At the Stars(62)

Mariana taps one stiletto-clad foot like she needs to get someplace in a hurry. Or find a bug to squash. “You can’t just abandon family.”

“I can if it’s abandoned me first.”

Now she gives me a look like she’s already fed up with me. It’s a look I know well, and I wonder where she gets off. Does she remember the night I left like I do? Has she conveniently rewritten history? “You need to come home, Jackson. Your father isn’t doing well. We all need to be a family right now.”

I’m half out of my chair before I sit down again. All the crap food I ate a few minutes ago mixes in my stomach while I wonder and worry what might be wrong with Dad. Wrong enough that Resting Bitchface here would drive all this way herself.

Fuck, I should have picked up the phone when he called.

I can’t ask. It gives her power I can’t afford. “There’s no way. Remember what you threatened me with when I left? Why the fuck would I come home now?”

The trouble is, I do want to go. If Dad’s sick, I should be there. But to come when she crooks her scaly claw? I can’t.

This bullshit isn’t the way I wanted Cassie to learn about my shit with Mariana. With my family. Still, it was going to come out. Cassie said to rip off the scab.

Well, here comes the blood.





20. SLIVER OF DOUBT


Cassie

Maybe it’s the look on her face, or maybe it’s knowing that Jake wants her gone, but this woman standing in front of us reeks of toxicity. The way Jake’s grasp on my fingers gets tighter and more brittle at the same time and the way her eyes flash from Jake to me with a strange kind of... sizing up, make me wonder if this isn’t bigger than maybe the lawn guy fathered Jake’s sister.

I could still be wrong about that one. It’s a leap. Either way, trouble’s brewing.

“Who’s this?” She turns back to me suddenly, swiveling on a sharp heel.

Jake squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to answer her.”

I squeeze back, and hold out my other hand anyway. Because I’m trying this new thing, learning to be positive. I figure it’s best to be nice first. “I’m Cassie.”

She looks at my hand like I blew a booger on it and makes no move to shake back. It was worth a try I guess.

“Cassie.” She says my name like it tastes shitty in her mouth. That’s a new one for me, and I sure can’t say I like the experience.

“Like I said. That’s my name.” Something about the woman is starting to remind me of Judy Troutwell, the woman in my Public Speaking 201 course who thought I was a little too know-it-all. She sat up front during all of my speeches and whispered through them to try and distract me, occasionally correcting facts she thought I’d gotten wrong (that weren’t really wrong, thank you very much).

Well, if this woman couldn’t be civil, I sure wasn’t gonna try to help her out.

“Hmmm. Are you the girlfriend?” Asked in an equally distasteful fashion.

So I gave her an answer she’d find equally distasteful. “Nah. I’m his booking agent. He’s the hottest thing in gay porn these days, hadn’t you heard?”

She barks out a sharp, angry-sounding laugh. “Oh, you’re funny. She’s funny, Jackson.” She looks from Jake to me and back again. “Does she think the reason you left home is funny? Or does she not know about the fact that I had you first?”

Oh, wait. Ew. She did what? Really?

This is such a brain-bleach moment. Granted, I know damn well no such thing exists. If it did, I’d have invested in ten tons of the stuff. That doesn’t stop me from mentally casting for anything at all that can keep me from picturing that thing she said.

Baseball. Kittens. An otter taking a bath. Suicide bombers. Cooking shows.

I had you first.

GAAAAH!

Jake’s mouth twists. He pulls his hands away to stand, and I’ve never seen him look so angry as he steps forward, carefully staying out of the circle of her personal space.

He growls, fists clenched. “I didn’t touch you. Not once. You will take it all back, you vile bitch, or I will never show my face in that house again. Never.”

What the fuck? The implication in those words makes my insides get chilly, but I can’t believe that of Jake. I don’t want to. If his dad is sick, he needs to go. Regardless of what this woman is saying.

The stepmother’s expression contorts, going from cocky to pissed-off. “Your father wants you to come home. I haven’t told him yet. Be good and stop thinking you’ve got leverage, or I’ll break the news that his precious golden boy isn’t so golden.”

So is this it? The thing he was afraid of me knowing. He screwed his stepmother or at least she’s been threatening to tell his father that he did. Whether he did it or not, she’s been holding it over his head.