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16
Dad wasn’t better the next day.
Or the day after that.
He went back to work at the end of the week, but I was sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed the hangovers he took with him. It seemed like there was always beer or whiskey lying around the house now. He was always passed out on the couch or locked in his room. And he never mentioned it to me. As if I didn’t notice. Was I supposed to ignore it? Pretend this wasn’t a problem?
I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him to stop. To tell him he was making a huge mistake. But how? How does a seventeen-year-old convince her father that she knows what’s best? If I tried to stop him, he might get defensive. He might think I’d abandoned him, too. He might get angry with me.
Since Dad had stopped drinking before I was born, I didn’t really know much about the whole sobriety process. I knew that he’d had a sponsor once. Some tall, balding man from Oak Hill that Mom had always sent Christmas cards to when I was a kid. Dad didn’t talk about him anymore, and I was sure that, even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to locate his number. If I had, what would I say? How did that whole sponsor thing even work?
I felt powerless and useless and, more than anything, ashamed. I knew that, with Mom gone, it was my job to do something. I just didn’t have a clue what that something was.
So in the weeks after Mom left for Te
I just kept telling myself it would pass. In the meantime, I’d keep his little secret to myself. Lucky for me, Mom was gullible enough to believe me whenever I told her everything was fine over the phone, despite my less than awesome acting abilities.
Honestly, I thought hiding my secrets from Casey would be the hardest. She could always see right through me, after all. I tried avoiding her at first, ignoring her phone calls and making up excuses when she asked me to hang out. I never called her about that Girls’ Night Out she’d suggested in the bathroom. I was sure she’d bombard me with questions the second she got me alone, so I always tried to use poor clueless Jessica as a buffer. But within a week, I got this strange feeling that Casey was steering clear of me.
She called less and less.
She stopped asking if I wanted to go to the Nest on weekends.
She even switched seats with Jeanine at lunch, putting herself all the way across the table—as far away from me as possible. Once or twice, I even caught her giving me dirty looks.
I wanted to know what the hell her problem was, but I was scared to confront her. I knew that if we actually talked about it, I wouldn’t be able to keep lying about Dad. Not to her. But it was his secret, his shame, not mine to tell. I wouldn’t let anyone, not even Casey, find out.
So I had to let her supreme weirdness slide for the time.
Wesley was really the only thing getting me through those weeks. Some part of me was appalled at myself, but what could I say? I needed that escape—that high—more than ever, and he was always just a short drive away. A fix three or four times a week was all it took to keep me sane.
God, I was like a fucking druggie. Maybe my sanity was long gone already.
“What would you do without me?” he asked one night. We were tangled in the silky sheets of his gigantic bed. My heart was still pounding as I came down from the high of what we’d just done, and he wasn’t helping matters by putting his lips so close to my ear.
“Live a happy… happy life,” I murmured. “I might even… be an optimist… if you weren’t around.”
“Liar.” He bit my earlobe playfully. “You’d be absolutely miserable. Admit it, Duffy. I’m the wind beneath your wings.”
I bit my lip, but I still couldn’t hold back the laughter—and just as I was finally catching my breath, too. “You just referenced Bette Midler… in bed. I’m starting to question your sexuality, Wesley.”
Wesley looked at me with a defiant glint in his eye. “Oh, really?” He gri
“You…” I struggled for words as Wesley pressed his mouth into the crook of my neck. The tip of his tongue moved down to my shoulder and made my brain get all fuzzy. How was I supposed to argue under these conditions? “You wish. I’m just using you, remember?”
His laughter was muffled against my skin. “That’s amusing,” he said, his lips still grazing my collarbone. “Because I’m pretty sure your ex is out of town by now.” One of his hands slid between my knees. “Yet you’re still here, aren’t you?” His fingers began gliding up and down my i
I squirmed uncontrollably as Wesley’s fingertips danced along the inside of my leg. I wanted so badly to argue, but he was sending electric currents up my spine.
Finally, when I thought I might explode, his hand moved to my hip and he pulled his mouth away from my shoulder. “Oh, thank God,” I whispered as he reached for a condom in the nightstand drawer, knowing what came next.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t mind having you around,” he said with that cocky grin. “Now, let me answer all of those questions you claim to have about my sexuality.”
And my head filled with clouds again.
But I couldn’t deny things were getting way out of hand. It became painfully clear to me one Friday afternoon in English that something wasn’t right.
Mrs. Perkins was passing out old papers she’d graded and chattering away about some Nora Roberts book she’d just finished—totally unaware that no one was listening to her—when she stopped at my desk. She gave me this big, goofy smile, like the smile of a proud grandmother. “Your essay was wonderful,” she whispered to me. “Such an interesting take on Hester. You and Mr. Rush are an excellent team.” Then she handed me a tan folder and patted my shoulder.
I opened the folder as she walked away, a little confused about what she’d said. Inside was a paper that I instantly recognized. Hester’s Escape: An Analysis by Bianca Piper and Wesley Rush. In the top-left corner, Mrs. Perkins had scribbled our grade in bright red ink. A ninety-eight. An A.
I couldn’t help but beam at the paper. Had it really been only a month and a half since we’d written this in Wesley’s bedroom? Since the first time we’d slept together? It felt like decades had passed. Mille
He was talking to Louisa Farr. No, not just talking. Talking just involves the vibration of vocal cords, and there was way more than that going on. His hand was on her knee. Her cheeks were getting red. He was giving her his cute, cocky grin.
No! Repulsive grin. Since when did I think that display of arrogance was cute? And what was this weird twinge I felt in my stomach?
I looked away as Louisa started to play with her necklace, a definite sign of flirting.
Whore.
I shook myself, surprised and a little worried. What was wrong with me? Louisa Farr wasn’t a whore. Sure, she was a preppy cheerleader—cocaptain of the Ski