Page 97 of Charlie and Her Sweet Escape
Gratitude warred with resentment as Dad took the lead in following the trail. It was a complicated swirl of emotion that I was too wrung out to process.
We hiked for hours, and I had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I stumbled over more roots than I stepped over, and Dad finally made us rest and eat another snack he’d sneaked in. It was just like him to think he was above the rules. But at this point, he’d already shot a gun—which was more likely to disqualify me from winning than eating fruit snacks. My righteous indignation had been left for dead back with that wolverine.
“Is this Charlie really worth risking everything?” Dad asked.
I balled up the plastic trash and stuffed it into my backpack. “You know when you’ve been out at sea for days, or you’re backpacking through mud and filth on a really hot day, and everything is sticking to you and miserable, and then you get home and jump into a cool shower, and you just stand under the stream? Charlie is that.” I ached to see her. After being with her nonstop for all these weeks, a part of me was missing without her. “Loving someone is being willing to risk everything.”
Dad grunted in response.
“Do you regret leaving?” I asked.
He hesitated a beat. “Sometimes.”
“Well, great. Thanks.” I didn’t know why I continued to let him hurt me.
“I’m trying to be honest with you.” He grabbed my arm to pull me to a stop. “I’m not like you kids. I’m not made to stay. I was never meant for that domestic life. But it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. That I didn’t love your mom. I know it’s easy to try to categorize people into boxes. I left, so I’m bad. Fine. I did what I had to do to survive, just like you and your siblings did. Just like you’re doing now.” He points to the nearly gone beef jerky in my hand—clear evidence of my willingness to negotiateon the rules when it benefited me—his expression fierce. “It’s easy to say you know what you’d do in a situation, but you don’t know what I’ve had to deal with. I gave you a good childhood, didn’t I?”
My anger flattened into fatigue. “But you continue making selfish decisions. You keep using us. You can’t crash into our lives and then bounce out like your actions don’t affect us.” I clenched my jaw. I had to set boundaries, even if it was hard to do so. Not just for me, but for Haydn, Jules, and Rosie.
“I know my methods are?—”
“Stop. I need you to acknowledge that you can’t keep using us.”
“That’s not what I’m?—”
“Dad.” I scrubbed at my face and sighed. Disappointment when it came to my dad was a familiar emotion, and yet, I’d never get used to it. “I appreciate everything you’ve done to help, but I need to continue this alone.”
“You need me to track her.”
“I mean more than just here on the show. I need time and space. A lot of it.” The words felt right as I said them, even though they hurt. “I’ll contact you when I’m ready to talk again.”
Dad looked surprised, like this was the last thing he expected me to say. “Try to help, and this is the thanks I get.”
“Okay,” I said, sounding as emotionally exhausted as I felt. I knew he could get back to camp without me. I was the less experienced tracker—if anything, I was at more risk of getting lost than he was. But it was a risk I was willing to take. That Ineededto take.
Orin had see-sawed his love for me until I never knew if I was up or down, and knowing that was critical to how our days were going to go, so I’d scrambled like an inexperienced juggler with too many balls to keep happy. To keep him there.
He knew that. And he’d exploited that.
I wouldn’t let him exploit it again.
“I’ll just say this,” Dad said as he walked around me, in the opposite direction of where we were going. “The girl isn’t going to be waiting. The show is playing you.”
“What?”
“That old boyfriend of hers, what’s his name? He was at base camp with me. He’d come to make up with her and take her home. When she chooses him, she gets all her mom’s med bills paid off, and you won’t find out until you get to where they took her and she’s not there. Sounds humiliating, right? But it’s great television.”
I felt the punch of every word.
“Should’ve listened to your old man. I would have walked with you to the end.” Dad patted me on the shoulder, as if that would make his words sympathetic instead of cruel, and disappeared into the thick woods.
Leaving me completely, utterly alone.
44
BENNETT
The rain came not long after my dad left.
