Hunted (24 page)

"Where
did things go wrong, Dad?"

"I'm
not sure, Adri. I've looked back over our lives trying to figure that
out. I think I took that stroll down memory lane partially out of a
desire to fix things, but I think it's also been because I want to
know so that I can warn you and Cindi before you're both my age and
suffering from some of the same regrets."

Dad
cleared his throat, probably trying to hide the fact that his voice
was becoming thick with emotion, and continued.

"I
think it was a lot of small things. When we got married, I was so
sure that we were headed towards a happy, full life. I could see all
of the ways that we complemented each other, all of the strengths we
had individually and the way that they worked well together. I've
thought back again and again and I just can't see any one individual
event or even two or three events. It was like a hundred small
branches in a path and while we didn't choose the wrong fork every
time, we chose the wrong path most of the time."

"So
you just kind of drifted apart?"

"I
guess, but it was more like we just became two different people,
people who cared about different things, people who didn't have
anything in common except for the two of you."

The
tears that I'd been fighting started to pour down my cheeks, which
then caused Dad to stand and pulled me into a hug.

"No
matter what happens I'm still going to love you, Adri. Your mom will
too. Even if the worst comes to pass we'll still make sure that our
feelings about each other don't get in the way of taking care of the
two of you."

"Thanks,
Dad. I really hope that it doesn't come to that."

"Me too, sweetie. Me too."

I called Miss Winters after Dad and I talked and set up a time for her
to touch up my hair. It turned out that she was only a fifteen-minute
walk away from us. It was crazy to think about just how many people
were packed into such a small area around us. We didn't live in the
center of the city or anything, but I still saw hundreds of homes on
my walk to Miss Winters' house and I only knew a handful of our
neighbors.

Miss
Winters greeted me with a smile and then seated me in her kitchen and
started working on my hair.

"I'm
really sorry that things have gotten so bad on the squad for you,
Adri. I really do wish I could just wave a magic wand and make all of
you girls the best of friends."

"It's
okay. I never expected to fit in on the team anyways. To be honest I
never would have even considered trying out, let alone joining, if
not for Cindi practically begging me to."

"Well,
I for one am glad that you joined up. It would have been a real shame
for you to never have developed your talents, you're a natural.
You're already as good a flyer as anyone else on the team."

I
felt myself blushing. "That's very kind of you to say."

"It's
no more than the truth, Adri. Speaking of which, I've had a little
more time to think about that extra punishment that I mentioned. I'm
still a little up in the air about it, but I don't think that
replacing your clothes inconvenienced whoever sprayed you down very
much. I had hoped that doing that would have made someone else on the
team step forward, but that hasn't happened either."

I
nodded. She was more or less going back over the same ground as Dad
and I had covered earlier.

"Anyway,
I feel like I have to do something else to drive home the point that
while I can't make you all be friends, I at least want you all to
treat each other decently. I think that Missy is the key. Even if she
wasn't involved she should have known what was going on, and as the
captain of the team she should be better than that. I'm thinking of
putting you in her place as one of the three starting flyers."

I
shook my head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Miss Winters.
That's just going to make the other girls hate me even more. Besides,
I may be picking things up quickly, but I still don't have any
experience doing stunts in games."

"Everyone
starts as a novice somewhere, Adri. I understand your reluctance, but
it wasn't that long ago that I was in your shoes. I remember being on
the team, I remember some of the pressures and I remember just how
catty the girls can be. I just hope that if it comes to it that
you'll agree to help me out. I have to punish whoever did this or
I'll continue to run into the same kinds of problems next year and
the year after that."

"I'll
help you however I can, Miss Winters, you know that."

"I
appreciate that, Adri. Your hair is done. What do you think?"

She'd
done an amazing job. She hadn't just cut it, she'd styled it and I
looked like some kind of movie star or something. I told her as much,
which made her smile, and then she showed me how to style it and I
headed home.

I
expected for Mom and Cindi to be back by the time I got home from my
hair appointment, but they stayed out late. Not just a little bit
late, late enough that Dad and I both ended up going to bed before
either of them came home. Dad texted Mom about the time that we
started preparing dinner, but she just texted back saying that we
shouldn't wait for them.

I
couldn't blame Dad at the way he frowned when he received the text.
They were supposed to leave on their camping trip tomorrow and Mom
was leaving him to do all of the packing by himself. It wasn't a very
promising start to the vacation that he was hoping would save their
marriage.

The
sound of Mom and Dad packing pulled me out of bed almost two hours
before I'd originally planned on getting up. Cindi didn't even stir
when I left our room. Apparently she and Mom had been out
really
late.

Things
weren't pretty when I got out to the living room. The pile of camping
gear that Dad had spent the evening putting together had mostly
disappeared into two large blue backpacks, but Mom was sitting
bleary-eyed at the table while Dad finished up the last of the
packing.

"Honestly,
John, there isn't any reason to be such a jerk about things. It
wouldn't have hurt you to let me sleep for a couple more hours before
we left."

Dad
didn't look up from his packing. "We can discuss it on the
road."

"No,
I want to discuss it now. I'm tired of you trying to dictate to me."

"Fine,
you want to discuss it, let's discuss it. I'm tired of trying to keep
the girls from seeing just how much of a child you've become over the
last couple of years. I thought maybe we should spare Adri another
fight, but if you want to force a confrontation I'll be more than
happy to give you one."

Mom
opened her mouth, probably to snap back at him, but Dad didn't give
her a chance.

"We're
leaving right now because that is when we agreed to leave. I didn't
dictate that, we jointly agreed that we wanted to get an early start
so that we could finish the first leg of our trip and get the tent
set up before dark. I woke you up because I'm tired of your incessant
tendency to disregard things like this and then expect me and the
girls to pick up the pieces."

"That's
not fair!"

"You're
right, it's not fair. It's not fair for you to spend money we don't
have and then expect me to come up with it rather than chipping in
yourself. It's not fair that you haven't cooked a dinner in months,
instead expecting the girls or I to do all of the cooking while you
selfishly pursue your hobby to our detriment."

"That's
not what I meant, and you know it. You're so high-and-mighty, always
treating me like a child. Well, I'm tired of
that
. Do you
realize how many guys expressed an interest in me at my last gallery
showing, a showing that you didn't even bother attending?"

My
dad's knuckles went white on the backpack's frame, but Mom apparently
didn't see the warning signs—that or she just didn't care, just
wanted to goad him into the most excessive retort she could manage.

"I
would point out that I didn't go to your show because you scheduled
it the same night as Adri's first cheerleading game, but I somehow
suspect that you wouldn't actually care about that. Please tell me,
Nichole, how many guys propositioned you?"

I
could tell that Mom was surprised. She'd expected Dad to lose it. I'd
never really seen him mad, but something there hinted at the fact
that he must have had a temper at some point.

"Do
you not even care?"

"The
number is immaterial, Nikki. You're a beautiful woman, that isn't the
first time that you've had guys express interest in you. The real
question is how you responded to them. If you returned their interest
then it doesn't really matter whether it was one or a hundred."

"I
haven't called any of them back."

Dad
stood up, and for the first time I realized just how much bigger he
was than Mom. "You gave them your number?"

"Some
of them were buyers or gallery owners."

He
nodded, but it was like he was nodding at something else, like he'd
made a decision of some kind.

"So
our marriage is even further gone than I thought. Fine. Your gear is
all packed. I'll be out in the car and I'm leaving in fifteen
minutes, which is forty-five minutes after the time we agreed to last
week. Frankly right now I don't particularly care whether you're in
the car when I leave, but if you're not, then when I get back I'll
file for divorce. And I'll make sure I take half of your photography
gear as part of the settlement."

Dad
stood, his backpack in one hand, and walked out the door before Mom
could say anything else. I just stood there in shock, unable to
process everything that had just happened. Mom looked at me and her
lips shrank down into a thin line. She obviously wasn't happy to have
had an audience for this particular fight, but after a couple of
seconds she stood up from the table and carried her bowl over to the
sink.

"I
want you and Cindi to behave and get along while we are gone. We'll
be back on Saturday."

**

I
sat around in shock for most of the rest of the morning. Cindi didn't
get up until after noon, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the
day on the landline talking to her friends about her party plans. I
hadn't exactly forgotten about the upcoming bash, but I'd managed to
put it out of my mind.

Sometimes
I was good at ignoring things I couldn't change—not usually,
but sometimes. I was glad that this had been one of the things that
I'd been able to leave alone rather than picking at it incessantly.

I'd
had a fuzzy idea that the party was going to happen on Friday night
after the next game, but it turned out that we had Wednesday off from
school because of some kind of teacher prep day, so Cindi had
scheduled the party for Tuesday night.

For
the most part Cindi ignored me as she went about locking down all of
the final details. I felt like it should have bothered me more than
it did, but the truth was that I was feeling less guilty and more mad
about everything that had happened recently.

She
had been the one who had pushed for me to join the team. I hadn't set
out to upstage her, and I resented the fact that she hadn't even
acted sad when the other girls had pranked me and ruined my hair. She
still hadn't said anything to me about it. Instead she'd gone on some
kind of super-secret combination shopping trip and night on the town
with Mom. It was obviously supposed to be a secret, but she hadn't
done a very good job hiding the bags they'd brought back with them. I
saw them over in one corner of our closet when I came back from the
shower to get dressed.

I
wanted to scream when I saw them. I probably would have gotten into
an epic fight with Cindi right then and there if she'd been in the
room when I first saw the evidence. It was the single most selfish
thing she could have done. She'd heard Mom and Dad yelling at each
other over the fact that we were out of money. Given that, letting
Mom take her shopping was pretty much just coming right out and
saying that she thought having cute clothes was more important than
their marriage.

Dad
obviously hadn't noticed anything before they'd left, but I kept
thinking about how Mom was going into their trip in bad faith. He was
trying to save their marriage and she'd just finished doubling down
by spending hundreds of dollars more that we didn't have to spend.

There
was always a chance that I was wrong, that Mom had purchased
Cindi's clothes with her photography money, but in some ways that was
just as bad. The idea that Mom would spend that much on Cindi, who
already had more nice clothes than she could possibly wear, and not
spend a dime on me, was like a knife to the heart. I'd always known
that Mom liked Cindi the most, but she'd never been this obvious
about things.

I
managed to get control of myself by the time I saw Cindi again, and
by all appearances she never even realized that I knew what she'd
been up to with Mom. She just continued to talk to her friends with a
kind of smug self-assurance that made me want to punch her in the
face.

It
was dinner time before Cindi actually deigned to talk to me.

"Have
you invited Jackson to the party yet, Adri?"

"No."

My
terse answer didn't discourage her in the slightest.

"You
should. This party is happening despite how badly you wish it wasn't.
You can either cower inside of our room while it's going on, or you
can try to make the best of it by making sure that there is at least
one person there who will talk to you."

Half
a dozen different nasty things were on the tip of my tongue, ready to
be said, but I swallowed them down for the simple fact that she was
right. I either needed to leave the house entirely and risk my stuff
all getting trashed, or I needed Jackson there. The alternative,
sitting in my room by myself for hours, was too terrible to
contemplate.