Page 9 of Strelitzias in Spring

The last time I saw my dad, he screamed at me and told me that I was a disappointment, a stain on his family for my actions toward Marina. My mother tried to prevent me from going back to his house, but my anxiety wouldn’t let me put off the conversation; I had a gnawing need to know how he would treat me and how his family would treat me at our next interaction.

Needless to say, it was a shit show. My dad’s screams, Marina’s tears, and the stony silence from Brandi were deafening. I’ve successfully avoided them for three weeks, but it seems as though my time is up. My mother has made no secret that she’ll sell everything she owns, house included, to sever all ties with my father, but the thought of that makes me physically ill. Her home, with its warmth and love, is my sanctuary, the place where I go to decompress and feel at peace. I can’t imagine never smelling the cumin, cilantro, and garlic of my mom’salbondigassimmering on her sleek stove, in the kitchen she designed, or never again watching the sunrise from our back porch.

If agreeing to my father’s demands for an audience keeps my mother in the house where we both healed after my father’s betrayal, then I’ll do it without question or complaint.

I look up from my musings to take in the faded white walls of the tutoring center. As part of my scholarship, I was granted student work, a way for students to work on campus, receiving minimum wage for jobs that should pay significantly more. I would have much preferred sitting behind the reception desk at the student gym, checking ID badges, than tutoring college kids who see me as some kind of freak for starting college so young. I was sixteen when I first started in the center, and the senior I was working with was so uncomfortable that someone six years younger than him had to help with his statistics coursework.

He requested an immediate reassignment.

I don’t enjoy tutoring, and I’ve never fantasized about becoming a teacher or educator. When I enrolled in Marymount at sixteen and declared English, not math, as my major, my father assumed that I’d pursue scholarly research on classic literature and ultimately become a professor. That future sounds about as appealing as eating Tide pods.

Only my mother, Ava, and CeCe know that my dream is to work in film and television as a screenwriter, which is not nearly as prestigious a job as my father expects. I haven’t had the opportunity for any classes geared toward that future, but I’m hopeful my senior year will present the opportunity.

“Serena, your next student is here,” my supervisor, Jay, calls from his desk. Stashing my phone and my father’s bullshit into my bag, I stand and make my way to the reception area to greet my next student.

—

The next three hours pass in a blur of papers, instructions, and critiques. By the time I get to my evening class, I’m exhausted.

I listen as the professor drones on about modernity and twentieth-century social class structure and clench my jaw to stave off the sleep threatening to pull on my eyelids. By the time he introduces Edith Wharton’sHouse of Mirth, I’m completely checked out.

Not even pretending to pay attention, my mind wanders to a place it’s gone all too frequently recently: Ink and Needle.

Or, more specifically, theownerof Ink and Needle.

I bite down on my lip, unable to hold back my reaction to the mental image of Wolf McCleery. I was uncomfortably transfixed by Wolf until he called me Siren, the idiotic nickname that Devin bestowed upon me over five years ago. At thirteen, I existed in two different worlds simultaneously: puberty and high school, and Devin loved to tease me about it. Two years older than me, Devin had just readThe Odysseyin his English class and found it hysterical that my name was so similar to that of the beautiful women of the sea in the epic poem. My gangly frame and awkward disposition were the ultimate source of humor for him.

Thinking back to my sole encounter with the massive tattooist, I inwardly cringe; I went from quietly awkward to rude and standoffish within minutes. He must think I’m, at best, incredibly weird and, at worst, a bitch.

“I’ll see you all next week for our discussion on gender roles in modernist literature. Please read up to chapter nine ofHouse of Mirthfor our next class.” The professor’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and I flush, feeling both guilty and chagrined that I let my mind wander so effectively.

I gather my laptop, notebook, and pens and place them carefully into my leather backpack. Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I hurry out of the building and start the walk to my apartment. The longer I walk, the more I think about the demands of my father, his insistence that I skip class just to, what? Be berated in person again, rather than text messages over the phone? By the time I make it inside my apartment, I’m fuming, my earlier heartache transforming into fury.

“What the fuck?” I breathe out, dropping my head into my hands and gripping my hair. “Why is he such…” I pause, looking for the right word, as though my furniture cares about the designation. “A dick,” I yell. I release my hold on my scalp, and without thought, my right hand settles over the healing script at my rib. My mind travels back to Wolf, how right his hands felt on my body, but also how free I felt as he permanently marked my skin.

Right now, after my dad’s demands, I am craving that sense of freedom, the euphoria that came from deciding for myself, by myself.

I would give anything to feel that way again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I think about the number saved on my phone. When Ava and Celeste came back to my apartment after Ink and Needle, Celeste made me add Wolf’s cell number into my phone in case I had any questions about preventing infection.

Those numbers taunt me as I slide down and huddle against my door.

—

I pull my phone out with shaky hands, pacing back and forth through my apartment like an animal about to be let out of its cage. In this scenario, I’m not a lion; I’m the gazelle prancing itself into slaughter.

I’ve been talking to myself and walking around my apartment for the last—I check the clock on my oven—seventy-eight minutes. If I had a high-tech watch, it would probably tell me that I walked five hundred miles and burned an absurd number of calories thanks to anxiety and indecision.

“I should just call him. He may not even answer the phone. He doesn’t have my contact information, and he could be one of those people who refuses to answer from an unfamiliar number,” I reason to my furniture. “Or I could block my number so that he can’t call me back if he turns me down. He can’t call to mock me if he can’t get in touch with me.”

I wince, remembering that he does, in fact, have my cell number. “God, I’m being such a wimp.” I stop my movements and look up, dropping my head back so that I can stare at the ceiling.

Almost two months ago, I made the horrible, inexcusable, idiotic decision to sleep with my neighbor and former love. Crush? Infatuation? I compounded that mistake by telling my best friend about the night I spent with my bad-boy neighbor, and I ended up losing my virginity, my lifeline, and half of my family in one fell swoop.

As far as slip-ups go, mine is major. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so much regret if I enjoyed the sex. It felt like a baby carrot was poking me in the vagina; I didn’t even have that romance novel-worthy hymen tear that shocks the naïve virgin before she writhes under the rakehell like a brothel owner.

No, I had an abysmal experience, and my stepsister accused me of sabotage and subterfuge.

I doubt she even knows what subterfuge means.

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