Page 111 of If Love Had A Manual

Then, in a burst of anger, she snaps, “Fuck off, Lena.”

Wow.

And ouch.

Her words slice deep enough to cause my hands to twitch at my sides. She’s never sworn at me like that.

Deciding to swallow down the hurt, I keep my voice steady. “Excuse me?”

“You left, remember?” Her eyes glisten as the teenage bravado cracks. “So don’t act like you care.”

“I do care. I always have. Just because I moved out, it doesn’t mean I left you.”

“It’s the same to me.”

“Tess—”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Lena. I’m fourteen. I’m not a kid.”

“But youarea kid,” I fight back.

I used to hate it when people said that to me. Likethe words were meant to be comforting, some permission to be soft, to make mistakes, to not carry the weight of the world. But me at fourteen is not the same as Tess.

At fourteen, my days didn’t revolve around homework and sleepovers and asking to stay out past curfew. I was grieving a mother I still needed, raising three younger siblings who needed me more, while my father worked himself into the ground just to avoid feeling anything at all.

Just to avoid looking at me.

Not them. Me.

To my siblings, he was still Dad. Worn around the edges, but present enough to pass for love.

To me, he became something else entirely. A ghost with a pulse. A man who used to give the best bear hugs, but suddenly, couldn’t even meet my eyes after the funeral because mine were hers. He couldn’t see me without seeing her.

So instead of hugs, I got silence. Instead of comfort, I got distance.

Tess has lived her life bubble-wrapped. I lived mine buried under the weight of a house that no one else knew how to hold up.

“You can’t keep doing this. You can’t run from every disagreement. You want to be treated like an adult? Act like one.”

“Fine. Then let me live with you.” The rawness in her voice tells me she’s completely serious.

“I can’t do that. You belong with Dad. Your entire life is there, your friends, your school. You really want to leave all that?”

That gives her pause, and the fight drains out of her in a wave of exhaustion. She looks younger all of asudden, more like a scared child than a rebellious teen.

“Whatever.”

I hold out my phone once more. “Call him.”

After a moment of tense silence, she snatches the phone and dials.

It’s not a fix, but it’s a start.

∞∞∞

Half an hour later, we’re all outside again, and Wes is strapping a sleepy Rosie into her car seat.

My eyes keep drifting to the road, waiting for Dad. Sure enough, he arrives with a screech of tires, looking as furious as I remember, causing my stomach to do a slow roll.

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