“Ari, are you trying to make me feel guilty? Because I already feel bad about missing your graduation.”
“No.” She trembled, trying to control the anger that was building up under her skin. She felt so off-balance. One minute she had been fine… the next… she was this. “I was asking about my mother, that’s all, Dad. I just wanted to know what she was like.”
“Why now? It doesn’t make a difference, Ari. You’re eighteen, you’ve gotten through life long enough without her and you’ve never wanted her before and you certainly don’t need her now—”
“Dad—”
“I gotta go. Have a great birthday. I’ll speak to you soon.”
“Dad—”
The line went dead and Ari pulled the cell away from her ear, feeling stuck in slow motion. She was still staring at it when Staci appeared before her, her dark eyes warm with concern. “You OK?”
Ari nodded shakily, trying to force a smile.
“Oh, Ari…” Staci reached out a comforting hand. “Forget about your dad, OK. We’re here. Today we’re your family.”
It had been two years since Ari last cried. The last time had been at Mike’s funeral. Since then she’d sort of decided that tears were only for when something hurt so much it changed you deep inside. Today she wanted to cry. But she wouldn’t. It had hurt… but she’d get through it.
Charlie had turned up twenty minutes ago, already drunk, eyes vacant as he nodded a hello at her and wandered off to find a beer and talk to Brady Richards who used to hang out with Charlie when he was going through his guitar phase when he was fifteen. She’d wanted to go to him, to ask him if he was OK, to be there for him as he grieved for his little brother on the second year anniversary of his death. But one minute he was there and the next he was gone. Now Ari couldn’t see him anywhere in the crowds downstairs. The house was full to bursting with the senior class, more juniors than she remembered inviting, and even a couple of sophomores. Music blared loudly out of her dad’s sound system in the living room, fighting with the TV and PlayStation 3 to be heard as Nick and A.J. had turned it up to full blast. Ari was just waiting for one of her neighbors to cave and call the police. Having left Rachel in the kitchen with Staci as the two of them refilled the snacks that had disappeared in the first hour of the party, Ari decided to take the opportunity to do something that had been niggling at her all afternoon during lunch. She’d thought she’d have time after the celebratory dinner at Nellie’s but she’d had to pick her car up from the garage and Rache and Staci had brought their outfits for the party with them and had insisted on going directly back to Ari’s to get changed and set up for the party. They had done a good job, lots of food, drink, sparkly decorations everywhere. Rache had started piling up the birthday presents on the kitchen table and had taken over being hostess. Ari didn’t care. Her mind was upstairs in her dad’s room where maybe a hidden photograph or possession of her mother’s perhaps could be found. Checking over her shoulder to make sure she had well and truly escaped Rache, Ari hurried into the hall, smiling at a junior she barely knew and skipping up the stairs. She passed a couple of people in the hall but everyone had been pretty good when Rache had announced the upstairs was off limits and anyone caught up there would be tried, judged and punished. There was no one there, and as she shot a quick glance into her room, she was glad to see it was empty. Desperate now to start her search, this inexplicable need that had come out of nowhere as far as she was concerned, Ari picked up the pace.
She strode into her dad’s room with determination…
…only to stall at the threshold.
She backed out quickly before the couple realized they’d been caught. Her feet somehow carried her to her room, even though it was like wading through thick tar, and she collapsed on the edge of her bed, her heart racing as the image of what she’d seen kept rolling across her vision.
She’d caught Charlie making out with a girl plenty of times.
That was the first time she’d caught him ha**ng s*x with another girl… let alone in her father’s bed.
Ari wanted to throw up.
She made a harsh, choking noise.
The box of tissues on her bedside table slid towards her and Ari shook her head. “Thanks Ms. Maggie,” she whispered. “But I’m not going to cry over him. I won’t.” Even though it felt as if someone had punched a hole in her chest, reached inside, and were now raking their fingernails along her insides in malicious torture.
“Please tell me you are not talking to that poltergeist again.” Rachel grinned from her doorway.
“Her name’s Ms. Maggie.”
The smile dropped from Rachel’s face as she stepped into the room glancing warily around. “OK, I thought you guys were really kidding. If you’re serious that there’s a poltergeist living here I may never be able to come over to your house again.” She shuddered, jerking her head over her shoulder as if she had felt something behind her.
Ari would have laughed if she’d had it in her. “Ms. Maggie won’t hurt you.”
Rachel paled. “Seriously, Ari, it freaks me out. Stop?”
Taking pity on her friend, Ari nodded. “Sorry.”
They were quiet a moment, each assessing the other. Finally Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happened between ten minutes ago and now but it can’t be good.”
“Charlie’s screwing some girl in my dad’s bed.”
Rachel blanched. “You saw?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”