Page 30 of The Moment Promised

If there is a God, he must enjoy torturing me. First with the psycho dad, then the addict mom, and now this? Falling for the one person I can’t bear to lose.

And that’s exactly what would happen if he knew.

I’d lose him.

It would complicate everything, and that’s to say if he even feels a fraction of what I do. But if I sprung these feelings on him and hedidn’tfeel the same I’d be mortified. Our easy bantering relationship would turn to a mush of awkwardness. He’d pity me for the feelings I have that he can’t return.

So, I make a promise to myself from this point forward. Whatever you feel toward Finn Walker, swallow that shit right back down.

8

SEVEN YEARS AGO

Are we really allowing our daughter to have a boy in her room?” Jason’s voice is always angry, but right now he’s furious. The walls vibrate as he shouts at my mother.

I look at Finn and shrug with a small smile. “I warned you.”

Finn’s mom insisted we spend some time at my house since we are always at hers. “Your parents probably miss you,” she’d said.

I couldn’t argue with her, I mean I spend almost every day at their house after school. She has no idea what life is really like for me at home.

To the Walkers, I’m just an ordinary twelve-year-old girl.

I like that.

Finn sits crisscrossed on the floor, too nervous to sit on my bed and risk my dad walking in.

“This is why I need a fucking divorce.” Jason curses, throwing the word divorce around loosely like he’s done for the past year.

Ever since the first time he announced he was divorcing my mom in a fit of rage, I’ve learned not to get excited.

Excitement leads to disappointment, and that’s exactly how I’ve felt each time he wrapped my mother around his finger after threatening to divorce her.

It’s always the same routine: Something enrages my dad. He storms off, probably to Erin’s house—who I thankfully have not seen since I met her. He puts on a convincing façade that he’s “so sorry”and “will make it up to you.” Sometimes he even takes us all out for ice cream or the movies.

Repeat.

It’s a cycle I’ve become used to and I fear will continue for eternity.

“Want to playWould You Rather?” Finn asks, slowly standing up and glancing at the closed door to my bedroom.

“Just sit,” I command from my bed.

His eyes widen as he hesitates.

“We’ll hear him coming,” I reassure him. I know how to stay out of the way of Jason’s wrath.

He sits uncomfortably on the corner of my bed, three feet away from me.

“Would you rather go to Miss Picket’s house or eat the fish sticks at the fair?” he asks me.

I ponder this for a moment.

Miss Picket is the meanest woman in the entire town. She yells from her porch at any kid who gets too close to her yard. Legend has it, one time she yelled at a little boy and a lightning bolt struck the tree only fifty feet away.

On the other hand, one time a bunch of people threw up at the annual fair after eating the fish sticks from the concession stand.

“Miss Picket’s house.”

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