Curvy Girls Can't Date Cowboys - Kelsie Stelting Page 0,50
have a date with our daughter,” Mom finished.
“Because I believe differently than you do?” he said, holding back all the anger I knew welled within.
“Because you stand for something that nearly destroyed our family. We want nothing to do with terrorism that guises as a noble ‘way of life,’” Mom said, her eyes reflecting the fire of her red hair.
Ray ground his teeth and looked at the table for a moment. He stood and dropped his napkin on the plate full of food before turning and walking toward the door.
I glared at my mom and dad, my heart throbbing just as painfully as my thumb, before following Ray out the door. How dare they speak to him like that? Call him a terrorist? Ray didn’t hurt anyone—especially not his animals and certainly not the people he loved.
Even in my sweater, the cold air instantly hit my skin. “Ray,” I called.
His hand rested on his truck’s handle, and his eyes fell on me, full of guilt, of sorrow. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I breathed.
He stepped closer to me, put his rough hand on my cheek, and said, “Don’t be.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until his thumb brushed away an icy tear.
“So what now?” I asked, trying to stifle the heat in my eyes. “I go back to my tower?”
“No, you keep being royalty.” He pressed his lips against my forehead, warm and safe but distant. “Goodnight, princess.”
I watched him drive away, shivering from the cold and from the longing of wanting something I knew I could never have.
Thirty-Three
My first instinct was to go to my room—avoid my parents and what they’d done altogether. Ray deserved a better explanation, though. I deserved a better explanation. Just because my parents believed differently from him, didn’t mean they had to be so rude. Would they have kicked him out if he had a different opinion on politics or education?
And why did I have to date someone who believed the same way they did? With my eighteenth birthday coming up, I’d be an adult soon, no matter how much they insisted on treating me like a child. Did they expect me to follow their rules forever?
When I reached the dining room, the table was deadly silent. Only the scraping of carefully placed silverware broke the thick silence hanging in the air. Cori had a scowl on her face, and the twins had made themselves so tiny, their shoulders barely showed above the tabletop.
Time to wreck the silence, just like they’d detonated my life. “What was that about?”
Mom cut through a green bean. “Deciding who is appropriate for our daughter to date. Clearly, that young man was not it.”
“And why not? Because he works on a farm?”
“No, because he defends a way of life that nearly destroyed ours.”
My mouth hung open. “You act like farming is an act of terror!”
“The way his family does it?” She shook her head. “You of all people should understand why we won’t allow you to date him.”
“Because I got pneumonia four years ago? The doctor himself said the bacteria could have come from anywhere. I probably got it in the hospital!”
She glared at me. “Because you almost died. You were intubated. You got so depressed we were worried you would—”
“I remember what I had to go through! Which means I should be the one to decide which risks I take. I know the cost better than anyone.”
Dad’s hands balled on his silverware. “Enough, Ginger!”
“Because you don’t like what I’m saying? You’re going to shut me up like you did Ray?”
He trained an icy stare on me. “Because you let a kid into our house who argued openly with your mother and me in front of our children. It’s unacceptable. For anyone, and especially for someone who wants to date our daughter.”
My lip curled in disgust. “You—”
“You’re walking on thin ice,” he growled. “And if you want to keep arguing, we can talk about your ability to make decisions on your own in the dorms.”
The thin ice I was apparently standing on shattered underneath me. They were throwing the dorms in my face? Would it be like this every time I disagreed with them until I graduated from high school? From college?
Feeling the heat in my eyes seconds from spilling over, I turned and went to my room. They didn’t care to understand me or Ray, and I wanted as little to do with their judgement as possible.
Suddenly the world I was raised in felt less secure than ever. If