Chapter 15
I don’t say anything as my dad comes into my room. After he shuts the door and turns around, it takes everything in me not to shrink down into the bed in response to the look he gives me. It’s icy venom that chills my body and punctures my heart.
“Hey.” I pretend he doesn’t affect me, that it doesn’t matter what he thinks.
Placing my phone on the bedspread beside me, I purposefully turn the screen side down so he can’t see it. The text I dictated to Peace is only half-finished, and I know he wouldn’t be pleased that I started complaining about him to her the moment I came upstairs.
“What am I going to do with you?” Dad brings the chair from the desk to the side of the bed where I’m propped up against the headboard. Exhaling heavily, he shakes his head at me, then drags both hands through his brown hair. He’s frustrated and at the end of his rope with me. Sometimes what he doesn’t say hurts as much as what he does.
I pop off. “You can let me off the hook. For shit that isn’t a big deal.”
“It is a big deal, Bo.” His gray-green eyes are the same shade as mine, only his are frosty with disapproval.
“I know how to handle your guitar.”
Playing the shit out of anything with strings is the one thing I’m good at. With a guitar in my hand, the world makes sense to me. My dad and I both play the instrument well. We have that in common. Being good on the guitar is all I have left to earn his approval.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is then?” I ask bitterly, knowing I’m always on the sharp end of it.
“You disobeyed me.” He shakes his head. Again. “You have no respect for me. Or for the rules. And I don’t think you care that you got Peace into trouble.”
“I guess you missed the part where she said playing your guitar was her idea.”
“I know better.” His gaze sharpens. “She lied for you.”
He’s right. She did. Peace Jinkins has my back, and I have hers.
“What’s it going to take to get you on the right path?”
Dad poses the question, but I can tell he already has an answer. He believes I’m a lost cause. He thinks there’s nothing to prevent me from going bad. Maybe he’s right.
“You mean the path you want for me?” My sharp gaze clatters like steel against his.
“I’ll settle for one where you don’t get into trouble at school, or at least one that makes me and your mother worry less.” He leans forward. “Even your grandma is concerned about you.”
“You don’t know what it’s like.” I dredge up the words from deep inside me.
The bit about my grandmother is a low blow. He’s never mentioned her being disappointed in me.
“It’s shit for me at school.” I’ve shared this part before. He has no reaction to it now just like the other times.
“You go to one of the highest-rated schools in the province. It’s not that bad. Try surviving one day at any school in Southside, and you’ll realize quickly how good you have it.”
He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to.
“So send me to Southside.” I lift my chin. I’d do all right. I’m tougher than he’ll ever admit.
“Not Southside.” He lets out another loud breath like he’s a tire leaking air. “But after winter break, you’ll be going to a new school, one for troubled teens. You got expelled from Burrard.”
“But—”
“If you wanted to stay there, then you should have followed the rules.”
My dad tunes me out like he does with all my explanations. He doesn’t get it, doesn’t care to get how school was okay for me until the reading and math part started. With the numbers and letters scrambled, I can’t make sense of any of that shit. It’s embarrassing.
“I don’t care.” I wave a dismissive hand. “Send me wherever the fuck you want.”
But the truth is, I do care. I care what the other kids think. What my mom thinks. What he thinks, most of all. But I’ll never admit it. The days are long past that I’ll admit anything to him.
“You should care.” My dad drops his head into his hands. “I don’t know where I failed you, Bo, but I’m afraid you’re going to end up just like my father.”
His dad was an abusive drunk who skipped out on his family. I curl my fingers into fists, but there’s no enemy to fight. Just him and his unchangeable low opinion of me.
His brows draw together when I press my lips into a flat line, and I don’t say anything. “Maybe you’ll care more when you don’t have it so easy and have more time to think.”
I glare at him. But inside, a part of me coils into a tight ball, protecting that tiny part that’s still vulnerable to him.
“Give me your phone.” He holds out his hand. “You’re going without it until I see a consistent change in your behavior.”
“No.”
I snatch it away before he can take it. I don’t want him to read the texts I sent Peace. Opening the screen, I quickly delete them.
“Not that you care or believe me.” I toss the phone toward him, and he catches it. “But I only finish fights at school. I never start them.”
“You escalate them.” He gives me a sad look that makes my tense stomach turn sour.
I don’t even know what that word means, but I sure as shit won’t ask him to explain.
My dad doesn’t get why I fight, and he doesn’t seem to remember that you can’t back down when you’re being bullied. I’m done trying to reach him. I’m going to do what I want to do.
I don’t need him or anyone else. I have Peace now.