Just You Page 14

  I refused to speak to my mother beyond necessity, so I was hesitant when she came home early from work on Thursday afternoon and wanted to take me shopping for jeans. Apparently she was so pleased with my calm, cooperative attitude this past week that she wanted to celebrate with some mother-daughter bonding. What a joke. She may have thought she had won, but she hadn’t. Not even close. In reality, I was just biding my time until she trusted me again.

  But I really needed some new jeans, so I agreed.

  We dropped Emma off at her friend Madison’s house and made the ten-minute trek to the mall in silence. I gazed out the window at the passing trees and businesses while Mom drove and sneaked the occasional peek over at me. I wasn’t quite ready yet to give her the satisfaction of speaking more than a couple of words to her. I was still fuming mad, after all.

  After spending an exorbitant amount of money at my favorite jeans store, Mom insisted we stop at Cinnabon for a snack before going home. I relented only because I’m a sucker for cinnamon rolls, and the aroma emanating from the store reminded me of Michael’s mints. We sat at a small round table with the goodies, our pile of shopping bags at our feet.

  “Taylor,” Mom said, ripping off a piece of cinnamon roll. “I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for understanding my point of view during all this.”

  I stared at her. Was that really what she thought? That I understood? Accepted it? She kept talking, unaware of my surprise.

  “I think you realize now your father and I care about you and only have your best interests at heart. Steven recognizes that he hasn’t been the most conscientious parent in the world. I’m glad he’s on the same page this time.”

  I poked at my gooey cinnamon roll, listening passively.

  “It’s for the best,” she said, so sure of herself. “You’ll appreciate our perspective in a few years time.”

  The rage was back, but this time I kept it in check. I couldn’t very well throw my cinnamon roll across the food court. As much as I felt like screaming at her, I knew I had to keep quiet, be the dutiful daughter for a little while longer yet. Let her think she had won so I could slide around her, undetected, when she least expected it.

  But I also knew it was going to take more than my phony “understanding” to fool her. Which was why, at that moment, I told the biggest lie of my career as a daughter.

  “You know, I think it is for the best,” I said. My mother studied me, her expression wary as she tried to figure out if I was being sarcastic or not. I had to pour it on thicker. “It wasn’t really working out anyway,” I added, injecting just the right amount of animosity into my voice. “He acted like a big jerk when I told him I couldn’t see him anymore. I’m probably better off without him. I don’t think I’m ready for a serious relationship anyway. Especially after what happened with Brian.”

  My mother beamed. She believed me. “I thought so. I’m glad you realized it before you got in even deeper with him.”

  Little did she know I was already in about as deep as I could get. “No big loss, right?”

  “You have plenty of time for boys and dating, sweetie. There’s no need to rush things.”

  I nodded obediently. “I know.”

  She smiled a big justified smile, and then picked up her cinnamon roll for another bite. She was convinced. I had pulled it off. And if I fooled her, I knew I could fool Dad. Being a good, obedient daughter for sixteen years had its advantages. The last thing my parents expected from me was sneakiness, deceit, and bold-faced lies.

  Chapter 17

  “You’re going to ruin your appetite for lunch.”

  “Hmm?”

  Ashley and I were standing near our locker after class, waiting for Erin to arrive so the three of us could eat lunch together.

  “You’ve bitten your nails down practically to your wrist.” Ashley snatched my hand from my mouth and surveyed the damage. “Taylor, for heaven’s sake, you’re bleeding.”

  Erin came up behind us. “Who’s bleeding?”

  “Look.” Ashley shoved my ravaged hand under Erin’s nose. “She’s bitten off her cuticles.”

  Erin shook her head. “You’re a mess, girl.”

  I pulled away from Ashley and curled my wounded fingers up into my palm, hiding them. It wasn’t the first time they had bled since I’d started biting my nails. I was a mess.

  “Stop hurting yourself like that!” Ashley scolded. “You’re not turning into one of those self-mutilators, are you?”

  I sighed. “No, Ashley. I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

  It was true. I could be anywhere—in school, in bed, watching TV, reading, talking to someone—and in a few minutes my mind would start wandering and I’d end up subconsciously snacking on my fingernails. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because if I didn’t give my mouth something to do, I’d be screaming non-stop.

  It was the end of February, and my transformation from an easygoing kid to a paranoid nervous wreck was now complete. If Michael hadn’t been so worth it all, I would have dumped him long ago so I could get some peace. And maybe sleep soundly again. And even grow my nails back.

  For the past three weeks, we’d been sneaking around like criminals. Robin made it happen. I pretended to have plans with her on Friday and Saturday nights, and then she’d go out with friends while I jetted off with Michael. He’d pick me up at Robin’s, we’d go out somewhere, and then he’d drop me off at the same spot at midnight sharp. Dad and Lynn were totally clueless. They never bothered to check up on me, assuming I was with Robin and no longer in contact with Michael at all. And my mother assumed her rules were being followed. It was easy. Still, the possibility of getting caught had raised my stress level to maximum.

  “Something’s gotta give soon, hon,” Erin said, her olive-skinned face filled with concern. “You’re a bundle of nerves lately. I’m worried about your mental health. Really.”

  “I’m not going insane,” I said, offended.

  “Yet,” Ashley added.

  The three of us started toward the cafeteria. I appreciated my friends’ concern, but really, I wasn’t that far gone. I may have felt like I was going crazy on more than one occasion, but my mental state—as far as I knew—was still fundamentally sound. So far.

  “Fries?” asked Candy, one of the lunch ladies, as we reached the front of the lunch line.

  “No, just the chicken strips,” I said, and moved down to the register with my two distressed friends hot on my heels.

  “We’re worried about you,” Ashley said as the three of us sat down at our usual table with our orange plastic trays. I picked up an overdone chicken strip and looked at each of them, studying their kind, troubled expressions. It didn’t take me long to figure out they’d been discussing my situation together, the two of them, behind my back.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and bit into the chicken. At least it appeared to be chicken. It tasted more like salty, breaded shoe leather with a hint of poultry seasoning.

  “I think if you’re this stressed out about it,” Ashley said, opening her milk carton, “maybe your conscience is trying to tell you something.”

  “Like what?”

  She glanced at Erin before answering me. “Like maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. Putting one over on your parents, I mean.”

  I looked at Erin to see if she agreed. “I’m worried about how it’s affecting you,” she said apologetically. “You’re so tense all the time now. You don’t eat. You have dark circles under your eyes every day. It’s getting…unhealthy.”

  I scowled down at my inedible lunch. Once again, I felt betrayed. My friends were supposed to support me, without question. Where was Brooke? She’d been through this—she understood. “What happened to ‘It’s so romantic’?”

  “Maybe in a movie,” Ashley replied. “Not so much in real life.”

  A pressure started building behind my eyes, like my eyeballs were about to pop out at any minute and roll down the table. “How can you guys even pretend to know what I�
�m feeling? You have no idea. You think I like lying to my parents all the time? You think I feel like I have a choice in the matter?” I pushed my tray away and stood up. “I thought you guys were on my side…but I guess not.”

  “Taylor,” Erin said, gripping my arm. “Please don’t be mad at us.”

  Ashley bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I have a big mouth.”

  “We are on your side.”

  “We weren’t even going to say anything, but today you seem so down. Being in love is supposed to make you happy, right?”

  I sat back down, forgiving them. “Not when it’s like this.”

  ****

  It had been almost a month since the glass-throwing incident and I was finally back in Mom’s good graces. She trusted me again, even though behind the scenes I wasn’t doing anything to earn it. Sometimes I would think back to before I met Michael, when simply asking for extra allowance or making a C on my report card had me quaking in my boots over my mother’s reaction. Now, the mere idea of her response if (or when) she found out about my more serious transgressions was too overwhelming for me to even think about. So I tried not to.

  Fooling my father was easy. He was on a different planet most of the time and so confident in my obedience that he never batted an eye at my increasingly creative lies about where I was going. If I told him I was heading to Egypt to check out the pyramids, he’d probably just say, “Be home by midnight.”

  But I somehow failed to consider that Dad wasn’t the only one in that house I needed to be worried about fooling. To my amazement, I received a heads-up before the bomb dropped, compliments of my enigmatic stepsister.

  Leanne had continued to warm up to us over the past couple of months. She stayed home more and ate dinner with us almost every weekend. In fact, she was sitting next to me at the table on that one momentous evening in the first week in March as I ate my lasagna, blissfully ignorant of what was about to take place.

  “What are your plans for tonight, sweet pea?” my father asked, his eyes on me as he poured a stream of Italian dressing over his salad.

  “Going out with Robin,” I said, as I did every weekend. “We’re not sure what we’re doing yet.”

  His face drooped a little. “I see.”

  I started picking at my garlic bread, making tiny bread balls out of it for the remainder of the meal. At this point I began to suspect something was up.

  Leanne lingered in the kitchen after dinner to give me a hand with the dishes, and we worked quietly together until everyone else scattered, leaving us to finish up. Once we were alone, my stepsister glanced at me as she wiped down the stove and said, “My mom knows.”

  “Knows what?” I said, rinsing silverware under the faucet.

  “She knows it’s not Robin you’re going out with every weekend.”

  I froze in place. “How do you know?”

  “They’ve been talking about it all week. My mom and your dad.”

  “My dad knows too?” The stack of forks and knives were still clutched, forgotten, in my hand. “He hasn’t said anything.”

  “I guess they were waiting until you got here before they pounced.” She tossed the dish cloth into the sink and turned to me. “Just a warning…my mom is ruthless. She can smell a lie a mile away. It’s no use trying to trick her. Believe me, I know. It’s like she’s clairvoyant or something.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think she’s on your side. They both are, but they’re pretty pissed about the lying.”

  I switched on the dishwasher. “I guess I’m going to be grounded for life,” I said bleakly. But in a way I felt relieved. At least now it was all out in the open. Some of the weight had been lifted off my shoulders and now it was up to them to deal with it.

  “I’m not sure how Mom found out,” Leanne said. “Or if she figured it out on her own. She does have a talent for that. I’m telling you, my mother would fit right in with the CIA.”

  Great. I was toast.

  My father poked his head around the doorway. “Taylor, may I see you in my office please?” he said, his expression a mixture of sad and cautious. He’d been making that face at me a lot lately. We’d been stepping warily around each other ever since I’d accused him of feeling guilty over ruining Mom’s life. We hadn’t discussed it, and I hadn’t apologized.

  “Sure,” I said, and he disappeared again.

  Leanne clucked in sympathy. “Good luck. And remember—she’s ruthless.”

  “Don’t forget clairvoyant,” I said, and my stepsister gave me a small smile before leaving me alone. I stayed in the kitchen for a moment, gathering my wits about me before heading toward what was sure to be my father’s version of a home-based trial hearing. Too bad I didn’t have my own lawyer to represent me.

  Dad’s den was a dark, ominous room. The walls were hung with bookshelves and creepy tribal art. The only cheerful thing in there was the colorful, floating fishies screensaver on the computer. I focused on that as I took a seat next to Lynn on the sofa. Dad sat in the black leather desk chair, his fingers steepled under his chin and his brow furrowed in concentration.

  “So,” he began. “You’re going out with Robin tonight.”

  I knew by the way he said this that the jig was indeed up. “Yes,” I said, lying right to the end.

  He picked up a paper clip from his desk and began to bend it into different shapes. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Robin lately. Parties, movies, dances…you two must be running out of things to do.”

  “Not really.” I fiddled with a piece of thread sticking out of the couch.

  “It’s funny how we never see her over here on the weekends.”

  I sneaked a peek over at Lynn, who was looking at Dad as if to say, “Get to the point, you moron.”

  And finally, he did.

  “We know you’re still seeing Michael.”

  I didn’t bother trying to act surprised. I knew he’d just been waiting for me to buckle under pressure.

  “Am I right?” he asked. I kept on playing with the piece of thread. “Am I, Taylor?”

  “Yes, Dad, you’re right,” I snapped. He knew he was right. I knew he was right. Did he have to force me to admit it?

  Dad ignored my attitude and leaned forward, tossing the mangled paperclip back on the desk. “Would you mind telling us why you’ve been lying to us for, what now, a month?”

  He didn’t sound angry, exactly, so I mustered up the courage to look him in the eye and state the obvious. “You wouldn’t let me see Michael. I didn’t want to stop seeing him, and I didn’t understand why I had to.”

  “Taylor, we’ve discussed this again and again.”

  Familiar anger ignited in my stomach. “But it doesn’t make any sense. I’d understand if he was a juvenile delinquent or something, but he’s not. So he’s a year or so older than me. Big freaking deal!”

  “Age is not the point right now, young lady,” Dad said, raising his voice to meet mine. “The point is, you’ve lied to us for weeks instead of coming to us.”

  I have a short laugh. “Yeah, right. Come to Mom? She doesn’t care how I feel about any of this. She’s never even met Michael and she’s convinced he’s some sort of manipulative sex fiend.”

  I saw Lynn’s smirk out of the corner of my eye, and I knew she had my back on this one. Dad rubbed his hands over his face and made grumbling noises. He was struggling to be fair and not take sides, though I assumed he too shared my views on Mom.

  “Like I said before, if it were up to me, I’d let you see Michael. But it’s not my call. Your mother has a say in this too.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if all this fighting was giving him a headache. “I can’t let you do something she has strictly forbidden you to do.”

  “I don’t think it’s fair that you and Mom get to decide who I can and can’t see. Dad, I’m sorry, but I have to see Michael. I know what I’m doing. If you’ll just trust me, I’ll prove it to you.” I glanced over
at Lynn, who smiled encouragingly at me. She understood, and I knew she could talk my father into coming around too.

  The office was getting dark. Dad reached over and flicked on the desk lamp, filling the room with muted light. “Well then,” he said, beaten and resigned now. “What are you planning to do tonight, if you’re not going out with Robin?”

  I folded my hands in my lap. “I was thinking I’d go over to Michael’s house…if that’s okay with you.”

  My father didn’t speak for a long time. I waited, scared to even look at him in the chance that I may glimpse even a shred of negativity. Next to me, Lynn cleared her throat a few times until Dad threw up his hands, surrendering at last.

  Then, my stepmother uttered her first words since the start of this meeting. She looked at me, grinned, and said, “Need a drive?”

  ****

  Michael was home alone when Lynn dropped me off at his house an hour later. He led me down to the basement, where we sat on the couch and I spilled it all out to him.

  “So no more sneaking around?” he said when I’d finally finished.

  “At least not with Dad.”

  “Is your dad okay with keeping your mom in the dark like this?”

  “He doesn’t like it. He’ll do it, though, for me. But…”

  “But?” he said dubiously.

  “He thinks your parents are home. He said he’d prefer it if you and I were ‘regularly supervised’.”

  Michael slid his hand up my leg and said in a low voice, “That’s probably a good idea.”

  I removed his hand. “Hey now. I swore to my father not two hours ago that you were not an uncontrollable sex maniac.”

  “Well, sorry to make you a liar, but…” He put his hand back, higher this time, and then pushed me back onto the couch cushion. I squealed as he fell on top of me and pretended to bite my neck.

  Feeling him pressed against me, so close, I had a fleeting urge to celebrate my freedom in a big way, with Michael, right here on this couch in his family room, right this minute. “How long do we have?” I whispered.