Page 12 of Smooth Sailing

An angry flush started up his neck.

“You are not,” he stated flatly.

“You’re paying for it, and I want nothing more from you, so until I can pay for it, I’m out. I’m out at home too. I’ll move in with Gram and Gramps.”

His lip curled with distaste. “Now is not the time to throw a tantrum, Diana.”

At his words, a sudden calm stole over me.

No, not a calm, a chill. But I welcomed it completely.

“I’m not five, I’m nineteen,” I reminded him. “I’m officially an adult. I can vote. I can serve my country. So please don’t mistake me. I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m making a decision and carrying it through.”

“This is ridiculous. You’ve had something unpleasant happen to you and you’re being overly emotional.”

“I can assure you with one hundred percent accuracy, until you’ve experienced your own sexual assault, you cannot make that first judgement about the level of emotion of a person who’s experienced one. I can also share what happened to me wasn’t unpleasant. It was terrifying. It was shocking. It was unconscionable. And it was felonious. You are a student of the law, but more, you’re my father, and you making it easy for that asshole to get away with what he did to me, which might mean he’ll do it to someone else, is utterly unthinkable.”

“A lady doesn’t curse.”

Oh my God!

That was what he focused on in all I said?

“Yeah?” I asked.

“It’s yes…and yes, you know that, as I’ve told you repeatedly I do not accept that kind of language from my daughter.”

“Well, hear this, Dad. I’m not a lady. I’m a woman, and I can talk however the fuck I want. So fuck you, Dad.” I leaned toward his stunned straight body and bit, “Fuck you.”

With that, I walked out of Ms. Bainbridge’s office.

She was standing outside it. Her eyes came immediately to me and the softness and concern in them almost blew it for me.

“Thanks,” I muttered and got the heck out of there.

I’d fall apart somewhere else.

Not here.

Not now.

Not with him close.

Later.

I’d give myself that, but not much of it, because I’d need to put myself back together, build myself up and stay strong so he didn’t grind me to dust too.

This was right.

This was good.

I needed an education. I needed to think about my future.

What I did not need was to owe that man anything.

Some might think it crazy, or even stupid, but they’d be wrong.

This was the smartest thing I’d ever done in my life.

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