I once stuck a flyswatter into a neighbor’s oscillating fan, just to see what would happen. It blew apart.
It wasn’t until after I pretended I was about to vomit—complete with the covering of the mouth and the running for the bathroom—that I convinced the nurse to sign a pass to let me go home.
And it wasn’t until after I had the pass that I remembered I no longer had a car.
So on top of everything else, I had to walk home. It was twenty-three degrees outside and there was snow on the ground, yet I was going to be trudging through drifts in ankle booties and a shirtdress.
Nick Stark had been right. I was dressed ridiculously.
I shoved the pass into my backpack and was about to exit the building when I heard, “Emilie!”
I turned around and there was Macy Goldman, walking toward me. I wanted to just ignore her, or maybe pull her hair, but a twisted part of me wanted to hear what she had to say.
“Listen.” She ran up to me, breathless, and said, “I just want you to know that Josh isn’t lying. We were about to get coffee, just talking in his car, and I was the one who leaned in and kissed him. There is nothing going on between us.”
I regretted listening to her, because up close, she was even prettier than she was from a distance.
“It was all me,” she said. “He did nothing wrong.”
“So.” I felt surprisingly numb as she looked up at me with a nervous expression. “You still like him, then?”
That made her look super uncomfortable. She pressed her lips together before saying, “Well, I mean—”
“Forget it.” I shook my head, suddenly exhausted with everything. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does, because Josh—”
“I can’t talk to you right now.” I turned and exited the building.
I’d wanted love that was better than my parents’ love, something that was built to last. That wouldn’t end with the neighbors calling the cops when my mom broke off statue-Cupid’s head and threw it at my dad. But now, I felt as heartbroken as I did on that terrible day.
I started trudging home, trying to hold it together as the winter wind whipped at my face. Thank God my dad lived in the next subdivision; any farther and frostbite might’ve been yet another surprise I could’ve added to that momentous Valentine’s Day.
My phone buzzed, and I wanted to scream when I saw it was my boss again. I always helped him out when no one else would, so he always called me because he knew I couldn’t say no. I put my phone away without answering.
When I finally got home, I was surprised to see my dad’s car in the driveway. He was usually at work that time of day.
I unlocked the front door and went into the living room. “Hello? Dad?”
He peeked around the wall of the den. “Hey, squirt; why are you home?”
“Um. I got sick.”
“You okay?”
I nodded, although I wasn’t at all okay. It was the day where it was all supposed to happen for me. For once, instead of sadly commemorating the anniversary of my family splitting off into two separate units, I was supposed to feel the rush and say the words. I’d done my homework, I’d found the perfect guy, and today had been earmarked for love.
Now, however, it appeared as though I’d finish the day without saying or hearing those three words. I’d probably finish it with a stomachache, buried under a pile of Snickers wrappers.
Maybe I needed to grab my planner and add that to my to-do list.
“Well, I’m actually glad you’re here, because I want to talk to you about something before the boys get home.”
“Okay…?”
“Sit down.” He gestured for me to go into the den, and when I did, he plopped down onto the love seat and patted the spot beside him. “I don’t even really know how to say this.”
How many times could one person hear that in a day?
“Just say it.” I plopped down next to him, closed my eyes, and pictured Josh kissing her. Macy Goldman. “How bad can it be?”
He let out a breath. “I’ve been offered a promotion, but it requires we move to Houston.”
My eyes opened. “Texas?”
“Texas.”
“Oh. Wow.” That was like fifteen hours away from Omaha. Before I could say anything else, he said—
“After a lot of soul-searching, I’ve decided to take the job.”
His words were a punch to the gut. How was his fifty-fifty custody supposed to work from the other side of the country? I took a shaky breath and said, “You have?”
“Yep.” He gave me a wide, genuine smile, like he was thrilled about the news and not at all worried about me not sharing his wild enthusiasm. “It’s a great opportunity, and you know Lisa’s whole family is from Galveston so it’d be nice for the boys to be closer to their grandparents. You’re going away to college soon, so really, it won’t affect you that much.”
“In a year and a half. I’m going to college in a year and a half.” I cleared my throat and burrowed a little deeper into the sofa, trying not to sound emotional as I asked, “When would you be moving?”
“Next month. But your mother and I talked about it, and we both think that since you’re sixteen, you’re old enough to decide what you want to do.”
My head was spinning. “What do you mean?”
“Well, since you’re graduating next year, I’m sure you don’t want to move and start a new school. We discussed it, and without fighting—I know, surprising, right?—came to the decision that you can stay here with her until you go to college if that’s what you want.”
“What’s my other option?”
He looked surprised by my question, probably because he knew how into Josh and my friends and school I was. “Well,” he started, running a hand over the top of his head, “you can certainly move south with us. I just assumed that wouldn’t be your choice.”
I blinked fast and felt a little suffocated, like waves were washing over my nose and I couldn’t catch my breath. My dad and his perfect new family were moving to Texas. And he had no qualms about leaving me behind.
How could he even consider moving across the country without me? In his defense, the dynamics between my parents and me were so dysfunctional that he probably had no idea how much he meant to me.
I had always been a “good” kid, the kind of kid that parents didn’t have to worry about. My homework was always done, I never talked back, I always followed the rules, and I happily went along with what everyone else wanted. In a normal nuclear family, that kind of stuff made parents proud, right?
But in a family such as mine, it made me forgettable.
My post-divorce dad had a new house, a new wife, and two shiny new little munchkins; a fuller-than-full life. And my post-divorce mom had a new house, a new husband, a puggle that she treated like a baby, and a shiny new career that was more time-consuming than an actual human child. So that left me to play the unfortunate role of the leftovers from their previous marriage who just schlepped back and forth between residences, showing up on my court-assigned days and somehow surprising them with my presence.
I cannot count the number of times I’d entered one of their houses only to hear someone say, Oh, I thought you were at your dad’s/mom’s today. I also cannot count how many parent-teacher conferences and dentist appointments were missed because they each assumed the other was taking me. Or the times I crashed at my grandma’s without telling either of them and no one ever called to see where I was.
I was so good that my parents didn’t have to worry about me.
So they didn’t.
At all.
That being said, the two of them were far from equal. My mom was Driven with a capital D. She was all work, all the time, and she seemed to think her primary role as a parent was to ensure I behaved the exact same way. My dad, on the other hand, was funny, chill, and sweetly concerned about me when he wasn’t distracted by his lovely new life. When we were together, we were still the same close-knit father-daughter duo that we’d always been. I adored my dad.
He just sometimes forgot about me if I wasn’t standing right in front of him.
He was looking at me intently, clearly waiting for my answer. Did a tiny part of him want me to go with him? Or—did a tiny part of him want me to NOT go with him? I shrugged and worked for a smile. “I’m going to need to think on this one a little.”
He nodded in agreement and shifted the conversation to my wrecked car. He’d seen my text at lunch, but by then it’d been too late for him to call me. I listened to his lecture about paying attention and following too closely, but all I could think about was the fact that I was going to have to memorize what it sounded like when my dad got home every day so I wouldn’t forget.
All I could think about was the fact that he was absolutely fine with leaving me behind. With the woman he’d divorced and called “impossible to live with.”
I went up to my room and called my grandma.
“Hellooo?”
“Hey, Grandma.” I sniffled and tried to keep everything inside. I felt like if I let go for a second, I’d never be able to stop crying. “I, um, I need to come over. Can you come get me?”
“Are you at school?”
“No.” I looked out the window and noticed the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the sky was just dark gray. “The nurse sent me home early. I’m at Dad’s.”
She made a noise. “Are you sick?”
I wrapped my arms around my body. “No. I saw Josh kissing someone else so I fake-barfed. I had to get out of there.”
“That little prick. I’m on my way.”
Twelve minutes later, my grandma pulled into the driveway in her ’69 Mustang. I knew it was her without looking because her beloved murdered-out muscle car rumbled like a motor beast. I ran down the stairs.
“I’m going to Grandma Max’s.”
My dad looked at my face and he knew I was upset. “When will you be home?”
I grabbed my backpack from the floor. “She said I can crash there.”
Lisa came out of the kitchen looking irritated—I hadn’t even heard her come home. “But I just put chicken in the oven.”
“Um, thanks. I’ll heat it up tomorrow.”
She frowned and gave my dad a look before I escaped out the door.
