Chapter 35 Thirty Five
Chapter 35 Thirty Five
Zara
I was sitting in the campus coffee shop with Clara and Mia an hour after my last class ended, stirring a latte I had not taken more than two sips of and trying to pretend that I was listening to Mia complain about her psych professor. The coffee shop was busy with the after-class rush, students huddled over laptops and textbooks and half-eaten pastries, the noise should have been comforting, should have made me feel like a normal girl with normal problems instead of someone whose life was slowly turning into a nightmare she could not wake up from.
"...and then he said that if I did not turn in the paper by Friday he would deduct a whole letter grade, which is complete bullshit because the syllabus says we have a two-week grace period..." Mia was saying, but I stopped hearing her because my phone buzzed against the table, and I looked down at the screen and my heart stopped.
Dad: Come home now. It is urgent.
I stared at the message, trying to figure out what it meant and why my father was texting me after weeks of silence.
"What is it?" Clara asked, leaning over to look at my phone, when she read the message her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. "Your dad? What does he want?"
"I do not know," I said, my voice came out flat, I was trying very hard not to panic and failing miserably. "I have not talked to him since the convention, since that fight when he told me to get out of his house, now he is texting me like nothing happened and telling me to come home like I am still a kid who has to follow his orders."
Mia leaned across the table and grabbed my phone, reading the message for herself before handing it back with a scowl on her face. "Do not go. He treated you like garbage last time, Zara, he called you names, took your car and froze your credit card and basically told you that his secretary matters more than you do, now he wants you to come running just because he snapped his fingers? Fuck that. Fuck him. You do not owe him anything."
Clara was quieter, watching my face with that worried look she always wore when she spoke her voice was gentle. "You should go, Zara. Not because he deserves it, or because you owe him anything, but because he said it is urgent, something might actually be wrong, and if you do not go and something bad happens you will spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you had just shown up. Go see what he wants. If it is nothing, if he is just being dramatic, you can leave. But at least you will know."
I wanted to argue, wanted to tell her that I was done letting my father jerk me around, done showing up when he called and taking whatever verbal abuse he decided to throw at me, but the word urgent was still echoing in my head and I could not shake the feeling that something was actually wrong, that this was not just my father being controlling, that there was a reason he had texted me instead of waiting for me to call him like he usually did.
"Fine," I said, standing up and grabbing my bag. "I will go. But if he starts yelling at me about my attitude or my spending or whatever bullshit he has decided to be mad about this time, I am walking right back out the door and I am not coming back."
Mia reached out and squeezed my hand. "Text us when you know what is going on. And if you need us to come get you, we will be there in twenty minutes, no questions asked."
Clara nodded. "Seriously. Twenty minutes. Just say the word."
I kissed them both on the cheek. I did not know how else to thank them for being the only stable things in my life right now, then I walked out of the coffee shop and called an Uber and tried to prepare myself for whatever was waiting for me at my father's house in Bellevue.
The Uber dropped me off in front of the house, I stood on the sidewalk for a long time just looking at the place where I had grown up, the place that had stopped feeling like home the day my mother died and had never really felt like home again. The lights were on in the office, which meant my father was inside, probably sitting behind his massive oak desk with his reading glasses on and his laptop open and his face set in that hard, judgmental expression that made me feel like I was twelve years old again, small and wrong and always disappointing him no matter how hard I tried.
I walked up the path, opened the front door with my old key, and followed the sound of his voice down the hallway to the office where he was waiting for me.
"Sit down," he said the moment I walked through the door, not looking up from the papers spread across his desk, his voice cold I recognized that tone, I had heard it before, and it never meant anything good.
"I do not want to sit down," I said, staying where I was by the door with my arms crossed over my chest and my chin lifted in defiance. "You texted me and said it was urgent, so here I am. What do you want, Dad?"
He looked up then, his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot like he had been drinking or crying or maybe both, there was something in his expression that I had never seen before, something that looked like disgust mixed with disappointment.
"What do I want?" He laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. "What do I want? I want to know why I am getting letters like this sent to my house, Zara. I want to know why someone thinks it is acceptable to send me anonymous accusations about my own daughter. I want to know what the hell you have been doing when you are supposed to be in class, when you are supposed to be studying, when you are supposed to be earning the degree I am paying for."
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, but I kept my voice as steady as I could manage. "I do not know what you are talking about. I have not done anything wrong. I go to class, I do my work, I am getting good grades, I do not know what kind of letter you are talking about or who sent it or why you are looking at me like I am a criminal when I have not done a single thing to deserve it."
He stood up from his desk so fast that his chair scraped against the floor I jumped before I could stop myself, before I could hide the way my body reacted to the sudden movement, I saw his eyes flick down and then back up to my face, something in his expression hardened even further.
"Do not give me that innocent act, Zara, I am too old and too tired and too fucking angry to sit here and listen to you pretend like you have been some model student when I have been getting calls from the university about your behavior, when I have had to explain to my colleagues why my daughter seems to think she is above the rules that apply to everyone else."
"What calls?" I stepped forward, my fear turning into anger, my anger turning into something hotter and sharper and harder to control. "What calls, Dad? No one has called me. No one has talked to me about any behavior. I have not been written up, I have not been warned, I have not even gotten a parking ticket, so whatever you think you know, whoever told you whatever lies they told you, it is not true, none of it is true, and I am so fucking tired of you believing the worst about me without even asking for my side of the story."
He came around the desk then, I did not step back this time, did not give him the satisfaction of seeing me scared even though my heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst right out of my chest. He stopped when he was close that I could smell the whiskey on his breath.
"The worst about you?" His voice was and dangerous. "You want me to tell you what I think about you, Zara? Fine. I think you are spoiled. I think you are entitled. I think you have been handed everything your whole life and you have never once been grateful for any of it. I think you take and you take and you take and you never give anything back except attitude and embarrassment and the kind of behavior that makes people whisper about our family behind our backs."
"Embarrassment?" I choked on the word, it hurt more than I wanted it to, no matter how many times he said things like this, no matter how many times he made me feel like I was a disappointment, a failure and a burden, it still cut right through me like a knife. "I am an embarrassment to you? I am a twenty-one-year-old junior with a 3.7 GPA and I have never been in trouble with the law or gotten pregnant or flunked out of school, and you are standing here telling me that I am an embarrassment because someone sent you an anonymous letter and you decided to believe it without even talking to me first?"
"Watch your tone," he said, his voice was a warning I should have heeded but was too angry and too hurt to care about.
"No," I said, my voice rising, my hands shaking, my whole body trembling with the force of everything I had been holding in for months, for years, for my whole life. "No, I will not watch my tone, I will not be quiet, I will not sit here and let you accuse me of things I have not done without even telling me what I am supposed to have done. What does the letter say, Dad? Who sent it? What am I being accused of?"
He raised his hand before I could step back, before I could do anything except stand there frozen in shock, his palm connected with my cheek with a crack that echoed through the room and sent me stumbling sideways into the bookshelf, my hand flying up to my face where my skin was already starting to burn and sting and swell.
I stared at him, tears streaming down my face, he stared back at me with an expression that was not regret or guilt.
"I told you to watch your tone," he said, his voice was calm now, perfectly calm, like he had not just slapped his daughter across the face for the first time in her life. "You are still a child living under my roof when it suits you, and you will speak to me with respect or you will not speak to me at all."
I could not move, could not speak, except stand there with my hand pressed against my burning cheek, my tears falling onto the carpet and my whole world moving sideways because my father had just hit me, my father had never hit me before, and I did not know who he was anymore or who I was or how we had ended up here in his office.
He turned and walked back to his desk, reached into the drawer, and pulled out a piece of paper that he held up for me to see, and even through my tears I could read the words typed in bold black letters in the center of the page.
Your daughter is a slut.
I stared at the words, for a long moment neither of us said anything, there was nothing to say, those four words had just destroyed something between us that might never be rebuilt.
Someone knew.
Someone had sent this to my fathe
r and whoever they were, whatever they wanted, they had just declared war.