hurting deep down. I felt like a bird with its feathers clipped, knowing I was destined for the sky but being chained to the ground instead.
“He’s not going to change his mind,” I finally said. “It would be better to move on and forget it ever happened.”
Rory squeezed my shoulder. “We’re here for you.”
I smiled at her as best I could, but inside I was crumbling.
Forgetting Ray was as impossible as getting out from under my parents’ thumb. His lips had marked my skin as his own. His heart beat in time with mine. It didn’t matter whether we’d had a weekend or years together. I was his, even if he wasn’t mine.
Fifty-Four
I texted my parents after lunch to ask if I could hang out at Zara’s house when school let out, but I quickly got a no.
Dad: I’ll be picking you up, and you can help work at the store until close to help pay your medical bill.
I stood at my locker, gaping at my phone. How long was I supposed to work at minimum wage to pay them back? If Mom wasn’t exaggerating with her ten-thousand-dollar estimate, I’d be handling the register and stocking shelves until my hair turned gray.
Anger flooded through me, and I turned off my phone before I could fire off with something I’d regret. I shoved it into my backpack, swapped out some books and straightened just in time to see Ray walking by.
My shriveled heart twitched at the sight of him. He saw me out of the corner of his eye, but the second he caught me looking back, his gaze was straight ahead. Anywhere but on me.
How could he just go on like we’d never shared what we did? Like we weren’t missing out on an entire future?
If I kept thinking about how much I’d lost, I wouldn’t survive. So I did what my parents taught me: shoved my feelings way down and locked them away. If something couldn’t be controlled, it had to be contained.
Dad picked me up from school. He asked a couple of questions about my day, but after receiving a few monosyllabic answers, he gave up. We sat in quiet, listening to the radio playing oldies punctuated by commercials for medical equipment.
Usually, I’d make a joke about the commercial warnings or sing along to the music, but I wasn’t up for it. What was the point? My parents wanted to shove me in a box that fit their idea for how I should be, and I was tired of it.
When we reached the store, I got to work on the task he gave me, stocking and facing shelves so each row of items was full and the labels faced out. Of course he made sure Knox was on the opposite end of the store.
With my headphones in and a true crime podcast playing loudly in my ears, no one bothered me. I got lost in the mindlessness of the task and didn’t stop until Dad came to get me around nine.
He told me good work on the way home, but I just nodded. I hadn’t done it for him. I’d been coerced.
For the rest of the week, Mom dropped me off at school, Ray ignored me and I tried to ignore how much that hurt, Dad picked me up after the final bell, and I finished homework assignments in the store’s back room before stocking and facing shelves until close.
Seeing friends was strictly prohibited, which meant I couldn’t even help Jordan and her mom move into their new place. I wanted to see it—discover how they would make it their own. Instead, everyone around me was living their lives while I was in a forced limbo I didn’t know how to get out of.
On Sunday after the store closed, I just lay in my room, not having anything else to do. I wanted to text Ray, but what would I say? Sorry I reminded you of your dying father? Forget your trauma and be with me?
In the next room, I could hear the twins singing a song they had practiced for their audition, which just made me sadder. They were so good—it almost sounded like something off the radio.
Maybe if they couldn’t be on the big screen, I could at least put them on the flat screen in the living room.
I grabbed my camera and crept down the hallway to their room. Slowly, I edged the camera into the cracked door. They were jumping on their beds, singing