admittedly regretted. But whatever magic we had as kids is gone, and there’s nothing left to do or say. It’s time to cut bait and thank the gods for getting a chance to remember how great we used to be, if only for an hour.
My door opens, and before I can turn around, Mallory goes rigid. Dad is normally unflappable, but when he sees me standing there with Mallory, his eyes go wide and his mouth drops open. Mom hovers behind him, and she’s equally shocked but is able to get her mouth to work.
“Why, Mallory! What—how are you?”
As she hugs Mallory, I meet Dad’s stare. His initial shock is gone, replaced by the same face I’ve seen all my life: eyes focused and unwavering, jaw set. Words do not follow this face because the message is clear: “You have made another poor decision. You should know better.”
And I do. I want to tell him: “I don’t want her here!” Because Mallory puts everything in jeopardy. This is the sort of attention I’ve tried to avoid for months. But as he keeps staring, as he refuses to speak, to even see that I’m trying to do my best with this, something breaks inside me.
Maybe it’s the way he hasn’t blinked or how he always assumes everybody’s going to toe the line. To follow his orders. The injustice of it rises inside me, acid in my mouth. Why shouldn’t I be able to go out with my friends—or whatever Mallory is at this point? Why does that matter at all? What is it hurting if I spend an hour not being a Bennett, not being some kind of perfectly stoic . . . soldier?
And I can’t lie: I want to see his face when I go against him. I want to see the shock, the anger—all of it—when I tell him I’m leaving with her. To get even the smallest whiff of what it would be like to tell him my real plans.
“We’re going out,” I say. “Just for an hour.”
Dad shakes his head, as if I were headed to the moon. “Out?”
Mallory nearly jumps with excitement. “We won’t be gone long,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says. “Thomas is done for the night. I can drive you back to your house, if you need me to, but he isn’t going anywhere.”
“It’s my graduation,” I say. “And I’m ready.”
“If you were ready, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he says to me. And then to Mallory: “I’ll meet you in the driveway.” He’s already turned to leave my room when Mom speaks up.
“I don’t think an hour is going to kill anyone.”
Dad stops but doesn’t face any of us. Mom never challenges him, rarely calls him out on the way he parents—like an iron fist. Sure, she’ll come in behind him, patting me on the shoulder and telling me it’s just how he is. That he loves us. But she never does this.
Dad still hasn’t turned around when he finally says, “I expect you’ll do what’s right,” and walks out of my room.
I look at Mom. She shakes her head and whispers: “Go have fun. But be back soon. Eleven, okay?”
I lead Mallory out of my room, not planning to stop until we’re in my truck. Jake is still at the kitchen table, and Mallory pauses like she expects me to have a conversation with him, too. Or maybe it’s because he looks so different now. Either way, I only give him a quick nod and then open the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
I pull my keys out of my pocket and start to unlock the truck when Mallory stops me.
“No, let’s walk. Like we used to.”
“Walk? Where?”
She raises her eyebrows, but I’m still amped from defying my dad. Unable to shake the electricity of leaving. She hits me and says, “The bridge, stupid. Where else are we going to go?”
It’s not far, a mile or so, but walking feels too slow. A brake to our momentum. I want to go fast, to put an exclamation point on what just happened.
“But we’ll get there faster if we drive,” I say, opening the truck. She comes over and closes the door gently, nodding toward the road, the bridge. Before she starts walking, ignoring the fact that I still haven’t moved, she says, “C’mon, it will be fun.” It’s not until she’s a good fifty feet away that I jog to her.
“That’s what I thought,” she says, smiling tentatively. There’s a cautious familiarity with her tone, an