I can only imagine what story she’s going to spin.
Without another option, I hurry down the stairs and head right after them.
Whatever Blythe is in the middle of saying stops abruptly the moment she notices me.
“Hey, sweetie.” Dad sounds tentative, looking at me in clear confusion. “I thought for sure you would have already left.”
“She wasn’t ‘feeling up to it.’” Blythe says this in the kind of ‘polite’ doublespeak I’d imagine one might use when talking about an escaped mental patient while they’re in the room. The pitying look she adds with this only cements the statement as she mouths,“Stress,”like I’m not literally facing her.
I’m about to tell them both that I’m ‘feeling’ more than ‘up to it,’ but Blythe cuts in front of me, telling my father that he should go change. “Dinner will be ready any minute,” she coos. “Ali, would you mind setting the table?”
I ignore her, following Dad up the stairs to the master bedroom. “Actually, I still want to go out,” I tell him as calmly as I can, “but Blythe said I couldn’t.”
He waves me off with a smile, like I’m being silly. “I already talked to her after I got off the phone with you. It’s fine. Go.”
Taking Jase’s advice…I tell him.
I tell him what really happened.
I tell him about her cornering me in my room. I tell him about her threats of sending me to Camp Zurich and St. Vincent’s—
And he’s looking at me like I really am crazy.
It’s only at this moment that I realize how ridiculous Blythe’s comments were.
And that’s what she intended.
She knew if I tattled, I would sound stupid. It would sound like the kind of impulsive, exaggerated lie of a bratty teenager.
She played me like a fiddle…
“Seriously, Ali?” Blythe’s voice cuts through the quiet like a chainsaw. Not because of its abrasiveness.
No.
She sounds anythingbut.
She sounds hurt.
“Doctor Fritz talked to you about this victimhood mentality,” she says, all too patient. “Making excuses to rationalize your stress will only hinder your progress. You should have gone to the party, but if you didn’t think you could handle it, throwing somebody else under the bus is really unfair, foreveryone.”
Is she fucking kidding?
My therapist has never said shit about such a thing, because Idon’tdo it!
“She grabbed my face hard enough that it bruised,” I insist, lifting my chin high enough to show my dad the purplish red mark on my jaw from where Blythe’s thumb had been.
“Ali was using a tennis racquet earlier.” She says this like it’s all the explaining she needs, making a sound I can’t decipher…until the crocodile tears begin.
I’ve never hated a person in my entire life.
Until this very moment.
I’m trying to get my dad to listen, to tell him thatshe’sthe one who’s lying, but it’s clear I’m the designated “problem” in the room. Because he’s consolingher. He’s whispering words of assurance toher. He’s ignoring me completely, as if it’ll make me go away, because he obviously doesn’t want to have to deal with me at this moment. Not when their precious dinner guests are waiting downstairs.
Blythe’s tears may be bullshit, but mine aren’t. The choked cry that escapes me may as well be a death rattle, because that’s what my insides do as I race to my bedroom. They die. What else is there to do when your heart breaks, when it no longer serves its purpose?
Jase must be psychic, because the moment I slam my door shut, my cell vibrates from the nightstand with an incoming text message.
