Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88646 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“She’s had a tough life, but she’s a good girl,” I murmur, daring my dad to say otherwise as I flash a look at him.
She nods. “If you care for her, then I will too.”
I watch as she picks up a family photo of us. Her fingers trace over our faces. “Kurt had his demons. Maybe demons your father and I created with so much expectation.” Her voice hitches. “I mean, we’ll never know why he started using drugs, but one thing is true . . .” She turns to my dad. “We can’t do the same thing to Eric. It’s not fair. He wants another life. He wants to be happy.”
My voice quakes. “Mom?”
Dad comes around his desk and stands in front of her. “Marilyn . . .”
She cups his cheek. “Let him be himself, darling. Let go of this legacy thing. You let yourself get all worked up over it, but it has to stop. Eric has been miserable here with us. Even I can see that.”
I walk over and hug my mother tight as a shudder of relief ripples over me. I don’t know what happened to wake her up. Maybe it was the incident at the party. Maybe it was hearing me say that I don’t want this life.
“Thank you,” I say as I kiss the top of her head.
Her lips tremble as she looks up at me. “You’re a beautiful person, Eric. You’ve endured so much, and none of it was your fault. I want you to know that. I’m sure I said it before, and if I didn’t, I should have. Now, go call Julia and let us know when you guys want to visit us again.”
I glance at my dad, who’s plopped back in his chair, a confused look on his face.
I’m too angry at him to care. I kiss Mom’s cheek and walk out of the house.
33
Julia
The sun shines. Bees buzz. Birds chirp. And daffodils are trying to bloom.
I’m on the campus green, taking photographs of anything and everything. Even though it’s late February, the temperature is in the sixties—a fluke—and everyone soaks up the pretty weather. I’ve traded my fleece jacket for a sundress. Poppy has a blanket out, and like the little nurturer she is, she brought a picnic basket with peanut butter sandwiches, cookies, and lemonade. I feel like I’m in a Hallmark movie.
Nearby a group of people play ultimate frisbee and their laughter floats across the park. Girls have brought towels, and a few crazy ones are in bikinis. An elderly couple walks hand in hand on the tree-lined path around the park.
I snap photo after photo. That’s what my boss at the Sparrow Lake News wants—human interest photos. They give me a topic each week, and I dash out and take hundreds of photos, then send them to the editor, who meets with his staff to choose the pic to write about.
I make less money at the paper than I did stripping, but I’m managing thanks to another job I picked up. Hello. Meet the best server at The Noodle Bar, a ramen restaurant off campus that opened last month. It’s quite the hit, and while the tips aren’t up to Platinum Nights standards, it’s enough. I laugh. It’s ironic that I spent years eating ramen because it’s cheap and now I’m serving them to college students for tips.
My mom is still recovering at the rehab facility but will be released soon. She has speech difficulties but has relearned to walk, and that’s huge. She’s moving in with us in another month. Taylor and Poppy and I worked on one of the empty rooms downstairs, formerly a parlor of some sort, and turned it into a space for her to have a bed and whatever else I can find at secondhand stores.
“This isn’t exactly hard-hitting news,” Poppy observes as I snap a photo of the old couple. They are so adorable that I sigh wistfully.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I’ve been the subject of enough news. A couple of weeks after I reported Parker, Sparrow Lake News picked up the story, a vague piece about a sexual assault on campus. All the Kappas knew what it was about and soon word got around to everyone that it was me. I was scared of retaliation from them, but it never came.
The story grew when five more women filed reports. Most of the fingers pointed to Parker and Scott, and this time there was no sweeping it under the rug. I’ll likely have to go to trial, or perhaps Parker will take a plea deal. I don’t know yet.
To add more fuel to the fire, the Kappa chapter was hit with a hazing scandal. When the administration didn’t investigate Boone’s claims, his parents sent what happened to Boone to a newspaper in St. Paul. They ran his account and Twitter went bonkers. Everyone wanted to know why our administration was ignoring hazing. Well. They aren’t anymore.