Against All Odds (2 page)

On the Monday of the accident, my mom had decided to stay at work late to work on a case about a little girl that she was really into. I must have called her a million times to tell her she should leave soon and that all the weather reports were saying that the roads were getting worse and worse. Finally, around nine she promised me she was on her way out the door.

I sat up with my dad until around ten-thirty, before he made me go to sleep. He told me it was okay and that he would wait up for her. I reluctantly agreed. I climbed into my bed with all the covers pulled up around me, but sleep never came.

I kept my eyes closed for what felt like hours, and still sleep never came.

And call me crazy, but I knew. I knew something was wrong. And when the phone rang at around three that morning, and I heard my dad’s screams and sobs from his bedroom, I didn’t even bother getting out of bed. I just sat there with the blankets pulled up around me and let the tears fall freely from my eyes. I didn’t have to get up. Because I knew. I already knew that she wasn’t coming home. I sat there for the rest of the night, crying. And thinking.

That was over a year ago. And I still can’t sleep through the night without having nightmares.

Chapter Two

My dad doesn’t give me any time to prepare for the fact that he’s about to fuck up my life even more than it already is.

It’s about a month after I went to Nathan’s basketball game and I’m in the kitchen cutting up fruit for breakfast when my dad makes the announcement.

“Me and Missy are engaged,” he says casually, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

My hand slips and the knife that I’m holding slides down and into my skin. A pool of blood slowly starts to spill out of my finger. I’m numb to the pain of it and in too much shock to move. My dad jumps up and wraps it in a dishtowel.

“God, Victoria! Watch what you’re doing,” he says taking the towel away to examine the damage to my finger. “It doesn’t look too deep.”

I pull my hand away from him. “You’re getting married?”

He nods and then walks over to the table to pick up his briefcase. “Yes, and I need you to do your best to clear out the spare room while I’m at the office today.

They’re moving in tomorrow.”

I feel my heart start to beat so fast in my chest that I think I might be having a heart attack. “Who’s moving in tomorrow?”

My dad sighs as he starts toward the door. “Missy and her son Nathan.”

“But, Dad, I’ve never even met her son!” I protest.

“Well, you will tomorrow,” he says calmly.

“Doesn’t he go to school in a different town? How will that even work? Dad, this is all so sudden, I don’t—”

“He’s transferring,” my dad says cutting me off and sounding really annoyed now. “Can you not make this into a big deal?” He then turns around and walks out the door, not even waiting for me to answer.

This pretty much sums up the relationship my dad and I have. He does what he wants when he wants to and I’m supposed to act happy about it. He knows very little about me and seems to like it that way.

In the year since my mom’s been gone we haven’t talked about her once. I tried for a while, but whenever I did my dad would just change the subject or act like I had some nerve for even trying to open that door with him. It’s enough to drive me insane.

But I learned a long time ago that it’s better to just go along with my dad then try to beat him. But how can I possibly go along with this? How can I act like I’m happy to have some woman moving into my mom’s house with her jackass son?

I don’t know if I can deal with it. I don’t know how to even start.

I put all my strawberries into a little glass bowl and slowly climb the steps up to the spare room. I creek the door open and stick my head half way in. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in here. A long time since I’ve even allowed myself to open this door.

After my mom died my dad packed up a lot of her things and put them in boxes in this room. Her clothes, jewelry, books, anything he saw that reminded him of her and what he lost.

And now he’s making me clean it all out. Making me take it all out of here so that he can move a new family into our home. The home my mom made for him. And for me. It’s all so unfair. It’s all so selfish. A selfish act. A selfish thing to make me do. And a selfish action toward my mother’s memory.

I feel like I’m more of an adult than my dad. Like I’m the one who’s really dealing with what happened. It’s not right how much he leans on me. How much he makes me do. But it’s been going on for so long and it’s much too late to break the vicious cycle now.

So slowly and sadly I start the tedious task of moving my mother’s things into our attic. It’s as if we’re trying to take everything great about her and hide it away, stuff it in some room at the top of the house where it will be forgotten forever. Hidden from our new family. From our new life.

A new life that I don’t want.

***

“You have to go home sooner or later,” my friend Angelina says with a serious tone. “You know that, right?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it I don’t,” I tell her.

I’ve known Angelina since I was like, two. We went to the same pre-k program and our moms became really good friends, which in turn made Angelina and I really good friends, too.

And the friendship hasn’t faded out as we’ve got older. Not with Angelina and I, nor with her mom and my mom. It was totally normal up until my mom’s death for all of us to go out to dinner together or for me to come home from school and find Angelina’s mom in my kitchen, helping my mom make dinner.

It was really nice to have their support after my mom’s accident. Whenever I felt like my dad didn’t understand me, or didn’t feel as upset as I did about everything that had happened, I could always escape to Angelina’s house. She and her mom have really helped me this past year, more than anyone could know.

After my mom’s death everyone who I had thought was my friend slowly started to fade out and drift away. No one got it. And no one wants to get it. And after a while they’ve stop trying.

My dad tries to tell me that it’s unnatural to have only one best friend. He’s always encouraging me to join a sports team, get involved in things where I can meet new types of people and stuff like that. But I don’t want to meet new types of people. I don’t want a bunch of meaningless friendships with people who don’t really know me or care about me. I’d rather have one friendship with someone who’s going to be with me forever.

And now, as I sit in her room watching her straighten her naturally curly and crazy hair, I’m reminded of exactly this. Of how grateful I am to have her in my life.

And how much better she is than any other friend I could ever ask for.

“This is a whole new level of fucked up, even for your dad,” she says laughing.

Angelina is all too familiar with my dad’s actions and how little he seems to care about how they affect me.

Despite my disgruntled feelings about it all, I end up spending my entire Saturday cleaning our spare room out for Missy’s perfect son, Nathan. And now I’m emotionally drained.

I end up staying awake all night thinking about the torture that’s coming tomorrow when Nathan and his mom move in.

By the time six A.M. rolls around I realize I’ve only gotten a total of two hours of sleep. There’s no way I’m sticking around to watch my dad’s new family move in.

Especially not Nathan.

No one knows I went to his game all those weeks ago, and no one knows how much I dislike him. The problem is, I can’t explain myself without sounding like a complete and total psycho. I mean what kind of nutcase goes to check out her new stepbrother before he even moves in? Apparently nutcases like me, that’s who.

I arrive at Angelina’s house at around seven A.M., tiptoeing into her room to wake her up.

They can have a blast moving into their new house without me, thank you very much. I expect my dad to at least call or something, ask where I am and why I’m not there helping to get everything settled. But, once again, I overestimate how much my dad really cares. Because by two in the afternoon I still haven’t received a call or a text from him. I tell myself I don’t care, but somewhere deep down in my heart I feel a little sting.

“I know,” I say to Angelina who tries to console me about my dad, “but somehow he still manages to surprise me.”

“Aren’t you at least a little curious about what he’s like?”

“Curious about who?” I ask her shrugging.

“Your step-brother. If a boy my age was moving into the room next door to me you better believe I’d be there sizing him up the second he walked through the door,”

Angelina says as she pulls another strand of hair out of her clip and runs her flat iron over it.

So, I haven’t exactly told Angelina about how I went to see Nathan play basketball. Not because I think she’ll judge me or anything like that, but because I’m just not ready to share that information with anyone. And I’m not sure I ever will be.

“Trust me,” I tell her rolling my eyes, “I have no desire to size up Nathan Daley.”

Angelina drops her flat iron. And on its way down it hits her dresser, knocking over an open bottle of nail polish. A bright blue puddle leaks and starts to spread along her white carpet. Just before the iron hits the floor it lands on her foot. Angelina jumps back in pain.

“Are you okay?” I gasp as I jump up from where I’m sitting on her bed.

Angelina looks at me like I’ve lost my mind but makes no move to pick up the steaming hot flat iron from the floor or swoop up the bottle of nail polish that’s still slowly leaking out and onto the carpet.

I quickly sweep my body down, picking each item up in one hand and placing them back on her dresser. “That’s definitely going to stain,” I tell her shaking my head.

“Do you have any stain remover? We have to get it out before your mom sees.”

Angelina just continues to stand there in the middle of her room, making no indication that she’s about to move any time soon.

I sigh and run to the bathroom down the hall, digging around under the sink for something that can help get the nail polish out of her carpet. I finally find this intense stain remover in a bright yellow bottle. It looks really old, but I grab the bottle and a bunch of paper towels and hope for the best.

By the time I get back to her room Angelina still hasn’t moved from the spot that I left her in.

“What has gotten into you?” I ask her as I bend down and slowly scrub out the stain, which is already starting to set on her carpet. “You’re acting like a total spaz all of a sudden.”

“Tori, you didn’t tell me your stepbrother was Nathan Daley,” she says using her childhood nickname for me.

I stop cleaning and look up at her from where I’m now sitting cross-legged on the carpet. “Why? You know him?”

How could Angelina possibly know him? There’s no way. First of all Nathan goes to school like four towns over. Second of all I know every guy Angelina’s involved with or has been involved with. We tell each other everything. So what could she possibly be freaking out about?

“Are you kidding me? Of course I know him. Everyone knows him. He’s only been the talk of the school for the entire last week. Everyone knows he’s transferring here. And everyone’s freaking out. How could you not know? Have you been living under a rock or something? He’s supposed to totally turn our basketball season around and get us all this attention from college scouts. Oh my gosh! I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together when you first told me,” Angelina continues to babble.

But I’ve stopped listening to her. Of course my whole school would be waiting for the arrival of my stepbrother. Why wouldn’t they be? That would only make perfect and complete sense, since he’s such a good guy and all. But what really bothers me, what really drives me completely and totally nuts is the fact that the kids at my school have known about Nathan’s arrival for a week. Which means Nathan has known long enough for word to spread all the way to my school. Which means my dad has known for at least that long and waited until just yesterday to tell me. Once again, everyone knows what’s going on except for me. Why would I ever expect anything different?

“I can’t believe this,” Angelina’s says pulling me out of my thoughts. “Your new stepbrother is already the most popular boy in school and he hasn’t even had his first day yet.”

I sigh and drop my head into my hands. The situation has just gotten way worse than even I ever imagined it could get. And I’ve imagined it to be pretty fucking bad.

Angelina continues talking about Nathan but all I can do is hope that somehow, someway, he would disappear. That somehow, this was all just a horrible dream. And that any second I’ll wake up and realize that Nathan Daley doesn’t really exist at all.

***

The second I pull into my driveway I’m reminded that there’s no way I’m dreaming.

Missy’s silver Mercedes is parked behind my dad’s BMW, and what I assume is Nathan’s black Escalade is parked right next to it. Of course he has an Escalade, why wouldn’t he? And of course he would be parked in my spot. He’s already taken over my house and my school. Why should my parking spot be any different?

I switch off my lights and slowly pull my Honda Accord into the driveway.

(Honda Accords are very cute, thank you very much. Not everyone has to have a half-a-million dollar car to prove how cool they are.)

I glance at the clock on my dashboard. It reads three-thirty in the morning. To a lot of people this would be late. It would be totally crazy to them to be awake right now when they have school in less than four hours. But not for me, since I barely sleep anyway. Hours in the night lost their meaning to me a long time ago.

I put off coming home as long as I possibly could. But now I figure I can sneak in, start to get ready, and leave for school without anyone seeing me. My plan is to avoid this whole situation for as long as possible.

Angelina tells me that avoiding things makes me a coward, but I don’t really care.

I mean if you can avoid an uncomfortable situation why wouldn’t you? I’d rather run away and hide than deal with some big confrontation that can end with everyone feelings getting hurt. No, hiding out has always sounded much better. It’s what I’m accustomed to. It’s how I like things.