by Blair Young
“Well, I think it’s better if I just showed you,” she said. She pulled out a small box, about the size of an envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked. Both the top and the bottom halves of the box were wrapped, but they were able to be pulled apart easily.
“Open it,” she smiled.
Intrigued, I obeyed. I pulled the lid off the present and gasped. Susan laughed and clapped her hands together. “Are you excited?”
There, inside the box, was a small pile of papers. They were various receipts – two reservations for the tour at Harvard that was coming up the following weekend, a hotel room reservation, and two dinner reservations.
“I thought you and I could take the trip up to Massachusetts next weekend and check out Harvard. There’s going to be a few tours the school is giving, and we can feel out the town – and I thought you might like to sample some of the food they’re offering before you made the actual commitment,” Susan winked at me and I laughed.
“That’s the most important part, you got that right,” I said. “Oh, my God! I can’t wait!”
“Me too! I thought you’d be excited for it!” Susan beamed. And, she was right. I was. The thought of getting away from Secret Bay for a weekend – and getting to spend the time with just Susan – sounded great. Dean wouldn’t be there to interrupt, and I would have the chance to get to know Susan without Damon there watching the interaction.
He knew that Susan was my real mother, but it was still hard at times for me to really talk to her the way I wanted to with him around. They didn’t get along as well as I wanted to get along with her, and I knew that had to have something to do with hit.
I was loyal to Damon first and foremost, but that didn’t change the fact that Susan was my mother, and I really did want to know her to some extent. She wasn’t the person I thought of when I thought of my mom. That was my adopted mom, but, I still wanted to have a relationship with her if at all possible.
“When are we leaving?” I asked.
“We can leave late Friday night, or early Saturday morning, whichever is better for your homework,” she said with a smile. “I thought I would give you a week to think about what you wanted to do for school so you aren’t overwhelmed when it gets here.”
“Good idea,” I said with a grin of my own. “I can’t wait!”
“You’ll only need to pack light. We’re not going to need a lot with what the hotel has to offer and eating out,” Susan said.
“What hotel, and eating out where?” Dean’s voice broke into my thoughts as he suddenly appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, and I was sure my face visibly fell. I didn’t hear him come in, and with the way Susan nearly jumped out of her skin on the couch, I got the impression she didn’t, either.
“I’m going to take Sutton up to Harvard to check out the school next weekend,” Susan said. “So you and Damon will have the run of the place. Maybe you can work on some of that father son bonding time you were talking about.”
I hadn’t heard anything about that, and I could only imagine how Damon would react when he heard he was supposed to be bonding with Dean. Either way, it clearly didn’t work on him.
“You’re going to take Sutton to Massachusetts, and you didn’t bother to ask me first?” Dean asked.
“Last I checked, I didn’t need to ask you when I was taking one of the kids out to do anything,” Susan said with a laugh. “I’m a big girl, and so is Sutton, I think we can handle it.”
Dean clearly didn’t see the humor in the situation. He was getting angrier and angrier by the second.
“You aren’t going anywhere without me. You and I talked about this just last night! I don’t want you taking these little trips as you call them without me knowing where you are going or what you are doing! What on earth are you thinking?” he snapped.
“I’m thinking that I’m going to take my foster daughter to see the college she wants to attend next fall!” Susan snapped right back at him. I was getting a knot in the pit of my stomach, and I was about ready to tell Dean to screw off and leave us alone when he slapped his hand against the doorframe, hard.
It was the first time I’d seen him do something like that, and it startled me. I hated violence, even if he was directing it against the wall. It was just one more reason I hated Dean, and I wished Susan would break up with him again. I had no idea why he was even in the house to begin with, and he was just making it worse when he acted this way.
“You aren’t going!” he announced. “I told you last night you aren’t going to be pulling crap like this anymore, and I meant it! They made virtual tours for a reason, and there’s the brochure if you really want to see what the place looks like!”
I nearly burst into tears, but Susan tried to make the situation better. “Look, this means a lot to Sutton, and I don’t want to disappoint her after I told her that I’m going to show her the campus. Why don’t you come with us? Damon will be fine alone for the weekend, or if he wants to come, we can make this a family affair.”
My heart sank. I didn’t want Dean to come. I didn’t want him to be involved in this at all. And, if Damon came, I knew the entire conversation in the car would be dominated by the two of them. Not that I didn’t love to hear what Damon had to say, but it was different with Dean around.
I had to be a lot more careful about the things that I said, and with Damon there, I wasn’t going to get the chance to talk to Susan like I wanted to. Not to mention, Dean always watched Susan like a hawk. He would make it harder than Damon to get at Susan and bond with her like I wanted.
No, if the both of them were coming, this was going to be more of a chore than anything. I was losing enthusiasm for the trip, that was for sure, but I tried not to let it show on my face. I didn’t want Susan to see how disappointed I was with Dean going, and I really didn’t want Dean to see it, either.
It was bad enough watching him lay into Susan the way that he did, I didn’t want him to start yelling at me, too. I could see how hard it would have been for Damon when he was dealing with an abusive father growing up. At least Dean had the good sense not to abuse any of us. He just yelled and threw tantrums.
“It’s too short of notice for me to come!” Dean snapped. “We’ve got things to do at the shop!”
Before Susan had the chance to say anything else, he turned and stormed out of the kitchen, opening the garage door and slamming it closed behind him. Susan took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have talked to Dean about this before I told you. I didn’t know it was going to be such a big deal to him.”
“I didn’t, either. I didn’t know he cared that much about where I went to college,” I said, hoping Susan would read between the lines of what I was saying. “Would it be better if we went Saturday morning so we weren’t gone so long?”
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do yet,” Susan said, breaking my heart. “I don’t want this to cause problems with Dean, but I know it means a lot to you, too. Give me some time to think about this and we’ll see if we can find a way to make it work for everyone, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I got up and headed out of the room. I could sense by the feel in the air Susan wanted to say more to me, but she was more worried about what Dean thought than bonding with her own daughter. I could imagine it was difficult for her to be in that position, but it was frustrating for me, too.
I wanted to get to know her, and I wanted her to stand up to Dean and make that happen. But, she was either afraid of him, or too blinded by him to really see what was going on in the house – and with her own foster kids.
No, I would just have to take the back burner in this situation again and wait it out, hoping that Susan would do the right thing and come around. I hoped she would put Dean in his place and take me to see the college, but I got the feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
It seemed everyone else in my life got higher priority than me, especially when it came to Dean and what he wanted. But, I wouldn’t complain to Susan, or
Dean, either, for that matter. I would just go along with whatever happened, reminding myself that I didn’t need to see the campus before I moved. Shoot, I didn’t see this house before I moved in, and I didn’t get to see Secret Bay High before I moved, either.
So, I would treat college much the same way. If Dean was going to control Susan, then he could control her. I wasn’t going to let him control me, and whether I got to see the campus first or not, I was going to keep fighting until I got to go. That was my dream, and I was making it come true. No matter who I had to stand up against to make that happen, it was going to happen.
I’d set my mind to it, and I wasn’t backing down.
And that was final.
Chapter 13
Sutton
Why the heck is she even with him? Why can’t she see how controlling he is? Why won’t she stand up to him? Hitting the wall like that was not okay! That was abusive behavior that was meant to intimidate and scare us into doing what he wanted – and I can’t believe it worked!
How dare he use his strength and attitude to control either one of us like that? How dare he do that to the woman he claims he loves? Just how dare he do any of that? It doesn’t make any sense!
How dare he? How dare he?
I was slamming my pillow and clothes around in my room, muttering to myself about how ridiculous it was for Susan to put up with that kind of treatment. I wanted to believe that I never would put up with it if I were her, but then, I did put up with it when I just let him talk to both of us that way.
Damon wouldn’t have just sat through that if it was Susan talking to him like that. I knew him well enough to know that he would have said something to her about not being able to tell him what to do and that he was almost an adult and he wasn’t going to stand for such treatment.
I wasn’t sure how he would have reacted to Dean treating us that way if he’d been home. He always stood up for me, but then, Damon couldn’t seem to see Dean as anything but a father figure in his life. No matter what Dean did, Damon would turn a blind eye to it and just let it slide, just viewing the man as the father that he’d never had.
But, I had a father growing up. Biological or not, I knew how a father should treat the other members of his family, and that wasn’t the way he should behave. I didn’t care what anyone else had to say about it, that was wrong, and I didn’t understand why anyone in the house put up with it.
Susan should have told him to get out a long time ago as far as I was concerned, but she seemed so blinded by love, or maybe it was fear, but whatever it was, she just went along with it like it was nothing.
Then, it struck me. What if Dean had something over her? What if he was blackmailing her and that was the reason she was always doing what he said without asking any questions or doing anything about the way he treated her? What if he had something on her that she couldn’t shake? Something that was so big and bad she just had to do anything he told her or her life would be ruined?
You did have that thought – the thought that you convinced yourself was crazy – but a thought that makes sense. Perhaps there was more to your gut instinct before and you should have listened to that. Maybe there was more to the story than what Susan’s letting on, and that’s the entire reason why she’s being so nice to you now.
Maybe sending you off to your dream college is her way of making up being gone for so much of your life – and for the fact that she’s the one who took you from the life that you’d come to think was your own.
There had to be some reason why she’d given you up for adoption in the first place, and perhaps it wasn’t her choice to do it. Maybe she had to wait for seventeen years before she was able to finally care for you – and when she couldn’t get you back, she took matters into her own hands and made sure she got you back.
Dead men tell no tales, do they? And, men who’re getting what they want also manage to keep their mouths shut quite nicely. That would make a lot of sense as to why Dean was suddenly allowed back into our lives. Maybe he found out that Susan had something to do with the death of my parents, and that’s why she let him back in the house.
Maybe if she doesn’t do what he says, he’s going to go to the cops and expose her. Maybe that’s why he’s allowed to act like a dictator, and she doesn’t do a thing about it.
“Sutton!”
Damon’s voice suddenly cut through the air behind me, and I nearly screamed. I had been so lost in thought, I didn’t hear him come in. But, I had been pondering such an intense subject, I felt incredibly on edge.
“Wow, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said with a laugh. “You were a million miles away, what’s going on?”
“Sorry,” I said with a sigh. “I was just thinking.”
“I mean, I noticed,” Damon said. “I brought you this.”
He handed me an ice cream cone, and I smiled. “Thanks.”
“Care to tell me what’s on your mind? You seem really jumpy,” Damon said. He had a cone of his own, and he sat on the side of my bed and started licking it as I explained what happened downstairs with Susan and Dean.
“Dean got so upset with the fact that Susan was going to take me to the college and said that he didn’t want her going anywhere without it being a family vacation, and there’s no time for him to make plans to go with us next weekend, and now Susan’s not sure if we’re going to be able to go at all,” I said with a sigh.
There was a lump in the back of my throat, but the last thing I wanted was to break down in tears. I didn’t want this to be a big deal, but it was hard for me to talk about it. I wanted Harvard so bad. I wanted nothing more than to get some sort of degree from there – to live in Massachusetts, to say goodbye to all this drama that I dealt with in Secret Bay.
But, even with Susan telling me she was going to help me pay for it – with her telling me she was going to take me to see it – I still felt like it wasn’t ever going to really happen. It felt more like something she wanted to give me but knew there was no way she ever really could.
She might have the best intentions of making it happen, but the best intentions didn’t pay for school, and they didn’t get me to Massachusetts.
“I just don’t get why she lets Dean push her around like that. If you’d seen the way that he reacted, it was just obnoxious,” I said with a shake of my head. I was sure Damon was going to say something to protect Dean in some way, but he just sighed.
“He’s changed a lot over the past few months. I mean, I don’t remember him ever being so controlling before. But, I don’t know, maybe the breakup did something to him and he’s afraid it’s going to happen again or something,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Is he different to you, too?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Damon said with a shrug. “But I knew him pretty well before. At least, I thought I did. And he’s different. He didn’t used to fight with Susan all the time, either. I mean, they do now, and they did a lot right before the breakup, but most of my life they really did have a great relationship.”
“It makes me suspicious,” I said.
“Of what?” Damon asked.
“I mean, when Susan told me that she was my real mother, the first thing I thought of was the fact that that gave her a motive for murder,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to explain what I meant, but at the same time, there really was no way to sugar coat something like that.
“Murder?” Damon asked. “You think Susan had something to do with your parents dying?”
“It makes sense that she would take all of Dean’s controlling abuse if she was being blackmailed by him. Maybe she didn’t do it directly, but maybe she was involved somehow and he knew about it,” I said. “I’m not saying that that is what happened, I’m just saying that it’s possible.”
Damon licked his ice cream cone for a moment in silence. “She was on that file that your dad had active when he died.”
“Dean, too,” I said with a nod. “Doesn’t that have to say something, too?
”
“I mean, it never hurts to look into something like that, does it?” he asked.
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said with a sigh. “Not that it’s going to make much of a difference. I mean, how am I going to turn in my own mother – my real mother – to the cops for murder when I’ve been living with her for like four months and we don’t have any solid proof?”
“You get that proof first, silly,” Damon said with a grin. “Just investigate and see if you can prove it one way or the other like you did with both of my parents.”
I nodded. I had managed to clear both of their names, and I didn’t even need to meet them to do it. So, with the right resources, I could find a way to figure out if Susan was at least potentially guilty beyond what I was already suspecting.
“But,” I said with another sigh. “This doesn’t help me with my college issue.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Damon said with a grin.
I looked at him with raised eyebrows, and he smirked. “If Susan can’t take you for whatever reason, I will.”
Finally, he managed to get a full, genuine grin out of me. I hadn’t thought of that before, but with everything already booked, there was no reason to think that we couldn’t do it on our own. Not to mention I had a feeling Damon would be happy to tell Susan and Dean how he really felt if they were going to try to tell him that we couldn’t go for any reason.
He had the guts to tell both of them what Susan and I were too afraid to tell Dean earlier. He was nearly an adult, and he was old enough to make his own decisions. He wanted to take me to see the college, and with everything already paid for, there was no reason for us to waste the money.
Susan could stay home with Dean, and we could have the time of our lives up in Massachusetts. The more I thought about it, the more fun it sounded than even going with Susan. Sure, I wanted to get to know her more, but Damon and I were the two who would be living up there together, he might as well get the chance to see if he liked the town before moving, too.