Page 5 of The Wrong Side of Kai
“Vanessa,” he says without glancing up. He motions for me to join him, but I don’t budge an inch. “Come and check out these pictures. The Cliffs of Moher. Aren’t they amazing?” He leans in even closer to the screen.
But I’ve seen it all before. He doesn’t really want my opinion on the Cliffs of Moher or any other of the Emerald Isle’s natural wonders. “I’m home, Dad,” I announce, loud and clear so there’s no doubt he’s heard me. But he doesn’t even blink, only keeps on clicking away on the laptop. He has yet to look at me. “I stayed out all night. I went to a party and I was drinking,” I continue to explain, but in between my words, I’m fighting back a sigh. I know he isn’t listening. It’s like speaking to a brick wall. “Like,waytoo much,” I exaggerate to get a reaction. I could probably tell him I’d committed a felony and it wouldn’t even register. I give up on trying to get a reaction out of him and instead wander over to the dining table. “So why exactly are these cliffs so special?”
Dad reaches for a pen and scribbles furiously into a notebook. I flinch at the sight of his fingernails; they’re overgrown and yellow with nicotine. It’s the same notebook he’s been compiling notes in for the past few months, crafting the perfect Irish road trip that he wants us to take next summer. “Oh, your mom would have loved this. The Doolin Cave is only a twenty-minute drive away, so we can do both of those in the same day. Look,” he says without answering my question, and turns the laptop toward me. On the screen there’re photos of sheer granite cliffs overlooking a clear blue sea as the sun shines down. I doubt it looks like that in real life. I mean, sunshine in Ireland? Seriously?
“Sounds great, Dad,” I say, but the smile I force upon my face is so unbearably fake. One of these days. . . One of these days hehasto lose it with me. One of these days he has to freak out when I don’t come home at night. One of these days he has to act like my father. And that’s when I’ll tell himI’msorry, Dad, you’re right. It worries you when Isneak around behind your back and don’t come home.I won’t do it anymore.Except it doesn’t worry him at all, and that’s the problem. How am I supposed to grow up and take responsibility for myself if I don’t have a father to set some boundaries for me?
“Okay, I’ll keep organizing it,” he tells me, turning the laptop back. He squints at the screen for a few more seconds, and just as I’m about to give up and retreat upstairs, he sits up straight and pushes his hair off his face. “You went to a party?”
Oh, so hedidhear me. “Yep. It was pretty wild,” I say. Inside, I’m practically begging him,Stop worrying about cliffs andcaves and worry about me instead!I’m desperate for him to ground me. To react. To do somethingnormal.
“That’s good. I’m glad you’re having fun,” he says instead, and he gives me a sincere, inane smile before huddling back over that stupid fucking notebook again.
I stare at him in disbelief.
He looks – and smells,ew– as though he hasn’t showered in days. His hair is an untamed mess that constantly gets in his eyes. He hasn’t shaved in a couple weeks either – right now, his stubble is essentially a beard that extends all the way down his throat. And how have I never noticed how skinny he’s become? The pounds have been falling off him, and now his faded, tatty-at-the-edges sweatshirt hangs from his gaunt body, drowning him. I can’t remember the last time he bought himself some new jeans or went for a haircut.
My dad is so far gone, so lost in his own head that it feels like he never notices me anymore. He doesn’t care. I’ve lost count of how many times I haven’t come home over the past year, and even when he has no clue where I’ve been, it’s still not enough for him to come out of his own bleak world and pay me any attention. I clench my jaw, digging my nails into my palm as I storm out of the kitchen and up to my room. I know I’m being dramatic, but I bet he doesn’t notice that either.
I rub at my temples as I throw the bag of dirty clothes into my room, my bed still made from yesterday morning. I don’t stay, though, because I can hear Justin Bieber’s sweet, sweet voice calling out to me from Kennedy’s room. I thought the Bieber hype died years ago, but nope, not for Kennedy. I cross the hall and push open the door to her room, strolling straight on in without knocking. We don’t need to knock. We’resisters. We bathed together until I was, like, eight, so it’s not like we need to be shy with each other.
Kennedy is sitting at her dresser, carefully applying a coat of red polish to her nails underneath a small spotlight. Theo, our family tabby cat who adores my sister but despises me for some reason, is curled up asleep on the windowsill. Kennedy stops mouthing along to Justin and glances up. At first, she seems surprised to see me.
I groan and throw myself down onto her bed, sprawling out on my stomach and grabbing a pillow to rest my chin on. “If Dad mentionsonemore thing about Ireland to me, I’m moving out. You coming with me?”
Kennedy gives me a small, understanding smile over her shoulder then continues painting her nails. She hasn’t bothered to turn down the music yet. “Where did you go last night?” she asks. Her voice is curious, but also doubtful. At least someone around here cares enough to wonder whether or not I was lying dead in a gutter somewhere. Even if it is only my little baby freshman sister. She may only be fourteen, but she’s so incredibly wise for her age.
“A party.”
“Aaaand?” she urges, dipping the brush back into its pot and swiveling her chair around to face me. “Did you kiss anyone hot?” Her eyes are wide, because she knows the answer already.
“Harrison Boyd. Again.” I haven’t mentioned Harrison to her directly, but it’s not like she doesn’t know I’ve had a thing going with him for the past couple months. Secrets are never really secrets in high school, are they? Gossip travels fast around here.
“Oooo,” she squeals, as though she thinks Harrison and I are actually going somewhere. Nope. The only place we’re going is onto one another’s list of exes.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my chest tightens a little when I reach for it and see Harrison’s name on my screen. Of course it’s him. “Crap, I guess I summoned him.”
Just woke up and you’re already on my mind. Last night was fun. Wanna repeat it later? My place. I’ll let you know when my parents are asleep.
“Summoned him to say what?” Kennedy asks.
Looking at her eager face, I’m sure she’s hoping he’s declaring his undying love for me or something. She’s been a hopeless romantic since birth, thanks to her obsession with Cinderella when she was a kid, and thinks I’ll end up marrying every boy who so much as smiles in my direction.
“He wants to see me tonight,” I say. I don’t mention the rest. There are some things I can’t talk to my little sister about, and what Harrison Boyd and I do behind closed doors is one of them. Nuh-uh.
Her eyes grow wide. “Are you gonna see him then?”
“Yep, but only to end things with him.” I type back a reply, my nails cracking too loudly against my screen. It’s short and simple:
Can we just go for a drive instead?
“What?” Kennedy shoots bolt upright in her chair, looking utterly disgusted at my choices. “But he’ssofucking hot! And if you got together you could fix me up with his brother. And then we could go on double dates. And then we could go on vacations together to the Bahamas.” Her gaze wanders off, her mind wrapped up in innocent fantasy.
My phone’s still in my hand and I can barely look away, chewing at my lip while I wait for Harrison’s reply. I wonder if he can tell by my message that something’s up, that I’m not as keen as I usually am. “Hey. You’re right, he totally is hot, but drop the cussing,” I tell Kennedy, flashing her a scolding glance. “And you’re way too young to befixed upwith anyone.”
She rolls her eyes and blows on her freshly painted nails. “Okay, Dad.”
The irony is that Dad would never give her trouble for casually dropping an F-bomb like that. It’s not just that, but it feels like I do all the parenting around here, at least for the past couple of years. I was the one who ran a mile to the store to grab sanitary pads when she first started her period and was a sobbing mess in the bathroom. I was the one who took her on a marathon shopping spree around Target to pick out school supplies ahead of starting high school in the summer. I was the one who held her in my arms when she experienced her first breakup and thought she would never be happy again. I promised her she would be, even though I know we will both forever have a broken heart. And not because of boys.
