Bad Professor (An Alpha Male Bad Boy Romance) (123 page)

"Why does
everyone ask me that? So I slept in a little this morning and wasn't a ray of
sunshine. I'm fine."

"Daddy?"
I asked. The rest of the words stuck in my throat.

My father turned
to me with a hard look. "Your mother's right, she's fine. Let her enjoy
her drink."

"You can't,
you can't make me be the one that does it," I said. "You have to tell
her now."

"Tell me
what?" my mother asked with a bright smile.

"You just
want everyone to be as miserable as you, don't you, Quinn?" my father
asked. "Ever since you were young, you did just as you pleased. Your
sister was the one that knew how to take responsibility. She knew how to live
up to expectations and be grateful for every opportunity she got."

"Tell her or
I will!"

"Now,
Barbara, why don't you sit down?" my father said in his best soothing
voice. "There's some bad news about Sienna. I can hardly believe it
myself. I didn't know how to tell you and I wanted to wait until you felt
better."

"Sienna? Is
she alright?" my mother shoved her empty glass onto the counter and hung
on to the edge with both hands.

My father
struggled to get his voice to work. "Sienna…Sienna committed suicide last
night."

My mother sank to
the floor as a keening wail rose from her lips. I jumped down from my stool and
ran around the counter to sit with her on the floor. She bumped her head back
against the cupboard, her eyes screwed shut tightly.

"I didn't
believe it at first," my father said. "I still don't believe it. How
could she do that? How could she throw away all her accomplishments, all her
goals?"

"Oh, my sweet
girl, oh, my sweet, sweet girl. I know. I know how it feels," my mother
whispered to herself.

"Mommy?"
I took her hand.

She yanked it
away. "You don't understand, poor Quinn, you're like him. Sienna was
always like me. She felt things the same way – felt the burning, felt the
falling, felt the soaring."

"Can we talk
about that?" I asked. "I think we need to talk about that."

My mother
scrambled to her feet and flung herself at my father. "You promised she
would be okay. You promised me she could handle it. Everything was fine, Sienna
was always fine. Lies! Now, I know you lied. It's all my fault. My beautiful,
sweet girl," my mother cried.

I stayed on the
floor, cringing as my mother flailed her manicured fists at my father's chest.

"Barbara, you
need to go lie down. You've had a shock."

"A shock? Why
am I the only one that isn't shocked at all? You think people can just
magically brush themselves off and be just fine. Well, that might work for you
and maybe for Quinn, but not everyone's as heartless as you two," my
mother said.

"Everyone
grieves in their own way," my father said. He caught hold of my mother's
wrists and pulled her towards the door. "It’s no use falling to pieces,
its already done and we can't do anything to change it."

"She's not
dead, she can't be. You're just a cruel man playing a cruel joke," my
mother said. She yanked her wrists free and spun away from my father. Then, she
grabbed her phone and marched out the other kitchen door.

I sat on the floor
listening to my father's angry breathing as we heard my mother leave another
voicemail on Sienna's phone.

"Are you
happy?" he finally said to me. He slammed a fist on the counter and walked
out.

By the time I
managed to stand up, the house was silent. My mother was back in her bedroom
suite, my father was in his office, and I was alone in the rest of the
stretching square footage.

My mother was not
shocked that Sienna had taken her own life. That idea blinked in my brain like
the starting cursor of a video game. Was there some sign I had missed? Was
there something I could have done?

My legs were heavy
as I dragged myself up the stairs to Sienna's room. It had to be my fault. We
weren't close, but we were sisters and I should have known if she was feeling
so desperate.

Her room was as
neat and tidy as always. The Tiffany blue walls and white furniture glowed in
the sunset light. Instead of an old-fashioned four poster bed like mine, Sienna
had a queen-size bed with a white satin tufted headboard. The comforter was an
intricate swirl of pastel paisley. I sat on the edge of her bed, careful not to
crease it.

I needed her
there. Sienna never sat around helpless. I could see her marching into her room
and scolding me. She would have gone straight to her computer and researched
the reasons, both psychological and physical, behind suicide.

I wondered if she
had researched it before she did it. I should have looked on her computer in
her dorm room. Sienna probably looked up a dozen case studies the moment the
thought of suicide crossed her mind.

And still, she did
it. The thought made me dizzy, and I let myself slip to the floor.

I leaned back
against her bed and felt the sharp edge of something stick me in the back.
Reaching under her bed, I pulled out a photograph album she had made her senior
year of high school. I opened it up, welcoming the sweet relief that happy
memories brought.

The first picture
was Sienna leading the cheerleader charge onto the football field. Except it
was not her red-lipped smile or glowing golden hair that caught my attention.
In the far background was a tall blond boy leaning on the fence next to a
gangly girl with long wavy hair.

Owen Redd liked to
watch the football games from the sidelines instead of the stands. He liked
chatting with people more than yelling silly epithets at the field. One time,
Sienna had begged me to bring her a different pair of shoes, and I had bumped
into Owen at the fence.

Instead of
football scores and finals, we talked about
Halo
and
Assassin's Creed
. He didn't laugh
when I asked questions about strategy. Instead, he explained in detail the successful
maneuvers he had done.

Sienna laughed
when she found us. "Aren't you two the perfect pair? Too bad Redd looks
better on me."

She knew. Sienna
knew that night at the football game that I had the most helpless crush on
Owen. I could still feel the thrill of his hand accidentally brushing mine as
he described good sequences.

I never understood
why they were together. Sienna was more annoyed than enamored by most things
that Owen loved. He mocked her cheerleading. And I remembered when she got him
voted prom king, he was so irritated that he brought her home and left without
saying goodbye.

At the thought of
goodbye, I slammed the photograph album shut. How could I say goodbye to my
sister?

#

It
was easy to pretend I was still in high school. The house was quiet when I
emerged from Sienna's room. It could have been any one of hundreds of nights
when our mother had retreated to her room, my father had shut himself in his
office, and Sienna was out. She was always busy, always doing something.

The only one that
was ever around was our cook. I found her in the kitchen looking the same as
she had for decades: a white shirt, black pants, and a red apron. Her riotous
black curly hair was secured in a prim bun and blue eyes sparkled as she sang.

"No one told
you," I said, the weight pushing me back onto a stool.

"I sing when
I'm sad, too," the cook told me. "It helps. Wanna try?"

"You know I
can't carry a tune. Sienna is – was the singer."

The cook put down
her red spatula and propped her fists on her hips. "You know you never
have to refer to her in the past tense, don't you? Sienna’s memory is just as
alive as anyone else outside this room if we talk about her."

"I don't feel
like talking, Charlotte," I said.

"And you
don't feel like singing. How about baking?" Charlotte asked.

I smiled. I loved
to bake. It did not hurt that it was the one thing I did better than Sienna.

Sienna had come
home from a cheerleading meeting one year and announced an impressive list of
things she was going to personally bake for their fundraiser. After two minutes
of baking, in which flour got in her hair, she crushed a raw egg in her hands,
and the top fell off the ground cinnamon, she declared that baking was a waste
of time.

That night,
Charlotte taught me to bake the easiest, silkiest, and best buttery sugar
cookies. We decorated them with a light lemon frosting and glittery sprinkles.
Of course, Sienna took all the credit and they sold out in minutes.

"We're going
to need a good dessert table for the, ah, for the guests," Charlotte said.

I nodded, my voice
gone again. She meant we needed desserts for the reception that would
invariably follow the funeral. Still, Charlotte's practicality was comforting
as I settled into the regular routine of the sugar cookie recipe.

"It doesn't
feel real. She should come in the door at any moment," I said as the first
batch of cookies went in the oven.

"You'll look
for her for a long time. Nothing wrong with that."

Her calm
acceptance of my feelings made it possible for me to think outside of the warm
and comforting kitchen. It registered that I had seen the door to my father's
office standing open and I wondered where he went. I had ten minutes before the
first batch was done.

"Have you seen
my father?" I asked.

Charlotte shook
her head. "He asked for chicken dumpling soup when I came in and then he
disappeared."

I went to peer in
the door of his office. The lights were off, but I could see his outline
propped in a chair. He stared out the window, a glass of whiskey suspended in
the air halfway to his mouth.

"Daddy?"
I asked.

He jumped as if a
gunshot had reported in the wood-paneled confines of his office. "Quinn,
Jesus Christ, you scared me. What are you doing creeping around?"

"You're the
one sitting in the dark."

He grumbled and
turned on the lamp next to him. His eyes were red and puffy but dry as he
scowled at me. "How's your mother?"

"I don't
know, she's still upstairs," I said. "How are you?"

"Probably a
good idea. She needs to rest. I'm tired. Exhausted. You might not think it’s a
big deal to drive from Vegas to L.A. all the time for school, but it takes a
toll," he said. Finally, he noticed the glass of whiskey and took a long
sip.

"Speaking of
L.A., I should call school," I said.

"Your advisor
spoke to all your professors. The funeral is in two days. You can stay with us
until it’s over," my father said.

"The
funeral?" I asked. A sour taste filled my mouth at the word.

"Yes, I have
a friend at the Walton's Funeral Home, he's the director. Making all the
arrangements. Viewing, service, reception, it will all be here. Cook knows the
rest."

"It just
seems so, I don't know, so fast," I said.

My father snorted.
"What did you expect, Quinn? Decisions had to be made. Not everyone can go
through life wavering like you do."

"Sienna was
decisive. She kinda proved quick decisions aren't always the best, didn't
she?" I could not take the angry words back.

He shifted in his
leather chair and refused to look at me again. "Check on your mother
before dinner," he said and turned the light off.

I retreated back
to the kitchen, and Charlotte took one look at my face and folded me into a
tight hug. "He's just grieving. Anything that comes out of his mouth the
next few months is pure rubbish."

"I, I accused
her of being rash. I actually joked about where her quick decision-making got
her. It was awful," I said.

"No one can
know what went through her head. Sienna always had her mind made up and
wouldn't let anyone change it. A trait I'm happy you did not inherit from your
mother."

Charlotte and my
mother had a long-standing habit of arguing over recipes. Though my mother did
not cook, she clung fast to a few beliefs of how things should be done and
would not hear reason.

"Everyone
always says Sienna is just like my mother."

"It never
bothered you before," Charlotte said.

"What bothers
me now are the ways they are the same. The big mood swings and the
perfectionism. It’s just not that healthy," I said. My voice was low; they
were words that felt dangerous to say out loud.

"What's wrong
with perfectionism?" my father asked from the doorway. "Do I smell
something burning?"

I ran for the oven
and pulled the sugar cookies out just before the edges burned. "Nothing is
ever perfect and people who strive for it end up stressing themselves out over
something they can never achieve."

"Your sister
achieved plenty," my father said too loudly.

I could not take
anymore. "And what about the mood swings? Are you going to tell me it’s
perfectly healthy to be so depressed you stay in bed behind black-out curtains
for a whole day only to emerge ready to go out for cocktails?"