Page 69 of Karma
“Grandpa’s fine.”
“You’re home?”
Slowly, he nods his head. “I’m home.”
“For how long?”
He wasn’t delusional enough to think she’d leap right into his arms and tell him how much she missed him, but he held out hope. The venom in her tone makes him flinch as though she tossed something at his face. He deserves all of it, but it still stings.
“For good.”
“If you say so.”
“Margaret, I’m sorry. There’s no good explanation for how I’ve acted or for leaving like I did.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she squishes the cover of the band on the front of her shirt and glares at him. “Yeah, but you did. You left me to figure out how to get through life without either of my parents.”
“Mar—”
“Here’s a quick recap for you. You know, to get you up to speed. I got my period. Freaked out, but at least Aunt Lex was able to help after Grandpa panicked. Even after you tried to kill her. That was fun. Grandpa and Emma broke up, and she refusesto get back together with him. Grandpa’s a real ass to Lex, and they don’t speak unless it’s about me. Hmm… What else?”
“I’m such an idiot.”
A sinister smile appears. “Oh, yeah, how could I forget the most important one? There was a little situation caused by the sudden upheaval of my life with Mom dying and my dad running away like a little bitch. Turns out, I have control issues, and with so much out of balance, I focused on the only thing I could.”
Frowning, he shakes his head. “What?”
“Food. Grandpa didn’t even notice. It wasn’t until Lex finally got to see me that she noticed how bad it’d gotten. I was down to seventy-five pounds and she forced me into counseling. I was pissed about it, but she probably saved my life.”
The confession knocks the wind out of Zane, and he can’t force his lungs to take a breath in. His daughter has an eating disorder, and he wasn’t around to help her.
No, I was the cause of it.
“I wanted to live with Lex because I don’t really like Grandpa, but he refused. Kept saying she’d poison me against you, but she’s the only person who told me you still loved me. I don’t believe her, but she tries. So, here I am. Stuck in a house I don’t want to live in with a man I don’t like, and now my father shows up out of the blue saying he’s sorry. Yeah, my life is now complete.”
The sassiness definitely comes from Lex, and Zane’s kind of proud of her for it. “I don’t really know what to say,” he says, his voice hoarse as he finally takes a breath in.
Laughing, Margaret shakes her head. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?I’m sorry, andI don’t know what to say?Jesus, you’ve had over a fucking year, and that’s the best you can come up with?”
“I lost myself,” he admits, but he knows it sounds weak.
She lifts an eyebrow. “Ya think?”
“Losing your mom the way we did really fucked me up. Brought me back to how it was when I lost my mom because I never learned to deal with those feelings. I spiraled, kid. It makes up for nothing, I know, but leaving was the best thing I could do for you at the time. I wasn’t a dad.”
“Still aren’t, last I checked.”
He nods and sniffles. Looking at her becomes impossible, and he looks at the ground. He wipes at his eyes, hoping she doesn’t notice. The last thing she deserves is to see him completely fall apart.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve a hell of a lot more than that!” she shouts.
Her bookbag hits the grass, and he looks up to see one pissed off teenager. “Don’t go destroying things because you’re pissed at me.”
“You were terrible! Not only did you try to kill Lex, you were going to drive me on your bike completely blitzed. The things you said… And then you left me!” she says, wiping her eyes angrily. “I promised Mom I’d stand by you because you needed me, but you left me parentless!”
“I was really messed up—”
