Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“Well, there’s a heat advisory today. Maybe you need to think about wearing something else.”
“I’m not going to wear the slutty dresses Mom bought for me. Those are the only kind of clothes I have besides what I usually wear. Remember the dress I wore to the party?” When I nod, she says, “That’s what I’m talking about. There’s nothing normal. Nothing I could wear to school.”
This is ridiculous. I can’t believe I have to worry about what a grown woman wears outside the house. But she’s so damn stubborn, I wouldn’t put it past her to end up dying of heat stroke or some shit, all to prove a point. I don’t feel like carrying that on my conscience.
There’s nothing happening today I can’t miss, and that’s probably the same for her. “Okay. I know what we have to do.”
Her brows draw together when she frowns. “Why do I have a bad feeling?”
“Because you are a very suspicious person.” I’m kidding, but it’s also the truth. “I’m taking you out shopping. We can use my card. Well, Dad’s card.”
“Shopping?” Again with the skepticism. She arches an eyebrow and purses her lips, sizing me up. “For what?”
“Health insurance. What do you think I’m talking about?” Sometimes, I swear she plays dumb just to piss me off. And it’s working, too. “For clothes. Clothes you can be comfortable in on hot days. You can’t walk around like that all summer—do you really want to be miserable?”
“You don’t need to do this.” She wants to close herself off again. I see it. The shoulders are starting to go up.
“Stop yourself right now,” I warn. It only takes a few long strides to round the island between us—it hits me there was a time she would have flinched away, scared of me, but not now. She stands her ground as I take her by the shoulders. Today’s thick sweater is rough under my hands. Was she seriously going to go out in this? “It looks like we’re just going to keep knocking down these barriers you put up. Yesterday, it was the pool. Today, it’s your clothes. Tell me the truth. Are you really happy dressing this way?”
She wants to say yes. I see it written all over her face. She wishes she could tell me she likes dressing this way just to shut me up. She has to know I would never believe her. She’s stubborn, not stupid. Lowering her gaze, she sighs. “I never really thought about it as happy or unhappy.”
“Safe?” I guess, and she nods with another sigh. “You don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. There’s nothing anybody can say to you that makes a damn bit of difference if you don’t want it to. Right? You are strong, and you’re worth more than that.”
“Do you believe that?” She searches my face with those big, brown eyes, and I almost want to hide from the way they seem to stare through me. Do I believe it?
“Yes,” I reply, nodding firmly. “I do believe it. And you’re going to believe it, too, if it kills me.”
“I just don’t get you sometimes.”
Yeah, that makes two of us. “We’re cutting school today.” She makes a sound that tells me she doesn’t agree, but I didn’t ask whether she agrees. “We’re going shopping, because you need clothes. End of story.”
“We can’t just cut school to go shopping.”
“Says who? I disagree. This is making sure you have what you need, and that’s important. And fuck anybody who wants to argue with me about it—including you.”
“Wow,” she whispers, snorting. “I had no idea it meant that much to you.”
That’s the thing. Neither did I.
It turns out there’s a lot of things that mean something to me, things I never thought about before. Almost like there’s part of me I didn’t know existed until she entered my life.
And when I think back on how much I didn’t want her around, it disgusts me. She’s not her mom, but I punished her, anyway. It feels like taking her shopping so she can be comfortable is the least I can do.
“I still don’t feel super comfortable with this. I don’t like attention—you should know that by now.” It’s like I told her we have to go to the electric chair today.
“I’ve never met a girl who didn’t want to go shopping.”
“Not all girls are the same,” she points out, making me drop my hands to my sides and sigh like she’s breaking my ass, because she is. “Have the girls you know been dragged around by their mom and picked apart the whole time?”
“Honestly? Probably. I’m not trying to tell you what you feel doesn’t matter, but I know you’re not the only girl who’s ever gone through that. Maybe you’ll like it better without your mom being around. You could actually enjoy it.”