Page 29 of Cruel Devotion

“What do you mean?” I asked. They knew I had little funds, focused on school. And it wasn’t as though I could drive to a store and shop for her, not that she’d approve of anything I bought for her.

“Just your name, scrawled like this?” She showed Dad the card, pointing at the inside.

“That’s my signature.”For fuck’s sake, do not nitpick how I sign my damn name now.

“I see that.” She cringed. “You can’t saylove, Eli? OrFrom Eli? You just scribble your name?”

Someone kill me now.Again, I steadied my breath, determined to stay strong. “I didn’t think I had to sayfromsince handing it to you implies that itisfrom me.”

If she dared to ask me why I wouldn’t sign it with love, I’d walk out of here. Love was a joke. They hadn’t loved me since I got my first bad score on a test in second grade.

It only got worse from there. Over dinner, they harassed me nonstop about all that I did wrong.

My mom got on to me about the Cs that I had, demanding that I give her a “good” reason they weren’t all As.

My dad complained that I was tired and acting uninterested in the conversation, not a fan that I’d checked out.

She bitched about how no one would want to hire me if I didn’t graduate with better grades.

He whined that I was a spoiled punk who didn’t appreciate having a scholarship in the first place.

His comments about the scholarship nearly made me throw up. Unbeknownst to them, my mistake at that party could get it taken away. If Mr. West so decided, he could put it in motion for my scholarship to be revoked. I’d have to pay thousands. And I bet they wouldn’t let me graduate based on my behavior. Preston’s family hadthatmuch influence.

I was stuck, caught in the shittiest tight place between my parents never thinking I was good enough and assuming I was a dumbass, all brawn and no brains, and the threat of the West family ending my time in college prematurely, right before graduation.

“All that matters is that I graduate,” I told them when my mom started in again about why my grades were only average.

“Of course, it matters,” she said, looking to the side of the room like she was so exasperated with me that she couldn’t stand the sight of me. “But we don’t want everyone to know we have some deadbeat son who can’t excel.”

Thanks. Thanks a lot. Really feeling the fucking love here.

“And you'd damn well better graduate,” my dad warned. “Because you better not forget that we won’t be supporting you financially.”

“How could I ever forget?” I said dryly, so sick of their voices that I wanted to scream in frustration.

“Are you talking back to me?” he asked, leaning over the table to try to get in my face.

I didn’t reply, knowing how this particular argument ended. Since it was her birthday, I doubted my mother wanted other people in the restaurant to witness him smacking me around.

“You'd better not be,” he warned. “You spoiled, smug asshole. You act like the world owes you some easy pass at work. Like you can be lazy and get ahead.”

I sighed, dead inside and needing to get the fuck out of here. They didn’t deserve another second of my time. “Are we done here?” I asked my mom. “Happy birthday.” I turned to my dad. “Have a safe drive home. I need to get back to campus and study,” I lied. I needed to leave before I lost that thin control I had and actually talked back for once.

It wouldn’t matter if I did. It’d feed the flames of fiery hatred my dad had for me. Nothing would change. They didn’t love me. They’d never loved me the way I was, for who I was, the kid who didn’t get perfect grades like everyone else. The boy who had slight dyslexia but didn’t know until he self-diagnosed it at fifteen because his mom feared getting checked for it wouldreallymean he was less than and flawed.

I knew I wasn’t perfect. But that shouldn’t be an excuse for parents to stop loving their kid.

Right?

Without waiting for a reply, I stood, turned around, and left.

I got my phone out to text Finn so he could come get me. At least, I hoped he could still come get me. I was done earlier than I told him that I thought I’d be, but I could stand around in the cold outside and wait. Maybe that would cool me off, anyway. I refrained from talking back to my parents or arguing with them, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t fuming inside, raging, red-hot mad at them.

“How dare you treat your mother like that?”

I groaned as I stood outside the restaurant. I’d only gotten as far as the walkway to the parking lot, planning on sitting on the railing to wait for Finn. In the shadows broken only by a single streetlamp, I groaned and stopped, knowing that if I walked away from my dad again, he’d get madder and madder. Sometimes, appeasing him made it all end faster.

I turned. “Treat her like what, Dad? I came to dinner. I got her a card. I told her happy birthday.”

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