Page 50 of The Freedom in Captivity

Air that doesn’t smell like Morning Glories or freshly fallen rain. Like Rozelyn.

Like my every mistake and my every desire.

Rozelyn

The moment I enter Dad’s dark office, he slams a file folder onto his desk. Although curious what’s inside, all I’m thinking as I pace toward him is how depressing this room is. No wonder Dad’s soul is so black—it matches the environment he immerses himself in.

Stopping just shy of the other side of his desk, I plaster a fake smile onto my face and wait for him to gesture toward the file. I’ve learned early on to never assume with him.

“Hi, Dad.”

Dad isn’t smiling back. His chin lifts as he reclines back in his desk chair. He’s studying me, watching me in that weird way he does, like he’s assessing me. After ten seconds—I count—he decides he’s satisfied with whatever he’s found, or didn’t, and gestures toward the folder.

“Look inside.”

With permission, I flip open the top flap and my stomach drops at what I’m seeing. There’s no fake smile that will get me through this moment, and Dad knows it, I’m sure.

Pictures. Dozens of them.

Of Flynn.

Walking downtown, his head low, hood up. But the picture’s taken from the front so I know it’s him.

Entering a tiny house, one the size of Dad’s garage. The white siding is peeling, and the paint chipped. The once-red door has lost so much paint, the wood beneath is showing. There’s a crack in the living room window, but Flynn’s sticking a key into the door, so I presume this is the very house he despises going home to each night.

Of Flynn and me together. In class, the picture snapped from afar, zoomed to catch us through the windows. Outside, lying on the grass. Walking through the halls hand-in-hand. Me sitting on the bench while Flynn remains a few feet away, cigarette between his fingers.

Beneath the pictures are documents. School records. Details about him.

“Break that off or I break him, you little whore. Fucking some lowlife isn’t what your mother hand in mind when she agreed to send you there. End whatever that,” he waves his hand carelessly to the folder in my hand, “is or I send men to Flynn Rhodes’ house. Tomorrow, Rozelyn. Or he’s dead.”

End my relationship? He wants me tobreak upwith the only person who heals the pain this family dredges me through.

“Dad. You can’t—”

He slams his fist on his desk, cutting off my words. “I can and I fucking will. Your mother is on her deathbed, and I was curious why you were so insistent to keep going to school lately.He’sthe reason, I see.”

I don’t bother denying the truth. It’ll only piss him off more.

“You’re a fucking disgrace, Rozelyn. To me, to your mother, to your heritage. Spreading your legs like some whore for that good-for-nothing kid is shameful. All you’re doing is abandoning your lineage and there’s only one way this will end.”

Dad can say what he wants about me; it’s nothing I haven’t heard before and learned to deal with. But putting down Flynn won’t do. Not him, who’s beeneverythingto me. Who is more than Dad will ever be. Flynn’s a decent human being and that’s more than I can say about the other male in the room.

“Tomorrow,” he repeats with a finality.

Every nerve inside me is screaming to fight this, to fight him, but I stare at the pictures again, feeling my heart slipping away second by second. I can’t argue with him because Dad will do what he’s threatening.

“Besides,” he continues, his tone lighter now that he’s won, “you’re graduating very soon. What did you expect afterwards? To still be with him?”

I did. Or at least I pretended that was the plan when, really, I have no idea how I was managing that next step.

“Fine,” I whisper because there’s no other acceptable response. “But you don’t know him.” Contrary to all the information he’s had dredged up. “Flynn won’t let this go easily.”

For the first time since I’ve walked in, Dad’s flat expression breaks into something I pretend is care. It definitely isn’t, but it’s gentler than anything else. He sits forward, leaning on his desk.

“Then break his heart, Rozelyn. If you know him as well as you claim you do, then you’ll know precisely what to say.”

I do.

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