she was blaming Rosie just made me angrier with my mom, though. “It wasn’t her fault, Mom. I was going to see him with her permission or not. I wasn’t planning on staying the night there. I just got snowed in.”
“So,” Dad said, “you knew there was a storm coming, and you decided to go to God knows where in the country an hour and a half away from home and half an hour from the nearest hospital? An ambulance couldn’t even get out to their house! Some kid had to drive you to the hospital!”
“He’s not ‘some kid,’” I spat. “His name is Ray.”
Dad recoiled like I was a poisonous snake and not his daughter lying trapped in a hospital bed.
Good. They were the entire reason I went out there anyway. Maybe if I wasn’t so sheltered, I wouldn’t need to sneak out at all. I could have told them, been honest.
“I don’t care what his name is,” Mom snapped. “I care that my daughter almost died and that we had to pull the twins from an audition to get here for something that was completely preventable!”
My heart sank. “They didn’t get to do the final callback?”
“What else were we supposed to do?” She held a pretend phone to her ear. “Mrs. Nash? An eighteen-year-old-boy just brought your unconscious daughter into the ER with a severe asthmatic episode, but go ahead and let your twins audition!”
She was hysterical now, and Dad put his arms around her as she broke into sobs. He glared at me over her shoulders. “I couldn’t be more disappointed in you than I am right now.
The disdain in his voice made me that much more livid. “The only reason I went out there without telling you was because you’d never say yes! You’ve been so busy protecting me, you’ve kept me from living!”
Dad’s eyebrows drew together. He opened his mouth to talk, but Mom spoke first, her tear-stained eyes boring into me. “And look what a great job you did of that.”
Her words were too close to the truth. “Maybe if I’d had some practice—”
Dad frowned and stood up. "You can’t handle it. Not now, and certainly not in the fall at UCLA."
"No," I argued. "I'm going to be eighteen soon. You can't baby me forever!"
"We can and we will," Dad said, his voice deadly. "As long as you live under our roof, eat our food, benefit from our bills, you will follow our rules."
"Dad—"
He stood and left the room. Mom stood after him and said, “It’s okay,” before following him out.
What was okay, I didn't know.
I certainly wasn't. My lungs may have been working, but my heart was breaking. My sisters had missed the biggest audition of their lives, my parents were furious, my mom still had tears streaming down her eyes, and I could only imagine how guilty Ray felt, even though none of this was his fault. It was mine.
I could only hope that when I left the hospital and went to school, we could sort it out. I didn't want our story to end in any more heartbreak.
Forty-Eight
The doctors wanted to keep me another day for observation, just in case the lack of oxygen had any lasting effects on my system. Dad thought it was a ploy for the rural hospital to make more money, but Mom was glad for the extra precaution.
She slept in the reclining chair while I stared ahead at the TV. My phone, computer, everything was at Ray's. Dad had told him to bring my things to school on Monday, but other than that, we were not to have any interaction.
Unfortunately for Dad, school was the one place he couldn't police me twenty-four seven. I was already planning what I would say when I saw Ray on Monday.
A soft knock sounded on the wide door to my room, and Jordan peeked her head in. "Hi, Ginger."
My heart lifted. “Jordan.”
Mom snapped awake in her chair and seemed to relax when she noticed it was a girl. Had she insisted on staying just to make sure I didn't see Ray again?
"I'm going to go on a walk," Mom said. "Let you girls talk." She kissed my head—even though I didn't want her to—and left the room.
"The others are on their way," Jordan said, coming to the chair closest to my bed. "What happened?"
"I had an asthma attack." My eyes began to water as the reality of the last twenty-four hours sank in. How had my life been so changed