Page 48 of The Wrong Side of Kai
Dad blinks at me, taken aback. He sets his glasses down on the table and walks over. Why now, the one time Idon’twant him to notice me, he finally does? “Of course I care.”
I’ve lost my grip this past week; everything is slipping out of control. My morality feels like it’s in the gutter, my reputation precedes me, and now I’ve found out Kai thinks of me the same way everyone else does. I imagine Mom again, looking down on me now as I stand on our staircase with tears in my eyes. I don’t deserve sympathy – I’ve brought this all upon myself, because I’m a shitty, shitty person. Right now, it feels like I truly have nothing to lose.
I’ve got stuff that I need to say to Dad. Why should I care anymore about protecting his feelings? Why should it take physical tears for him to realize that I need him?
I turn back from the stairs and take a few steps toward Dad, looking up at him. “Really? You care? Because you sure as hell don’t act like it.”
Dad blinks, stunned, as if my words are shocking information, like he genuinely believes he’s a doting father rather than just some stranger who happens to live in the same house.
Surely, I think,heknows how absent he’s been in our lives?
“Vanessa. . .” Dad says, but he immediately runs out of words.
“What, Dad?” I press, my words laced with exasperation. How can he not see it? “Where were you that time I got so drunk I threw up on the porch? Why don’t you stop me from sneaking out after midnight? And how many calls from school have you received this week that you’ve ignored? Because I’ve skipped so many classes and yet you haven’t said a single word about it. You know why? Because you don’t CARE!”
I hear the TV pause, then slow footsteps. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kennedy approaching, watching from a few feet away. She’s still holding Theo against her chest, anxiously rubbing his ears. I don’t want her to see me yelling at Dad, but I’ve already gotten myself too heated now. It’s too late to stop the words spilling from my mouth, all these questions that I’ve never been brave enough to ask, all these truths I’ve never had the courage to say out loud.
Dad slowly shakes his head, his lips silently moving as he struggles to muster up an answer. “I care. . . I love you. I love both of you. How could I not?” He glances at Kennedy, then back at me. He gulps hard, but his expression still looks frozen, his eyes wide with shock. “You know I’ve just had a lot on my mind. I thought you were happy.”
“Happy!” I repeat with a cold, sharp laugh.Happy? Is he blind too? I pretend Chyna’s parents are my own, I’m constantly worried about Kennedy, I refuse to let any guy get close to me. How can I possibly be happy? I’m in survival mode. “That’s a fucking joke, Dad. It really is.”
“Don’t use that language with me,” Dad stammers.
I don’t think I’ve ever sworn in front of him before, but what does it matter now? Maybe if I’d sworn at him when I was fifteen, he would have cared then. I almost laugh. If only I’d known it was that easy to get his attention.
I cross my arms, my glare challenging. I don’t recognize the man standing in front of me. “So now you wanna scold me for cussing?”
“What’s. . . what’s going on here, Vanessa? Why are you acting like this?”
“Because I’m tired,Dad, that’s why!” I snap at him, my voice growing louder. I take another step closer, getting all up in his face. My eyes still sting with tears. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around you. It’s been two years. We miss Mom too, me and Kennedy, but you can’t just stopliving. You still have two daughters who need you to look out for them, but you’re just too selfish to care about us anymore.”
I may as well have slapped Dad across the cheek, because my words seem to inflict a physical pain upon him. He clutches at his chest, staggering a few steps back. He searches for words that never arrive. The tension in this house right now is about to overwhelm us all, and Dad shifts his focus to my sister.
“Kennedy. . . you know I care about you, don’t you?” he asks softly, his voice almost pleading. He so desperately wants her to say yes.
Kennedy looks down at the floor and buries her face into Theo’s fur. “Not really,” she mumbles, unable to meet his eye.
Dad looks back at me, aghast. He rubs at his temple and I can see him break out into a nervous sweat. His voice is weak, shaky. My dad is a broken man. “I thought I was. . . I thought cutting you guys some slack was the best thing to do. I thought I was helping.”
“Someslack?” I nearly laugh again. He is so, so oblivious that it hurts. How can abandoning your daughters after they’ve just lost their mom possibly behelping? “There’s a difference between being a laidback parent and a non-existent one. You know that, right?”
“What do you expect me to do?” Dad asks.
“Stop letting me do whatever the hell I want, for starters. I’m only seventeen! I need my dad, okay? I needyou. I need you to text and ask when I’ll be home, and I need you to yell at me when I walk through that front door smelling of beer, and I need you to ground me when I backtalk you. I need you to act like a damn father, and to actually care about my well-being, because sometimes I wonder if you’d even care if I drove that ugly rust-bucket of yours off a bridge.”
Dad’s features flood with horror. “Vanessa, please don’t say that.”
“Well, would you?”
“Vanessa!” He lets out a frustrated groan as he runs his hands through his graying hair.
“Have you even noticed that I’ve had theworstpossible week?” I question, arms still folded. I’m not backing down, and I continue to glower at him, piling on the pressure. I have waited forever for this moment. “No, you haven’t. But let me tell you about it.” I stare straight into his eyes and I tell him the truth: “I hooked up with a guy who filmed us and then sent the video to everyone in school. Yeah, Dad, that’s right. There’s a video out there of me stripping, and I don’t even have a parent to turn to.”
Dad’s jaw literally drops. He stares at me, completely blown away. So many different emotions flicker across his eyes, too fast to pinpoint a single one. The color drains from his face at such speed I think he might faint in front of me.
“We didn’t just lose Mom,” I say quietly now, my voice almost a whisper. “We lost you too.”
I leave him there at the bottom of the stairs, staring after his disgrace of a daughter as I run to my room. Fresh tears spring to my eyes. My heart feels too dense, too heavy, the weight of it crushing my chest. I slam my bedroom door and strip off my jacket, then throw myself onto my bed. My room is in darkness, but I prefer it that way. I burrow under my comforter and press my face into my pillows, then scream against the soft fabric. The scream is muffled, almost silent. I feel utterly helpless.
