Chapter 31Not
Thirty-One
Or Not
On Monday morning, in the middle of chemistry, I woke up my phone. The screen said nine thirty in the morning. Dad’s trial must be well underway.
A picture of him in orange flashed like a beacon in my mind. An image of a prison cell with metal bars came next.
Stop it. Just stop it. You are not going to the trial to be an exhibit. You’re just not.
I glanced at Dallas’s empty seat. It shouldn’t bother me that he was a no-show. He’d told me that he didn’t know if he’d be back by Monday, but his absence and lack of contact hurt. He hadn’t bothered to text me all weekend.
After class, Jay and I walked together to our next one. I was having a hard time keeping up with him. My legs just wouldn’t cooperate.
“I take it that you still haven’t been sleeping very well.” Jay blew another bubble with the gum he was chewing, and I grimaced. The popping sound was driving me crazy.
“Do I look that bad?”
“No, not bad. Just more tired than usual.”
I sighed. He was right. My insomnia hadn’t relented.
“Doesn’t your dad’s trial start today?” Jay asked.
“Yes.” My shoulders tensed.
“And you didn’t go?”
I tried to relax. “No.”
“Why?”
But me trying to stay calm was difficult. “You know why.”
“If you’re worried about missing classes, you know I’d take good notes for you, and the chemistry test later this week is early in the morning and won’t last more than an hour.”
I stared at him and sighed. “I don’t want anyone to know who I am. And if I go, I could be found out.”
Jay slowed his pace. “But he’s your dad. The only dad you’re ever going to get.”
An ache swelled in the back of my throat. Ugh.
“Besides,” I said, “if I went, Priya and Emma would wonder where I was going every day.”
He halted. “Wait, are you saying that you haven’t told Priya and Emma who your dad is yet?”
I shrugged. “You should have seen Priya’s reaction the other day when she saw my dad on the news.”
He moaned, loud and hard. “It’s official. I don’t get girls at all.”
“Even if I thought I could unload all of my baggage on them like that”—I sucked in my cheeks—“their perception of me would be forever changed.”
“You claim them to be your best friends, but when it comes down to it, you’ve never shared with them anything that’s really important about yourself. Including the one thing they should know.”
We arrived at the entrance to the building that held our calculus class. Jay ascended the concrete stairs, and I followed behind.
He started into the lecture hall, and I grabbed him by the elbow. “Obviously, you never noticed how my high school friends stopped talking to me after they found out about my dad. I never want that to happen again. Ever.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“You don’t count. We weren’t friends in high school. We were classmates, but we didn’t socialize outside of that.”
His brows drew together.
“The summer after graduation, the girls I used to hang out with stopped talking to me.”
“Even your best friend, Sarah?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“That sucks.” His lanky posture stooped. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. We all went off to different colleges, and we would have grown apart a little anyway, but still. They just cut me off.”
“Those girls,” he said. “If they abandoned you, they were never your friends to begin with. Priya and Emma, they wouldn’t do that.”
We sat down in class, and I thought back to the fall of my senior year, when my friends and I had toilet-papered another girl’s house—a girl who’d had the audacity not to invite us over for a gathering, so Sarah had decided we’d play a practical joke on her.
It wasn’t a moment I was proud of. It also should have been the moment I realized that Sarah wasn’t a kindhearted person.
Jay was right. Priya and Emma wouldn’t abandon me.
That afternoon, I met them at the rec center to run the indoor track. We changed, stretched, and started jogging. Me inserted between them, keeping pace all together.
Two laps in, my heart pounded, my legs were weak, and I was dizzy enough that I kept thinking I might fall flat on my face.
On the third lap, I took a deep breath and said, “Do you remember the other night…when the news came on…and they mentioned Coach David Bianchini?”
“The night we watched my zombie show with Dallas?” Priya asked.
“Yes.” This time I caught my breath and let out a long exhale to prepare. “Okay, so I need to tell you both something important about Coach Bianchini that I don’t want you to tell anyone else.”
Emma locked in her pace to mine. “What in the world, Ade?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and grimaced. “He’s my dad.”
Emma halted with a gasp.
Priya stopped midstride. Her face contorted.
Since I was still jogging, I pivoted backward and paused.
I held my breath and waited for them to say something, anything.
“I thought…” Priya said. “I thought you said your dad lived out of state, and that’s why we haven’t met him.”
“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. I lied.”
They began to walk hesitantly, and I dropped in alongside them.
I told them the entire gut-wrenching story.
From the news reporters that had camped out on the street in front of my house trying to get a statement from anyone who would stop, to the last months of my senior year falling apart, to graduation day, when I’d been so badly humiliated that I’d gone home and taken a Vicodin, the ones prescribed to me back when I’d had my wisdom teeth pulled out, and then my mom finding me drugged out in my bed.
There had been so much pain inside me, and I’d just wanted it to go away.
Then I brought them up to the present—the trial having started, my mom being there, and Jay telling me I should go because my dad is the only dad I’ll ever have.
After all that, I half expected them to turn and run from me as fast as they could. But like Jay promised, they didn’t. They were true friends.
“This is so horrible.” Priya’s eyes were still wide in shock. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I know I should have told you both sooner, but I’ve been trying really hard for people not to find out. Jay knows, of course.”
“And your brother—is your brother Eric Bianchini?” Emma asked.
I nodded.
“He is so hot,” she mumbled.
I laughed out loud. “I was expecting you to get all judgy on me, Emma, not obsess about my brother.”
“I can’t believe I’ve known you since August, and all of this time, I could have met your hot hockey-playing brother and you kept this from us!”
Priya nodded. “Not only that, but the fact is, you’re famous.”
“You mean famously hated.”
“Back to your brother.” Emma held her chin high. “They shouldn’t have taken him off the list for the Hobey Baker Award. It wasn’t fair.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s doing fine.” I waved my hand. “Way better than me. He’s playing for the AHL in Canada.”
“So why aren’t you at the trial?” Priya asked.
“Honestly?"
“Yes. What’s holding you back?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. A difficult question.
“At first, I thought it was resentment. Because I was angry at my dad. But now…well…I think the truth is I’m afraid.
I’m afraid of people finding out who I am.
I’m afraid of being judged all over again.
I don’t think I can take it a second time.
Being the target of so much hatred.” A shiver went down my arms. “I have PTSD just thinking about it. It must be the reason I can’t sleep. ”
“I’m so sorry, Ade,” Priya said, hugging me. “So very sorry.”
Emma joined us, putting her arms around both of us. “Me too.”
Their unexpected show of love made the tension in my muscles release. I should have told them the truth about my dad long ago.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Priya said.
“We’re here for you, Ade.” Emma smiled.
Together, we went into the locker room and changed back into our street clothes.
“How do you think your mom is holding up?” Priya asked.
I winced. That same thought had been popping into my brain all day. “Not sure. I’ll text her.”
Priya and Emma left to get to their next classes, and I sat on a cushioned seat in the lobby, staring at the ceiling.
I pulled out my phone and sent a text.
Hi, Mom. How’s the trial?
I didn’t know how long it would take her to respond, or if she’d respond at all, but right now it was really important to me that she got my message.
I waited and…nothing. So, I turned off the screen and put the phone in my back pocket.
When I got back to the dorm and was walking down the hallway to my room, my phone dinged.
MOM
Jury selection today and probably the rest of tomorrow.
How are you doing?
MOM
It’s hard.
Then came a slight moment of hesitation. I knew what I needed to ask her. I knew that it was what I should do, what I needed to do. I had to get rid of this fear. It was all-consuming.
Do you want me to come sit with you?
MOM
I thought you were a hard no.
My gut squeezed.
I’ll come.
MOM
Oh, sweetie. You don’t have to. Your dad and I will survive.
Don’t talk me out of it. I’ll come tomorrow.
MOM
Wednesday morning would be better. After the jury is selected.
We’ll pick you up.
We?
MOM
Yeah, your dad and I.
Is there any way you could drop Dad off first and then come get me?
I just couldn’t stomach it. Dad in the car in the parking lot of my dorm. Dad walking with Mom and me from the car to court.
MOM
Oh. Sure. I guess that would work. How about 8:30a?
Sounds good.
Whew.
Next stop: Dallas’s door and a knock that went unanswered.
Where the hell was he?