I think back to everything I'd written about NYU. It was really just the one essay, the thing I wrote to get the McCaroll scholarship in the first place. He must've read that. I didn't exactly go around announcing I wanted to be a psychologist, and the only one I'd told about NYU was the scholarship committee.
So Wolf somehow sneaked a read of my essay. Why? Why bother with something as insignificant as that? Maybe he was nosy. Truth made its clear little voice known; he wasn't nosy. He sent out red-cards to people who did stuff he didn't like. He read my essay so he can know what I'm all about, so he knows exactly what kind of trouble the scholarship student will be, and whether or not I'll play by his little rules.
"Ass," I muttered, pulling up the driveway of home. The sight of our duplex unknotted some deep anger I didn't know I was holding inside. At least home was free of the Blackthorns.
I climbed the stairs and was greeted in the doorway by the smell of burning. A cold wave of terror ran through me - was it a fire? I had to get Dad out, before the smoke hurt him, unless it already had -
I dropped my bags and dashed inside, covering my nose with my sleeve.
"Dad?" I shouted. I found the source of the smoke in the kitchen - a pot of tomato sauce was burning. I took it off and turned the heat down, throwing open the kitchen window to let the smoke out.
"Dad!" Flinging open the doors to their room, my room, the bathroom, I finally found him sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the floor.
"There you are," I collapsed at his side. My eyes darted to his wrists, but Dad scoffed and muttered.
"I didn't hurt myself, if that's what you're worried about."
"I didn't -" I tore my eyes from his wrists and looked to his haggard face. He hadn't shaved in a few days, but he rarely did, these days. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it, Dad. I was just worried. You left the sauce on the stove, and I -"
"I know what I did, Bee," He snapped, head moving up. Mom always said I looked most like him, with brown-gray hair, like a silver summer fox. His was grayer than mine, with white streaks just barely showing at his temples. Dad's eyes are my blue ones, pale and a little too large for our square faces, but his were bloodshot and irritated more often than not.
"I was making dinner. I came in here to take my pills," He breathed. "And then I realized - why do I take them at all, if no one is home to take them for?"
I felt sick to my stomach. "Dad -"
"They make me normal," He said evenly. "They make me act like a normal person, right? So why should I take them if I'm alone for most of the day? If I'm by myself, I can be as abnormal as I want. I can -"
He faltered, his eyes going dim as he looked at me. "I'm sorry, Bee. I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's okay," I smiled, jumping up and fishing a paper cup and his pills from the cabinet. I filled it with water, and handed it to him. I tried to dredge up what little I remembered from the books I'd checked out. I shouldn't be confrontational, the books said, but I should always keep the focus on the patient's well-being. "If you don't want to take them today, that's fine. It's just, you might feel better if you do."
Dad stared at the pills, then looked up at me.
"Alright."
I watched him swallow the pills with water, and though his smile afterwards seemed forced, it was still a smile.
"Well, I burned dinner. So."
"Spaghett about it!" I crowed. "I can order us a pizza."
Dad nodded tiredly. "Might as well."
I watched Dad as we settled in to catch crappy soap operas on the couch. It was a thing we'd always done together; grab a bowl of popcorn, find the most hilariously bad show, and make fun of every overdramatic plot twist. That used to be my ideal Saturday night.
Now, though, it was a different story.
Dad tried - at the beginning of his diagnosis, I know he tried his hardest every day to act like nothing was wrong for me. But that lasted four months. The days when he wouldn't get out of bed began to get more and more frequent, and he'd come out feeling bad about staying in bed so long. It was a vicious cycle. Mom was understanding, and she loved him, but their fights had been getting more and more frequent. They weren't really traditional 'fights' - most of the time Dad would retreat to his basement workshop before a real fight could break out. When he came up, Mom would accuse him of running from his problems, of being a coward, and the whole thing would start all over again, on another day, during a different dinner. Sometimes, she'd go down there after him, and I'd hear crying from the basement. When they'd come up, they'd be a little friendlier to each other. I don't know what happened down there, and I never would - I couldn't stand to listen to the crying for more than a few seconds. It always felt like the sound itself was a monster trying to rip my chest open.