Page 78 of The Other Side of Paradise
“We’ve alreadydealt with—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, good talk.” I silenced her with a dismissive wave. I wasn’t going to tackle her to the ground over getting with my sister. I just had to hope she’d come around. Maybe lead by example. “Oh, and, um… thanks.”
She gave me a small, tight little laugh. “My pleasure,” she said. “Happy to see Allison enjoy herself too.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to run away again,” I said quietly. “But… I guess that makes you and me pretty similar, huh?”
She frowned. I shrugged, hands in my dress pockets, before I turned away.
“Okay, well, I’ve gotta go see everyone. Good luck to us both. See you, BB.”
I’d called her BB. Hadn’t even meant to, but I guess Allison got to me. She laughed dryly. “I’ll send you the address. See you, Stella,” she said, and I walked with a nervous bounce in my step as I headed off for the meeting with my dad.
At least I had a place to get away if things went south. I’d just have to hope Allison wouldn’t kill either of us if I did.
∞∞∞
Dad handed me a cup of coffee with nothing more than a, “Here,” when I got to the wind-swept rooftop with its own artificial grass area and covered tables, and I took the coffee with a bewildered look.
“Um—thanks. I just had coffee.”
He furrowed his brow. “Well, you could have said so.”
“I don’t make a habit of liveblogging my coffee consumption.” Okay, we had no reason to be fighting, I was juststubborn. I shrugged, sipping the coffee. “Okay, I’m just high on energy today. Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded, turning to pick up his own coffee cup off the wooden railing overlooking the botanical gardens, and I stood there with my pulse pounding, not sure how to hold myself. I felt a little like a kid again, awkwardly anticipating something I didn’t know what to do with, like it was my first day in class waiting for the teacher to call my name. Finally, he turned back to me with his expression a plastered-on neutral. “I didn’t appreciate our conversation the other day.”
Something flared up hot in my throat, and I dragged in a shaky breath before I pushed it down. I’d always been mad people didn’t say what they were thinking. I couldn’t pull away and start making a fuss once someone did. If this was what I’d been asking for, I’d start acting like it was.
“I know you probably don’t,” I said, my voice tight. “But I meant what I said, and I can’t… it’d be disingenuous to take it back if I still feel that way.”
He tightened his expression. “Your mother put a lot of work into this vacation. I know you don’t always see that, because you want to play around—”
“I had an internship. You took it away from me. I’m not trying to play around—”
“I’m talking, Stella.”
“And making me out to be someone I’m not.” I drew myself tighter. “This is what I’m mad about. What Ryan is mad about. You treat us like you have some model in your head of who we’re supposed to be, like—like someone you decided when we were ten or twelve what we’d probably be, or maybe earlier—and you’re treating us like that, like—”
“Stella,” he said, and the quiet intensity of it made my words catch in my throat, stopping. “This is a matter of basicrespect. For your mother, who worked hard on this, and for all of us who help make avery comfortablelife possible for you.”
My chest tightened, and I felt a prickle in my face, and I wanted desperately to back down like I always did, but—but shit, I was going to tell Allison about this interaction later. And I guess I wanted her to be proud of me. How silly. “You always told usrespect isn’t given, it’s earned.”
He tightened his grip on the cup. He didn’t look angry, though, more like… like he was the one nervous in this conversation. It made something in me start, turning anxiously. “I wouldn’t even know where to start with describing everything your family has done for you—”
“And I’m grateful for it,” I said, raising my voice over his. “But putting in effort doesn’t mean anything other than that you put in effort. There’s a lot of people out there who work their asses off and make a lot of money. I don’t respect all of them. Do you respect all of them?”
He was quiet for a second before he said, “It’s your own family, Stella.”
“Respect isn’t given. Not even for that.” I sighed, dropping my shoulders. I should have been terrified right now, sick with nerves. I wasn’t. Something about being on the other side, having pushed through the worst of it. Eye of the storm, I guess. “The thingsIrespect aren’t working a lot and making a lot of money. It’s… you know, human decency. Being understanding and loving of one another and communicating when things are difficult andtryingto be better even when things are hard.”
“You were just complaining that you aren’t respected even though you’re our daughter, and now you’re saying you don’t have any obligation to respect your own parents. Communication is a two-way street, Stella.”
I clenched my fists, squeezing hard on the cup and feeling its heat helping ground me. “Then what do you want?” I said,voice shaky. “I’ve never felt like you see me. You want to be proud of me, and believe me, I want my parents to be proud of me too. But it feels like I can never figure out what you want from me becauseyoudon’t know what you want from me.”
“You don’t know anything—nothing—about what it’s like to raise children.”
“Am Iwrong?Because if you do know what it is you want—what it is I could do that would make you proud of me and treat me like an equal—thenpleasetell me. I would love to be wrong.”
