her question. “With one of Kent’s sort of exes.”
“You’re fighting women for him now? For that piece of dog shit?”
“Becca! He is not dog shit!”
“No, you’re right. Dog shit has far more of a place in this world. All Kent is to anyone is a sexy body and a dick that gets around. He can’t possibly possess anything more.”
“He’s more than his body, Becca. Everyone’s more than their looks. You’re beautiful. What if people think all you are is a pretty face and your tattoos?”
“They would be wrong,” she states simply, failing to offer a convincing argument. “Kent is nothing. He’s even less around you.”
My heart was breaking in my chest. “Can we talk about something else?”
“I was thinking…” she begins, eyes boring into the side of my face. “School isn’t working out. I’m not getting out of it what I thought it was going to give me and I was thinking about coming back home. We could get an apartment together. You could move out of that rat nest and start living with me again.”
Trying to drive and stare at her in shock at the same time is not a good idea. I narrowly miss a truck and decrease my speed, getting into the slow lane. “Are you on something?”
“I should be asking you the same question,” she shoots back. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re in your second year. You should give it another shot, as much as I’d love to have you back home.”
“I can’t stand it, Rain. There. The truth’s out. Being away from you is hell, the people at school get on my nerves, and I’m not sure I want anything to do with an art degree anymore. I’m already a great artist. What will a degree do for me? It won’t make me better.”
I’m confounded by her accusations and her revelation. “Becca, why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you’re always so quick to rub my failures in my face. ‘Look, see, you failed, stop taking risks.’ You don’t take any risks. So I’m not going to get an art degree. I can still own a tattoo shop. I have clout. I don’t need school to prove it.”
My head is hurting. “I do not rub your failures in your face. I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“I don’t. That’s the way it is. You can’t stand the idea of risking a choice. You stay in your bubble because you’re terrified one wrong choice is going to make you end up like Mom and Dad. We’re not them, Rain. They are two separate people who had their own issues.”
“We are them!” I snap. “I’m Mom and you’re Dad. You do things that make you happy, without caring those things are bad for you. I let you do those things because I don’t have the balls to say no. Like letting you go to school. I knew you’d change your mind!” I can’t help it. I’m rubbing it in. “Why didn’t you listen to me? You’re going to stop now?”
“We are not them.” She sounds tired. “I am my own person. You are your own person. You need to stop living in fear of them. The things they did don’t have any bearing on our reality. You are a beautiful young woman and need to start acting like it. Go out, have fun, and make bad choices. Except Kent. There are bad choices and then there are choices that are bad. He’s bad.”
“He’s incredible,” I mumble defiantly.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I glance at her and fearfully meet her pissed off, blazing hazel eyes. “Nothing, Becca.”
“You’re moving out of there as soon as I find an apartment. How much do you have saved up?”
My stomach sinks. “I’m not moving.” My voice is small. I feel small.
She takes a deep, laborious breath to calm herself down. “So who won the fight?”
I’m thankful for the subject change. “Me.”
She tries not to, but her small laugh escapes her anger. “Right on. That’s my sister.” She raises her hand and I give her a hard high five. “How did Kent feel about you fighting over him?”
“I wasn’t fighting over him. I was defending myself. And he wasn’t happy. He was pissed off.”
“Yeah, right. Men like him love to watch us ruin ourselves over them. Was it worth it? Was a black eye worth Kent Nicholson?”
Hearing his name answered her question. I look her right in the eye as I pull into the restaurant. “Yes.”
She closes hers in disappointment. “Are you sleeping with him?”
I swallow