THE SECOND WE got in the house, Mom and Dad leapt up from the couch.
“Rory,” Mom cried. “What happened? We’ve been worried sick.”
“I don’t feel like talking about it.” I pushed past them, toward the stairs.
They seemed stunned to silence. At least for a moment. Good, that gave me a head start.
“No, we need to talk about this,” Mom said, following me.
“No,” I said, continuing up the stairs, even though every step reopened the wounds on my legs and made the shorts ride up that much more.
Aiden cut in. “Give it a rest. She’s had a hard night.”
Dad’s voice was harsh. “Don’t talk to your mother like that.”
Casey’s gentle tone contrasted theirs. “Her heart was just broken in front of the entire school. Maybe just give her a minute to cool down.”
I reached my door and waited, my hand on the knob, listening. “Aiden,” Mom said, “you need to take Casey home.”
“Mom—” he began.
“No,” Dad said in his voice that stunned his opponents into submission. “Take her home. I expect you back right afterward.”
There was a pause.
“Yes sir?” Dad snapped.
“Yes, sir,” Aiden mumbled. “Come on, Casey.”
I pushed into my room, shut the door—which unfortunately lacked a lock—and changed into clothes that actually fit as quickly as I could. Mom and Dad were coming. I heard it in their voices, and now, in their footsteps up the stairs.
I sat on my bed and stared at my door, every bit of me on the edge of collapse.
It opened, sans a knock or any form of permission, and my parents spilled into my room.
“What did you do?” Mom asked.
“Mary,” Dad warned. “She’s been through enough.”
“No,” Mom snapped equally as fast. “I just witnessed my daughter humiliate an innocent boy in front of the entire school.” Her hands gesticulated as she began pacing. “You got banned from attending homecoming, and you’re suspended for three days next week!”
“Suspended?” I cried, my eyes burning. “I was the one who got pelted with cupcakes!”
“You’re lucky he hasn’t expelled you altogether!” “Mary—” Dad began.
“No,” Mom continued. “What happened to the Rory who tutored and came home after school and was just fine the way she was—without makeup or these clothes that are so not you. You’re spending time with these girls who apparently don’t have any rules, and—”
“Stop!” I cried. I’d had enough. “You want your old daughter back? The one who never thought she was good enough and did everything she could to blend into the wallpaper? Have her! Make her miserable with your stupid diets and workouts and pregnancy tests, and remind her every single day that she will never be good enough for you!”
She opened her mouth to argue, but I wasn’t even close to done.
“No,” I cut her off. “I’ve been under your thumb ever since I hit puberty. You humiliated me in front of everyone with your stupid hEAlthy program, because you can’t handle the idea that I’ll make decisions on my own, even if they’re bad. I’m tired of this. If you want someone perfect to be your daughter, find her. Your actual, fat, imperfect, cupcake-covered, mistake-making daughter will be right here, ignoring the fact that you’re her mother.”
Dad’s eyes shifted between us, torn between two sides of a coin that was never supposed to flip. I was supposed to be kind Rory. Go-with-the- flow Rory. She was gone. She’d been pulverized on the football field, right along with her heart.
“Just go,” I said, barely masking the tremor in my voice. “Go.”
They stood, stunned for a moment, but Mom left first. Her feet pounded down the stairs as fast as she could go, but Dad was still in my doorway.
“What?” I demanded.
He stepped forward and sat in my desk chair, his elbows on his knees, head hung low. For a moment, I watched him. He looked more tired than ever, like he’d somehow been the one on the field instead of me.
“I’m so sorry, kid,” he said quietly. My eyebrow rose. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated louder, meeting my eyes. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like out there.”
Flashes of Beckett’s face, the hurt in his eyes, nearly ripped me apart. I closed my eyes against the image, but it just made me see it more clearly. “I messed up, Dad.”
A corner of his lips lifted. “If it makes you feel any better, you weren’t the only one.”
A soft snort escaped my nose. “Not really.”
With a sigh, he ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I’ve found it’s not the mistakes that matter so much but what you do afterward that matters.”
I wanted so badly for his words to be true, but they didn’t jive with the life I’d lived in this house. “Mom wants me to be perfect.”
Dad shook his head. “She wants you to have the kind of life she didn’t have.”
My eyebrows came together. I’d seen photos of my mom at prom, all dolled up with her hair curled to the heavens and a silk dress falling off her defined shoulders. I doubt she’d lead the kind of life that resulted in being showered with cupcakes and plotting to get guys to like her.
“You didn’t know your grandma like she knew your grandma. But that’s not my story to tell.” He stood from the chair. “Your mom might not be perfect, but she loves you.”
Frustration rose in my chest. “She has a funny way of showing it.” Mom had no reason to treat me the way she had, and yet Dad was still defending her.
He lifted his eyebrows, staring at the floor. “Yeah, but then again, you love Beckett, and I have a feeling there are some things you wish you could have done differently. No one’s perfect, kid.”
My bedroom door closed behind him, and I collapsed onto my bed, held my pillow to my chest, and cried myself to sleep.
