Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,176

father. It was that it was coming from Thomas, Mr. Grayson, a man he had always admired and looked up to that was throwing him. If it had been him, he probably would have slunk away, but this wasn’t about him. And that made all the difference.

“What’s so wrong with art?” he asked, emboldened for no reason he could really articulate other than that next to him, Taylor was withering by the second.

All three gazes snapped to him, but as he drew in a breath, he didn’t cave.

“What?” he asked as if that question was perfectly logical. “I’m serious. What’s wrong with art?”

Thomas snorted. “Well, it’s not med-school, that’s for sure.”

“Okay,” Greg said. “And…?”

Taylor’s gaze held true gratefulness mixed generously with concern for his well-being and mental state.

“And,” Thomas said, “I am not paying a small fortune for a worthless degree that would be of more use lining a birdcage.”

“And…?” Greg asked again, and when the diatribe faltered, Greg shrugged as if to say is that all you’ve got.

“And she has a lot of nerve to waltz in here after everything she has put this family through and make a pronouncement like that,” her father said, his anger dimming just a bit. “Look, I’m not being unreasonable here.”

Greg could have argued, but he didn’t.

“I want what’s best for my daughter.”

“But what if being a doctor isn’t what’s best for her?” Greg asked.

“How can you even say that?” Thomas asked. “This isn’t some fly-by-night field. This is medicine we’re talking about.”

“I’m not saying medicine is a bad field,” Greg said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s right for her.”

“But it’s what she’s always wanted,” Taylor’s mother said as if begging him to understand. “It’s what she’s worked for, what she’s dreamed about.”

Next to him, Taylor dropped her gaze to her lap, and he saw the defeat. That drove all kinds of bad through him.

“You know what’s really frustrating,” Greg said, still looking at her and before he realized he probably should shut up and leave well-enough alone. “It’s really frustrating because Merel keeps saying that growing up means you learn to take responsibility for your own life, but how can we do that if you never let us?”

Taylor’s mother puzzled. “Who’s Merel?”

Greg gave up trying to soften anything. “She’s the pastor’s wife at the student center. I went and talked to her a lot while…” He glanced at Taylor who now had her arms wrapped around herself, and true anger sliced through him. She was going to give up on the whole thing if her parents kept this up. “…when I was trying to figure things out with the whole Chris thing and all of that. I was trying to figure out what to do and what not to do, and the one thing I remember her saying is that as we grow up, we learn to take responsibility for ourselves and then for those around us. I guess I just see how hard it is to do that when every decision we try to make for ourselves is overruled all the time.”

Thomas grunted.

“I’m not blaming you,” Greg said to him. “I’m really not. But I think Taylor should have at least some say in her own life, don’t you? She’s trying to tell you that this isn’t working for her, that this isn’t what she wants, and what? She has to do it anyway, no matter how she feels, no matter if that’s what she wants or not? What sense does that make?”

“To get anywhere in life you can’t just go on your feelings,” Thomas said. “Do you know where I would’ve ended up if I had quit every time it got hard?”

“But she’s not quitting,” Greg said. “She’s redirecting. There’s a big difference.”

“But she doesn’t even know what she wants to do,” Thomas said. “She said so herself.”

“That doesn’t mean she should do something she doesn’t want to do,” Greg said. “If you’re on the wrong road, does it make any sense to keep going down that road? Shouldn’t you stop and try to figure out how to get on the right road? To keep going down the wrong road only means you’re getting… wronger.”

Next to him, Taylor shook her head. “We should go.”

“Go?” Greg asked in complete surprise.

“I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have come.” Head down, she turned to her parents as she stood. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Come on, Greg. Let’s go.”

“Taylor,” her mother said as Taylor reached back for him.

“Go? Tay,” Greg said, stumbling up after