Page 71 of It's in the Contract
Dad’s voice is heavy with exhaustion, like bread dough without enough oomph to rise. When I take a step back and set my backpack down, I see the bags under his eyes and the slump in his shoulders.
Mom sits at the table next to him, and I take a seat across from them. Nervousness floods me all over again. Butter snuffles and snorts her way into the kitchen. When she sees me, her doggy grin lights up her face, and she waddles under the table to sit on my feet. I reach down and give her a loving pat.
“You’re back from LA early. What’s going on?” I ask, straightening.
Dad and Mom exchange looks.
“Everything’s fine,” Dad says. “I’ll be flying back to LA tomorrow morning.”
Mom pulls up something on her phone and then hands it to me.
I scan the screen. It’s an article in a prominent online celebrity gossip magazine. The picture is of me and Zeke, his arms wrapped around me and my face buried in his chest. My mouth drops open.
We look intimate. Close. The photo quality isn’t great, but it’s very clearly me. My face is visible, right next to Zeke’s heart. And Zeke is very clearly . . . Zeke. He’s wearing one of his dorky t-shirts that I used to think were odd but now I find so very endearing. His style is simple and so him, nothing like the trendy looks that the magazines used to publish of Noah and I.
I should’ve seen this coming.
I skim the article while Mom and Dad wait in silence. The writer assumes that Zeke and I are a secret couple, and they go on and on about how far my standards have fallen, how low I’ve set my sights. How the breakup with Noah must’ve truly broken me. Worse, the article assumes that Zeke and I are sleeping together and that I’m some kind of slut who will sleep with anyone now that Noah’s dumped me.
I set the phone down, rage making my hand shake. The phone clatters to the table. Nausea does back handsprings in my stomach.
How could they do this?How could they say those awful, awful things about me? About Zeke?
“This . . . this isn’t true,” I say. “Zeke and I aren’t—we’re not—” I trail off, knowing nothing I say matters, but I want to explain myself anyway. “Zeke and I aren’t a couple, and I haven’t become some kind of tramp who sleeps around. Zeke was helping me with something, that’s all.”
Mom crosses her arms over her chest, her nostrils flaring. “That’s not what it looks like, Cal. Helping you with what?”
My face burns.
Dad leans forward, his face slightly more gentle, but still upset. His mint green polo looks rumpled, like he came straight from the airport and sat down to talk without getting changed. “Callie, we know you would never intentionally damage our family’s reputation.”
“I don’t have feelings for Zeke. He’s just a friend.” I swallow and force out the lie. “He was helping me get over my fear of heights. We were at the Space Needle. I just wanted someone to hold on to because . . . I was scared.”
I can’t explain my terror to them, I can’t explain how it helped so much to have Zeke holding me, and I can’t explain the feeling I got when I raised my head and looked out over the city for the first time.
And the worst part is, the gossip sites don’t care. It doesn’t matter what really happened, only that they got their article—Ben Carter’s daughter fallen so low after getting her heart ripped out by a boy.
“This article is so full of crap, how can you believe it for one second?” I say, letting my anger fill my voice.
Dad puts one hand on top of mine. “Of course we don’t believe it, Cal.”
Mom eyes him sideways.
“But it doesn’t matter what we think,” Dad says. “You know that. Gossip like this . . . it could destroy you. It could destroy our family.”
Butter farts a wet one from where she’s resting—right on my feet!—and a part of me wants to laugh wildly, but I hold it in.
Guilt makes my stomach sink. “Dad, I . . . I wasn’t thinking.”
“We’re disappointed in you,” Mom says. “Your actions reflect badly on your dad, and you know how much is at stake right now. This could be a tipping point in his career. And have you checked your votes lately?” Mom holds up her phone with the voting site pulled up. Brielle is at four hundred and eighty, and I’m at a measly two hundred and five. My heart sinks down to my toes.
I’m failing. In every way, I’m failing.
“And what are all these posts?” Mom taps over to my Instagram page. “Every picture you’ve been posting lately has been you and that boy. It just adds fuel to the fire for these gossip articles. What have you been thinking?”
I look from Mom to Dad. Mom’s face is red, her eyebrows angry. Dad gives me a gentle smile, but his eyes crease with concern. They wait for an explanation. I glance down, ashamed. “I thought . . . I thought that if I showed I was friends with a nerd, I could get the nerds to vote for me.” It sounds stupid now. What was I thinking?
Mom’s voice comes out jagged. “I could’ve told you that that will never work. If you’d just involved me in your plans more?—”
