veins, and I stuff my face into the pillow and scream. The pure rage scratches my throat, drying me out from the inside. I can no longer cry, because fury has taken over. There's no tears for what I'm feeling now, only venomous liquid hatred. I press my eyes shut and wait another minute before getting up and slipping back into the bathroom. I take two more ibuprofen, because my headache is already coiling around the recesses of my brain. I crawl back into my bed and go to grab my phone to check the time.
Then I remember and want to howl all over again. I have no idea what time it is, but the sun is completely set and darkness has set over my room. I shut the lights off, but I am not tired. I am wide awake, more awake than I ever have been before.
- - - - -
Phew! NaNoWriMo took my attention away from this story for a bit - so sorry for the delay! But I'm back, and we're starting to near the end of the book.
What do you think about Emma's frustration? What about her parents? Do you think they are being too unfair? Let me know your thoughts!
Carter's section is next. Stay tuned!