Page 266 of His Virgin Romance Series

“Looks like you got all dressed up for nothing,” I said. “I managed to avoid jail time.”

“If that judge knew anything about the criminal justice system,” Dad replied, in his emotionless voice, “he would have given you something… how will society ever learn if you’re constantly being let off the hook?”

“Let off the hook?” I demanded. “I wouldn’t exactly call being sentenced to five hundred hours of fucking community service being let off the hook.”

I saw Mom flinch, and Dad turned to me with his cold eyes. “Watch your language.”

“Seriously?”

“You know your mother hates that kind of talk,” Dad said. “I would think you’d have enough decency to at least respect her.”

I turned to her and saw the same timid woman who had raised me. She was not capable of fighting back, which was probably one of the reasons Dad had married her. He never liked anyone who disagreed with him.

“How are you, Mom?” I asked, softening my tone.

“Disappointed,” she replied shortly. She had always been a woman of very few words, and yet she managed to hide whole speeches in the few words she did speak.

“Well, did you ever stop to think that I might be disappointed too?” I asked.

“You should be,” Dad said firmly. “You broke the law. You degraded yourself and our family. You brought yourself down to the level of a common drug mule. We are a respectable family… we are a decent family and you—”

“I didn’t mean I was disappointed in myself,” I interrupted coldly, unwilling to hear Dad’s soapbox speech all over again. “I meant I was disappointed in you… in both of you… my parents.”

“In us?” Dad asked incredulously.

“Yes,” I hissed back. “Because you turned your back on me because I refused to be what you wanted me to be. You cut me off because I had the audacity to form my own opinions and thoughts and to pursue my own path. You cut me off because I refused to be controlled.”

“And that worked out well for you, did it?” Dad mocked. “Look at you now.”

“You think that’s an insult?” I demanded. “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t want to be you. I never wanted to be you. And all the jail time in the world will be worth it if it means I never end up like you.”

I didn’t wait for either one of them to respond. Dad opened his mouth to say something, but I had already turned around and walked away.

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