He wanted to buy me a car for my birthday. A gift specifically from him out of his much smaller salary than Mom’s. Getting me a car would mean the two of us spending more time together, because it wouldn’t be Mom going along with me to practice, unless it was the weekend.
After taking the online driver’s ed course last fall, I’d avoided getting the hours I needed to get my license after watching Sam and a couple of my other friends go out driving with their fathers. I didn’t have a dad. Just Daniel.
Who had a picture of me on his desk at work like I was his daughter.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, looking up at him. “I have until February, right?”
Daniel nodded, closing the laptop.
I was feeling sad at the reminder that my dad was gone forever, but, recognizing Daniel’s thoughtfulness, I tried to give him an authentic smile. “Thank you.”
In the middle of the night, I woke needing the bathroom. As I stole out on tiptoes, I heard voices downstairs. Mom’s door was open, and one of her lamps was on, but she wasn’t in the room.
Though quiet, the tone of the conversation was urgent.
Was this when Mom and Daniel talk—in the middle of the night? Curious, I crept down the stairs and into the hall until I could make out their conversation.
“And this is why I avoid you!” Mom was saying. “Every conversation turns into an argument.”
“Seriously? Can we act like mature adults for once?” Daniel asked.
Tears burned in my eyes. Why’d you even marry him, Mom? I turned around, dark source turning in my stomach.
“Jenn, she still wants you to be her mom!”
I came up short. They’re talking about me?
“She runs away from me every time I try to talk with her.”
I paused, looking back at the kitchen, brows furrowed. Anger surged inside me. The only reason she’d talked to me tonight was because we’d arrived home at the same time.
“How often is that?” Daniel asked.
Silence.
“I failed her—” Mom’s voice sounded weepy as she trailed. “Maybe it’s time you told her the truth.”
“No, I’m not going to tell her a sob story to get her to like me. I’m not her father, nor will I ever be. I didn’t get to adopt her. You did. She’s your daughter and will be no matter how much you think you’ve failed.”
“It might help your relationship with her if you told her—”
“Jenn! We had this conversation when we got married. I’m not having it again.” Footsteps approached me from the kitchen but paused out of sight.
“I don’t know.” Mom sounded sad.
“Jenn,” Daniel said softly. “Tara has less than two years left here, but it’s not too late.”
I retreated back up to my room.
It took me awhile to fall back asleep. Not too late.
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure how I’d respond if Mom attempted to reach out more.
And what had she meant? What truth had Daniel kept from me that she thought would help me like him more? I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes.
Asher’s face floated across my mind.
I had to work with him tomorrow. Chances were, I would mess things up all over again.
I wish I had a safe person. Someone that I knew would never fail me.
Slipping into dreamland, Holden’s voice echoed to me from a conversation in the past. Give Daniel a chance, Tara.
11. “I don’t bite”
As I approached the door headed into Montrose’s classroom, my stomach turned with dark source. Why was I so nervous about working with Asher? Because Sam had her eyes on him first, that’s why, and I didn’t want further vengeance. Everyone was on her side, not mine. What if they all turned on me again?
Before entering, I glanced at Asher’s anime drawing inside my notebook with his note below. Give me a chance. His phone number written neatly alongside it.
I smiled.
Over and over, Asher kept dropping hints he wanted to be friends. I really wanted that, too. From personality to looks, he was funny, kind, and attractive. I had to steel myself against the scorn of Samantha Darcy and company.
Speaking of Asher, he was coming my way. My heart was about to burst. There was no way to dodge interaction, so I looked him straight in the eye. His green eyes were gorgeous. I was speechless.
“Ready, Tara?” Asher grinned as he passed, pausing briefly in the doorway.
“I’ll be right in.” I offered up a smile, my heart ticking away with nervous anticipation.
Sam couldn’t be mad at me if the reason I was hanging out with Asher was because Montrose paired us together. It’s not like I’d actively gone out of my way to work with him.
Taking a deep breath, I entered the room after Asher. “Okay,” I muttered.
Twirling his pen, Asher was already at our table, reading the assignment page.
Give him a chance. My throat felt dry, and my heart beat too fast. He was just my lit partner.
But not only was he attractive, he was also interested in being friends. It wasn’t often those two worlds collided.
I glanced to where Jack and Lydia sat side by side. Lydia was reading a book, ignoring Jack. He poked Lydia in the shoulder, and I slipped into my seat next to Asher, still torn between squealing at my luck and terror that this would end in Samantha’s revenge. Or worse—I somehow masterminded my own destruction.
Immediately, I was overcome by the mint of Asher’s chewing gum. Taking a deep breath, I felt my nerves calm.
He smiled. “Hello.”
He was gorgeous and noble, and I was so not worth his interest. I nodded my head in greeting, barely gifting him a smile.
“Relax,” he whispered. “I don’t bite.”
“I know that. What’s the next question we’re supposed to answer?” I hugged myself to keep from rubbing shoulders with Asher, even though I really wanted to rub shoulders.
“Describe your family.”
“My family?” My heart plummeted. “Oh, boy.” I scratched behind my ear.
“Don’t tell me that’s as complicated as the day you were born?” Asher asked.
Standing behind his computer, Montrose glanced our way, and a smirk crossed his face like he’d heard Asher’s question.
The jerk. I could still remember the confusion on Montrose’s face from about four years ago when Holden introduced his “family” to his basketball coach and explained who we all were.
I didn’t want to talk about my family—what teen, even with a normal family, wants that to be the focus of conversation with a new friend, let alone an attractive one?
Montrose turned on a radio station. The song that came on was one Gran listened to all the time when I was with her as a small toddler. What were the chances this would play as I was being forced to talk about family?
“Let’s talk about yours first,” I said.
He moved the paper over to me and handed me his ball point pen with green ink. “Get ready to write.”
I took the green pen. Let the tension go, Tara. “Blue or black ink not good enough for you?” I teased in an effort to lighten my anxiety toward him.
He chuckled. The sound made positive source flourish in me, taking me a little off guard.
Asher looked at his pen. “A gift from one of my sisters who never writes with blue or black.”
I found myself smiling, and he seemed to brighten up even more, which added more to the positive source swirling inside me.
“So there’s my mom, Judith, and dad, Wade. They’re still married after thirty-five years, surprisingly.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, and I wrote that down.
“Thirty-five?” I thought back to the dark-haired lady I’d seen the night before. She hadn’t looked old enough to be married that long. Mom and Daniel were only forty-two. Which meant, they’d only been five when Asher’s parents got married.
“High school sweethearts.” He shrugged. “I have five bro
thers and three sisters. I’m the youngest.”
My eyes grew wide. I looked at my fingers to add it all up. “There are nine of you?” I whispered.
Mischief entered his green eyes. “No, there’s just one of me.”
I laughed. Everything felt so easy between us. “Right. But nine kids all in one family? The only family I know that rivals yours is Jack’s, and there are only six.”
He grabbed the paper from me. “Your turn.”
“Wait!” I tried to grab it back. “You have to tell me about your brothers and sisters.”
“That’ll take all period.” Asher held the paper in front of him, giving me a teasing smile.
Warmth spread in my heart. “I was hoping for that.”
Asher lifted an eyebrow. “Your family?”
“It’s kind of complicated.”
“Like the day you were born.”
I laughed. “Okay. Honestly, I’m not sure where to begin. Who my family is has changed several times.”
“Oh…” A question lurked unspoken in his expression. One I figured he thought too personal to ask.
“I should give you the short of it without confusing details.”
“All right, so start there.”
“Well, there’s my mom, Jenn, my stepdad, Daniel, my brothers, Holden and Nathaniel, and my sister, Ashley.”
“That doesn’t sound all that complicated.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
From behind his desk, Montrose glanced our way. He leaned over the desk and whispered conspiratorially, “None of them are actually biologically related to her.”
Our table was way too close to his desk. I glared at him. “Are you eavesdropping?”
“Just caught your last comments.” Someone knocked on the door. Montrose looked over as Vice Principal Gordon opened it. “Carry on,” he told the class before stepping into the hall.
Asher turned toward me, giving me a serious expression. “Talking about your family makes you anxious, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not like yours. Mom and Dad meeting in high school, happily raising twelve kids together.”
“Nine.”
“Yeah, I exaggerated.”
“If you aren’t comfortable talking about them, then we can move on. But I’d love to know more.”
I glanced at the next question. Who were your best friends in elementary school?
That was another sore topic. Behind me, Lydia and Jack’s voices were hushed and arguing about something that had happened when we were kids. Something I’d stayed out of even back then.
Looking at Montrose through the glass window, I could tell by his disgruntled expression that he wasn’t coming back any time soon, so I probably had time to go into detail.
If I was honest with myself, I wanted to open up with Asher. Part of that was telling the story of my crazy past.
“You want to move on?” Asher asked.
“No—sorry. So, when I was a baby, I lived in foster care for a year in California.”
“California? How’d you end up in Indiana?”
I smiled. “I don’t know the logistics of it all, but about the same time my gran finally got custody of me, my dad found out I existed. He was in Chicago, finishing his medical residency, not really capable of taking care of a one-year-old on his own. Since Gran was originally from Chicago and had family there, he helped move her back and worked it out with her family that they’d be my primary guardians, with daily two-hour visitations in the afternoon.”
Gran’s front window flashed across my mind, bringing with it the feeling of longing that had consumed me as a little girl. I used to wait hours, looking outside, watching for Dad and Jenn, as I called Mom back then since they weren’t married, to pick me up, so I could have dinner and play with them. Occasionally, just Mom would arrive. But my aunt, who Gran and I lived with, refused to let me go with her. Thinking back on it, I don’t know why Jenn tried over and over again without Dad. Dad always came a couple hours later, furious but controlled.
“Wait, so even though he’d found you, you still didn’t even live with your dad?” Asher asked.
I shook my head. “Not initially. Moving to Chicago meant I finally met Jenn, my dad’s fiancée. We’d visited over video chat several times, and I was pretty excited to meet her. She was two years ahead of Dad in the same residency, and they’d planned on getting married when she finished. She’d already promised I could be her flower girl.” Meeting Jenn—our instant connection—was one of my earliest memories. Through tears, I smiled because the memory was a bitter-sweet one. “When they got married, Jenn officially adopted me and brought me with her to Indiana where she’d gotten a job.” Talking about Mom in the past made me realize that a part of me still really longed for a relationship in the present.
Like I was still behind Gran’s window, waiting for her to pick me up for the afternoon.
“Jack’s mom watched me during the day while she worked.” Asher’s gaze drifted to where Jack sat diagonal behind me, and I noticed Lydia and Jack weren’t talking despite the uproar and chatter around us. I wondered if they were listening. They would know this part of my story better than anyone.
What if I wasn’t so resistant to Lydia? Could we be friends again?
“Two years later, Dad finished his residency and started working at the same hospital. Mom—Jenn—gained full custody of her son, Holden, and Dad adopted him. Life was wonderful for a fantastic four years.” I smiled, lingering in the happy feeling that came over me thinking back to those years. “Until the fall after I turned ten when my dad died. We moved across town. Less than a year later, Mom married Daniel.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve always thought. They don’t even like each other, so I’m not even sure how it happened.”
Concern filled Asher’s eyes. “What’s your Dad’s name?” Asher asked softly.
“Oh,” I’d never actually called him by name. “Hiskia.” Voicing Dad’s name aloud to someone six years later brought a strange measure of comfort. Like he still existed. Was still remembered.
“Hiskia?” Asher repeated.
“Yeah,” then, noticing that he was trying to write that down, I spelled it out for him, “H-I-S-K-I-A.”
“I’ve never heard that name before.” He glanced at me, still the worry in his expression.
Time to lighten the mood. “My grandparents are Swedish.” I grinned. “They gave each of their kids obscure Nordic names. My dad, Hiskia, then my uncles, Einar and Halvard, then my aunt Bodilla.”
“Wow. Yeah, never heard any of those either.” He was smiling again.
Grandma and Grandpa Evedon had both been changeling alvs, resulting in a mixed brood. Dad and Halvard were pure alv, while Bodilla was a changeling like me, and Einar just a natural talented human. But that was a part of the story Asher wouldn’t get.
“Halvard’s friends call him Art, and Bodilla always went by Isla, because she liked it more than Illa. Einar was stubborn and wouldn’t let anyone call him by a nickname. He gets annoyed when I call him Nar.”
Asher chuckled. “Do they live near here?”
“Halvard and Einar are in Minnesota near my Grandma Evedon, which is where Dad grew up. My aunt, Isla, is somewhere here in Indiana. I don’t know where. She and my father had a falling out right before Dad died.”
Something about demons.
Asher looked at me with concern when I said that, but I rushed ahead, not wanting to talk about that. “Daniel and Mom don’t like her.”
Montrose reentered the classroom, looking grim, and sat down at his computer, immediately typing something.
“Whatever happened to your biological mother?” Asher asked.
“I have no idea. After my birth, she cut off ties with Gran, who says she moved to Europe and hasn’t called in years.”
“You’ve kept in contact with your grandma?”
“Somewhat. She’s in a nursing home near Chicago and doesn’t really remember me, but
I used to visit a couple of times a year.” It was time to finish talking about me. “So back to the original question. I live with my step-dad, Daniel, and adopted mom, Jenn. My older brother Holden is Jenn’s son from her first marriage.”
“Holden?” A stitch formed on his forehead.
I nodded. “Then there’s me, the accidental child of no marriage, followed by Nathaniel, Daniel’s nephew, and last there’s my sister, Oops, Jenn and Daniel’s baby.”
“Whoa, slow down a bit.”
“There, that’s my complicated family and why I’m not actually biologically related to any of them.”
“Did you say your sister’s name is Oops?”
“Her real name’s Ashley.” I attempted a teasing smile that probably looked awkward. “But I’ve always called her Oops. As a baby, it made her laugh, so it stuck.”
Asher’s adorable crooked grin lit up his face. “So, she likes it?”
“Yes. It still makes her smile. Now, it’s your turn. Tell me about your siblings. All eight of them.”
Montrose stood up from his desk. “One more minute!” he called.
So not fair. We took way too much time on me.
“Get ready to write, “ Asher said. “‘Cause I’m going to go fast.”
I grabbed his green pen.
“Lancelot and Arthur, the oldest, are twins. Like their namesakes, they were close friends until a girl came into the picture. But this time, Arthur won out, and Lance joined the Air Force to escape heartbreak.”
I couldn’t help but smile as I wrote down Lancelot and Arthur. Any parents giving their sons those names were asking for trouble.
“Kennedy, the next brother, is a lawyer in Kentucky. He’s married and has two kids; calls on Sundays; visits at Christmas. Abraham is trying to get into the same med school his wife was accepted into last year. Becca has babies. Janiece is on her way to becoming a brain surgeon; tranquilly Buddhist. Lana teaches fourth grade in Portage; her students are her children.”
“Is that where you’re from?” I interrupted.
“Kind of nearby.”
I nodded. “You didn’t move far.”
Asher shrugged. “No, I didn’t. My parents still work their same jobs.”
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