Sighing, I stare into my mug, preparing myself for the same lecture I’ve heard a thousand variations of. “We discussed this,” he says. “I thought we had this figured out already. You were going to do nursing. If you don’t declare that soon, you’ll miss the window to get into the nursing program, and then you’ll have to wait another year. Is that really what you want?”
“No,” I mutter quietly. It’s an honest answer, because none of what he described is what I want. I don’t want to apply to the nursing program at all.
Autumn’s still standing next to me, and I feel her adjust her stance, leaning her shoulder against mine in a silent show of support.
“Then what’s the problem?” Dad continues. “Do you not know where the paperwork is? Because we went online and found it. Did you forget? Do we need to look it up again?”
I suck in a deep breath, my chest inflating, and I focus on the feeling of the air in my lungs, the warmth of it as it passes over my lips on the exhale. “No,” I say again, little more than a whisper.
“Dad,” Cal says. Quietly, but it’s something. He did say he’d stick up for me, after all. “Leave her alone.”
Dad rounds on Cal. “Leave her alone? What for? Do you want your sister to miss this window? She’s a smart girl. There’s no reason for her not to have declared a major already. You declared your major right away, when you first registered for classes. What about your friend here? Simon? What’s your major?”
Glancing up, I see Simon’s gaze bouncing between my dad and me, confusion and uncertainty on his face. My heart twists as I consider what this must look like from his perspective, and I suddenly wish he were anywhere but here. That I hadn’t agreed to drive Cal’s car home this weekend. That I’d just sucked it up and spent the weekend apart from him, just like every other away game weekend we’ll have to survive between now and Christmas break. And then we’ll have Christmas break to suffer through, because I can’t think of a good excuse for him to come stay with us since his family is actually in Spokane, and there’s not a good reason for me to stay in Spokane over the break. Not to mention that I’d have nowhere to stay, since the dorms close between semesters.
But him staying here wouldn’t be a workable option anyway, because we’d all have to endure more scenes like this, and the whole point is that I don’t want this.
Simon clears his throat. “I’m a finance major,” he answers quietly.
“Finance. Good for you. And when did you decide on that?”
He opens his mouth, his eyes once again darting between Dad and me.
“Dad,” Cal cuts in. “Don’t involve Simon in this. That’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” Dad says, more loudly. He’s not really a yeller, but he can get a good amount of volume when he wants to.
“You know what’s not fair? The amount of money I’m shelling out every year for your sister to fritter away her time playing around on campus and not actually getting an education.”
Cal’s brows come together, and he crosses his arms, his chest puffing up. “Getting gen eds out of the way is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. She’s getting an education, even if she hasn’t decided on a specialty yet. She still has a semester and a half before she’s required to declare a major.”
“But not if she wants in the nursing program.”
Cal looks at me. “What if she doesn’t want in the nursing program? Did you ever ask her if that’s even something she wants?”
Dad’s eyes bulge. “Of course we asked her.” He refocuses on me, and I wish I could just shrink behind Autumn. Which sounds like I want to use Autumn as a shield, and I guess I kinda do, but only because he wouldn’t be mad at her, so she wouldn’t actually have to absorb his frustration and anger. “We discussed this back in August, didn’t we, Ellie?”
I mean, yeah, if by “discussed” we mean that Dad told me he thought nursing would be a good major for me since I said I didn’t want to major in biology and get on the pre-med track like Cal.
“We did,” he insists when I don’t respond. “I asked why you couldn’t be like Cal, with biology and pre-med, and you said you didn’t want to go to med school. Which is fine, not everyone is cut out to be a doctor, and at least one of my kids is following in my footsteps and can come back and join my practice in a few years.” Cal’s mouth clamps shut at that assertion, and I look at him with my eyebrows raised. What happened to his NFL aspirations? Does Dad think Cal will go to med school after playing football for a few years? Or has Dad decided Cal’s not going to go pro, whether because he thinks Cal’s not good enough or that he doesn’t want to?
Cal meets my eyes and gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Maybe I’m not the only one who struggles with standing up to Dad.
Somehow that thought isn’t all that comforting.
“Stephen,” Mom says quietly. “Let’s talk more about this later.”
Dad looks at Mom, his mouth open to protest, but whatever he sees on her face finally takes the wind out of his sails. “Fine,” he acquiesces, then looks at me, his tone equal parts promise and threat. “We’ll discuss this later.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Simon
I lie in Ellie’s bed with Ellie draped over my chest, both of us sated, at least for the moment. Now we’re just getting our fill of touching each other. She has her head nestled under my chin, her arms stretched on either side of me, and I’m lazily stroking the bare skin of her back.
It’s late Tuesday afternoon, and Autumn’s in class, so we get Ellie’s room to ourselves for a little while without inconveniencing anyone. And it’s our first chance to be alone since our stargazing date last week, the first time since we all spent the weekend at her parents’ house.