Page 10 of The Do-Over

His words were a punch to the gut. How was his fifty-fifty custody supposed to work from the other side of the country? I took a shaky breath and said, “You have?”

“Yep.” He gave me a wide, genuine smile, like he was thrilled about the news and not at all worried about me not sharing his wild enthusiasm. “It’s a great opportunity, and you know Lisa’s whole family is from Galveston so it’d be nice for the boys to be closer to their grandparents. You’re going away to college soon, so really, it won’t affect you that much.”

“In a year and a half. I’m going to college in a year and a half.” I cleared my throat and burrowed a little deeper into the sofa, trying not to sound emotional as I asked, “When would you be moving?”

“Next month. But your mother and I talked about it, and we both think that since you’re sixteen, you’re old enough to decide what you want to do.”

My head was spinning. “What do you mean?”

“Well, since you’re graduating next year, I’m sure you don’t want to move and start a new school. We discussed it, and without fighting—I know, surprising, right?—came to the decision thatyou can stay here with her until you go to college if that’s what you want.”

“What’s my other option?”

He looked surprised by my question, probably because he knew how into Josh and my friends and school I was. “Well,” he started, running a hand over the top of his head, “you can certainly move south with us. I just assumed that wouldn’t be your choice.”

I blinked fast and felt a little suffocated, like waves were washing over my nose and I couldn’t catch my breath. My dad and his perfect new family were moving to Texas. And he had no qualms about leaving me behind.

How could he even consider moving across the country without me? In his defense, the dynamics between my parents and me were so dysfunctional that he probably had no idea how much he meant to me.

I had always been a “good” kid, the kind of kid that parents didn’t have to worry about. My homework was always done, I never talked back, I always followed the rules, and I happily went along with what everyone else wanted. In a normal nuclear family, that kind of stuff made parents proud, right?

But in a family such as mine, it made me forgettable.

My post-divorce dad had a new house, a new wife, and two shiny new little munchkins; a fuller-than-full life. And my post-divorce mom had a new house, a new husband, a puggle that she treated like a baby, and a shiny new career that was more time-consuming than an actual human child. So that left me to play the unfortunate role of the leftovers from their previous marriage whojust schlepped back and forth between residences, showing up on my court-assigned days and somehow surprising them with my presence.

I cannot count the number of times I’d entered one of their houses only to hear someone say,Oh, I thought you were at your dad’s/mom’s today. I also cannot count how many parent-teacher conferences and dentist appointments were missed because they each assumed the other was taking me. Or the times I crashed at my grandma’s without telling either of them and no one ever called to see where I was.

I was so good that my parents didn’t have to worry about me.

So they didn’t.

At all.

That being said, the two of them were far from equal. My mom was Driven with a capitalD. She was all work, all the time, and she seemed to think her primary role as a parent was to ensure I behaved the exact same way. My dad, on the other hand, was funny, chill, and sweetly concerned about me when he wasn’t distracted by his lovely new life. When we were together, we were still the same close-knit father-daughter duo that we’d always been. Iadoredmy dad.

He just sometimes forgot about me if I wasn’t standing right in front of him.

He was looking at me intently, clearly waiting for my answer.Did a tiny part of him want me to go with him? Or—did a tiny part of him want me to NOT go with him?I shrugged and worked for a smile. “I’m going to need to think on this one a little.”

He nodded in agreement and shifted the conversation to my wrecked car. He’d seen my text at lunch, but by then it’d been too late for him to call me. I listened to his lecture about paying attention and following too closely, but all I could think about was the fact that I was going to have to memorize what it sounded like when my dad got home every day so I wouldn’t forget.

All I could think about was the fact that he was absolutely fine with leaving me behind. With the woman he’d divorced and called “impossible to live with.”

I went up to my room and called my grandma.

“Hellooo?”

“Hey, Grandma.” I sniffled and tried to keep everything inside. I felt like if I let go for a second, I’d never be able to stop crying. “I, um, I need to come over. Can you come get me?”

“Are you at school?”

“No.” I looked out the window and noticed the sun had disappeared behind the clouds and the sky was just dark gray. “The nurse sent me home early. I’m at Dad’s.”

She made a noise. “Are you sick?”

I wrapped my arms around my body. “No. I saw Josh kissing someone else so I fake-barfed. I had to get out of there.”

“That little prick. I’m on my way.”

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