VEDA
"Hi, Dad." My voice broke when I said his name, and I pulled my new phone away from my ear until I could get a grip on myself. Sammy had picked it up for me this morning before she went to class. We decided I should stay away from the stores to minimize the chance of someone seeing me coming and going from her place. At least until I saw my parents and filled them in on everything they needed to know and could decide what I was going to do.
"Hey, honey! Long time no hear from you." My father laughed at his greeting. The same way he always did every time I called him since I'd moved out of his house when I was eighteen. It didn't matter if it'd been a day or a month since he'd last spoken to me. "What the hell's going on with your sister? We haven't been able to get a hold of her for months, and your mother wanted to talk to her about the upcoming award ceremony." He lowered his voice. "You know she's always bugging me to buy her some fancy gown, even though I keep telling her Nicole won't want to take her mother as her date." Back at normal volume, he said, "I know you two are busy, but the least you can do is give your dad a call once in a while and let me know you're still alive."
So my parents didn't know about Nicole's engagement either. I wasn't really surprised. The only thing they ever watched was HBO or Netflix, and neither one of them read the news. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, Dad. There's been a lot that's happened these last few weeks." I tucked my free hand under my arm to stop its shaking and paced Sammy's bedroom. "Are you guys free sometime today?" I needed to tell them about Nicole. And no matter what kind of danger I was in, it just wasn't something I could do over the phone. They deserved to hear everything in person. Well, not everything. I planned to skim over a lot of it where I was concerned. But Sammy had caught a ride to campus and left me her old Honda so I could go to their house. I planned to borrow something of Sammy's to wear, including something with a hood I could pull up to hide my hair.
"Of course, honey. You wanna come over for dinner? I don't know what your mother's making, but I'm sure it's something you'll like."
That wasn't true. My mother went out of her way to make the things Nicole liked. She'd never once asked me in all the time I could remember what I liked to eat. Lucky for her, I wasn't very picky. "Um, actually, I was wondering if you two would be home in about an hour."
There was a moment's silence. "What's going on, Veda? Where are you?"
"I'm at Sammy's. And I just haven't seen you guys in a while, and..." I took a breath. "There're some things I need to tell you."
"I'll have to check with your mom, honey. You know how she is. But I'll be here, of course. Anytime you need me."
"Dad, please. I need to see you both. It's very important. And besides, my lesbian friend won't be there, so Mom doesn't have to worry about it."
"Veda..." He drew out my name. "You know that's not..." He stopped and sighed. "Ah, hell. What's the point? I mean, I love your mom. But she's not perfect. I guess by now there's no sense in denying how she feels about your choice of friends."
Wasn't that the truth. My mother had never liked any of my friends. Even in kindergarten, I tended to find the kids who were just a little too weird for everyone else for whatever reason-their haircut, their finances, their sexual orientation... "It's okay, Dad. I do know how she is." I wandered over to the window and peeked through the blinds. The street below was empty. Just the usual cars parked up the street. "So, are you gonna be home?"
"Uh, yeah. We should be." I heard him shuffling around in a drawer for something. "I'll let your mom know you're coming over and make sure she stays here."
"Okay. I'll see you soon."
"Sounds good." There was a pause. "Veda? Just tell me. Is everything okay with you and your sister?"
"I'll talk to you when I get there, Dad," I told him after a pause. Then I ended the call before he could ask me any more questions.
I closed my eyes and took a shallow breath, then another, until I no longer felt like I was going to pass out. Alone in Sammy's apartment, there was nothing to distract me from the fact that my sister was dead. Nothing to take my mind from the circumstances that led to me being here.
Circumstances. That word wasn't enough to describe the force that was Luca. And it didn't even begin to describe what my life had been like these last few weeks.
Unconsciously, my hand went to my chest, and I rubbed the new scar that was there. He'd torn me away from my life, shook my world like I was inside of a snow globe, and then let everything settle as it may before sending me away to pick up the pieces by myself. And what was I supposed to do? Just go back to my life like nothing had ever happened? Like these past weeks didn't exist? Like he didn't exist? The life I had before I'd met him was gone. And I wasn't the same girl I'd been back then.
I had no idea who I was now.
An hour later I was circling the block of my parents' house, checking for any strange vehicles parked on their road. I had no idea if anyone was actually looking for me here since I supposedly got on a bus, or if anyone would be watching their house. But I didn't want to take any chances. When I didn't see anything unusual, I circled back to their house and parked a few houses down. I waited a few minutes before I got out of the car, tracking any activity going on around me, and then I jogged up the small alley beside the house I was parked in front of and cut across the next yard so I could sneak in through the back. It was the same way my sister and I used to sneak out when we were younger.
My dad was the one who answered the back door. His handsome face lit up when he smiled, and he pulled me right into a bear hug. "There's my girl," he said, dropping a quick kiss on the top of my head before he pulled away. "Changed your hair, huh? I don't know if I like it. It's too much like your sister's now, and that was the only way I could tell you and Nicole apart from a distance."
It wasn't true. I normally outweighed my sister by at least 15 pounds, although it might be a little less than that at the moment, and we had completely different taste in clothes. Always had. "Hi, dad." I couldn't bring myself to smile back. The weight of the news I had to tell them weighed so heavily on me I wanted to blurt it out and get out from under that burden, but another part of me wanted never to have to tell him. "Where's Mom?"
His gray eyes, so like my own, traveled over my face. He frowned. "She's upstairs. I'll go get her."
The house smelled just as I remembered, like my father's cigars and my mother's flowery perfume. I went over to the fridge and grabbed a bottled water while he went to fetch Mom. I wished it was vodka, but there was no alcohol in my parents' house, not since my mother had discovered clean eating and yoga ten years ago. It really put a damper on our teenage experimentation. At sixteen, we had to pay one of Nicole's friend's older brother to buy us beer from the corner store. And the only reason I was included was because I had the majority of the money.
"Veda. What are you doing here?"