Wild(17)

            Idiot. Wrenching my hand off myself, I rolled over onto my side, punching my pillow with my fist twice, feeling somewhat better and vowing to forget about Logan. He was not the kind of guy I needed to fixate on. I knew the kind of guy that worked best for me . . . If I found him, great. If not, then I was just fine alone. I had a bright future with or without a guy in it.

            I drifted off to sleep, feeling angry at myself, which was probably a bad idea. I slept fitfully, weird images plaguing me.

            I was drowning in my dream, tangled up in an ocean full of pearls. I kept waving to the lifeguard standing on shore, who was Harris one moment and then Logan in the next. Finally hearing my cries, Logan dove into the pearls and swam out to me, but before he could reach me I went down, choking, lost in a sea of pearls.

            MONDAY ROLLED AROUND AND I got so busy that I didn’t get around to calling Mr. Berenger. At least that’s what I told myself. Tuesday arrived, though, and I still didn’t call him.

            I couldn’t stop thinking about Reece’s offer to stay in the apartment above Mulvaney’s. It tiptoed around me, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts every day. I turned it around in my head, trying to rationalize how I could make it work, how I could do something like that without my parents totally flipping out on me. Simple. I couldn’t.

            When Mom called Wednesday night to check on whether I had called about the bank job, my excuse sounded lame even to my ears.

            “Sorry, Mom. My study group ran late. By the time I got out it was past five.” I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror hanging on my door. I was a horrible liar. If Mom could see me, she’d know. My brown eyes had gone really big under my eyebrows and the color faded from my skin—like I was surprised at the words coming out of my mouth.

            “This isn’t like you, Georgia. I asked you to call him on Monday. I’m starting to wonder if you even want this job.”

            “I do,” I insisted, grimacing a little at my lying reflection. My bothersome eyebrows, several shades darker than my blond hair, lifted high as I made my excuses.

            “Well, I certainly hope so. Because your father and I certainly aren’t going to let you sit around all summer, hanging out by the pool and getting pedicures. Even Amber has her summer lined up lifeguarding at the neighborhood pool. Responsibility, Georgia. We expect nothing less from you.”

            When have I ever done anything less than be responsible?

            I bit back the caustic reply . . . and others that scalded the back of my throat. I’ve been the perfect daughter. I’ve done everything my parents ever told me to do. Everything they expected. In high school, when Mom insisted that I give up the guitar and drop out of choir for the debate team, I did. When they said I should be a business major, I did that, too. When had I ever given her a reason to think I needed a lecture on responsibility?

            “I’ll call him in the morning,” I promised.

            “I hope so.” She sighed. “Don’t disappoint me, Georgia.” Laced beneath the words I hear the words she never says, but are there just the same.

            Don’t fail me like your father did.

            My real father. Not the man she married when I was three. No. The father who left me when I was two months old because he couldn’t handle the responsibilities of a wife, child, marriage, and job.

            My birth father had been a musician. I never met him. He took gigs anywhere he could get them and lived in his van. When I showed an aptitude for music, Mom only allowed me to pursue it until high school. She insisted that with my heavy course load, something had to go and music was it. I knew, though, deep down, that Mom hated that part of me because it reminded her of my father. So I had let that part of myself go, almost ashamed of it, wanting only to please my mother and stepfather.