Page 32 of Bad to the Bone

“What do you want?”

She smiles coolly, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“I want to be your friend. You don’t have any of those. Not really. I mean, your mom loves you but she’s not in any position to help you even if she wanted to,” she leans in close to me, mimicking my action from the day before. “And she doesn’t want to,” she whispers in my ear.

I choke back the bile that rises up in my throat and grit my teeth as her cold fingers roam over my shoulder and down my chest.

“I’m going to Bryn Mawr. It would be great if you weren’t too far away,” she says sweetly, lust laid bare in her gaze once again.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“What? Are you going to do your worst and force me to give up on you? Like you said, we aren’t a couple. I don’t care what you do as long as you do what you should do when the time comes.”

“And what’s that?”

“Your dad is an asshole, but he’s an asshole with a vision. What sets our fathers apart from other men-”

“Other than being assholes with tons of money?”

She rolls her eyes at my interruption.

“What sets them apart is that they are building a dynasty, not just a brand or a career. Kennedy, Rockefeller, these aren’t just brands. They are dynasties. And when the time comes we have to do our part.”

“What the fuck are you on? I know you go to some fancy academy but look around. I live in a tiny town where my dad is the mayor and I go to public school. There is no royal pedigree here.”

“You live in a tiny town that has one of the highest average household incomes in the country. The public school you attend is one of the most competitive schools in the country and your father designed it that way. You’re Mordred and this is your fucking Camelot. Grow up!”

“Are we done here?”

“Sure,” she says, sorting through the envelopes on my bed. Picking out the one she wants she tosses it my way. “That one is close but not too close. We can carpool back home during the holidays.”

I watch in disbelief as she walks away. The walls seem to be closing in on me. I have the loathsome feeling that the harder I fight this, the deeper I will sink. And in the end, the one who will be most damaged is Kim. They have me by the short and curlies on this one.

I close my eyes and try to slow my heart beat. I wish I never walked into her classroom. I wish I never took her to that cabin. I wish I never loved her. I was doing fine on my own.

“I see Clarice was here,” says a deep voice, interrupting my self loathing.

“Yup,” I turn to face my father.

He’s holding a glass of amber liquid again, smirking as he examines my face. I do my best to erect a stone facade across my features but it’s clear that he sees right through me.

“Not so easy is it?”

“...”

“Don’t worry,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder as if we are old army buddies. “You get used to it after a while.”

“Why would I bother getting used to it?”

“Because in this life in order to protect something, you have to sacrifice something else. If you keep one, you have to throw the other away.” It’s the first piece of fatherly advice he has ever given me, and yet it brings me no comfort or clarity.

“Is that what you did?”

“It’s not so easy to judge now, is it...son?”

I snort my disgust and turn my back on him.

“Unlike you, I know which one to keep and which one to throw away,” I say over my shoulder.

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