Angry and hurt and he didn’t know what else, Trevor backed up yet another step. “I thought you were grown-up. My mistake to hook up with a little girl.”
Her chin came up. “I’m not a little girl.”
“You know what?” he said. “Let’s forget about all of this, okay? There are plenty of girls who want me. Ones who are ready for something real, not make-believe like playing with Barbie dolls or having a tea party for your stuffed animals.” The cruelty came easily. Slice and dice. He told himself he didn’t care about the way her eyes dilated or she panted with shock. “Run along to your dance lesson, little girl.” He was walking backward now, opening distance between them. “See you around,” he told her with deliberate carelessness.
She gasped, whirled and ran, leaving him feeling bloody even if he was the one doing the slicing. Bitch, he thought. She played me. I hope she’s crying. She deserves to get hers.
He wanted to go smash windows. Faces. Something. No more Cait to make him feel normal. Warm.
Who cares? he told himself. Who needs her?
CHAPTER THREE
MOLLY PAUSED IN THE HALL outside her daughter’s bedroom door, cocking her head to hear music or a voice. Nothing. Probably Cait was listening to her iPod while she worked on a school assignment or talked with friends online or texted. After a moment she knocked. “Cait?”
The “Yeah?” didn’t sound very encouraging, but Molly opened the door, anyway. How things change. Six weeks ago she’d have been welcome anytime in Caitlyn’s bedroom. Now she had no idea what was happening in Cait’s life. Maybe today Molly could get her to open up.
Sure enough, Cait sat cross-legged on her bed, an earbud in and her smartphone in her hands. She looked up with an expression that said, Why are you bothering me?
Molly sat at the foot of the bed, anyway. “Is something going on with you and Trevor?” she asked bluntly. “I haven’t seen you with him lately.”
“Bet you’re really sorry, aren’t you?” Resentment gave a razor edge to every word.
“I’m sorry for anything that hurts you. Please believe that, if nothing else.”
Dark smudges surrounded Cait’s eyes. Heavier than usual makeup, or had she rubbed her eyes, forgetting that she wore mascara? Wanting to reach out to her, Molly restrained herself.
Cait shrugged. “We broke up, so I guess you can go out and celebrate.”
“Honey…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Cait stared wildly at her. “Especially not with you.”
Molly flinched at the sheer venom and knew her daughter saw it. She wanted to say something parentlike, wise, understanding, but her mind was a giant blank. After a moment, she nodded, stood up and left the room without saying another word. She heard the sob behind her as she closed the door, but she didn’t stop, felt no temptation to go back.
She went to her own room and sat in the easy chair where she often read. It had to be ten minutes before she was calm enough to feel rational. Mostly rational. Right at this moment, she couldn’t figure out how parents went on after scenes like this and looked at their children with love. She couldn’t even figure out why this particular scene had hurt so much. All she knew was that it had.
On instinct she changed to running clothes, including the iron maiden bra she had to wear when active. She’d use the middle school track. She was less likely to be recognized there than at the high school. She ought to be putting on dinner, but if Cait got hungry tonight she could feed herself. Molly didn’t even knock on her daughter’s door on the way out to tell her where she was going.
She found the track deserted and, after stretching, began to run. Slowly at first, then pushing herself harder and harder. She was on the third mile before she recognized the stew of emotions inside her as a sense of betrayal. The person she loved the most had turned on her, and all the child psychology she could summon, all the reason, didn’t seem to help.
She doesn’t really hate me, no matter how it sounded. How it looked. I know better. I know if I’m patient, when she’s eighteen or twenty she’ll return to me, my loving daughter. I know that. I do.
Hormones. Pulling away. Cait’s behavior was typical. Probably more typical than the way she’d breezed through the usually difficult middle school years.