“Alex, that’s not what this is,” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks, feeling guilty for not telling him sooner but angry at being accused of something so horrid, all at the same time.
“Then what is it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again, unsure if anything I said right now would make an ounce of difference,
“Answer me!” His voice roared through the kitchen, and I heard a door open and close upstairs, quickly followed by a flutter of feet down the stairs. Kelly appeared behind her father, eyes wide and full of concern.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Go to your room, Kelly,” Alex said, his eyes locked onto me.
Kelly looked at me, her concern giving way to fear. “Jenni?”
I sniffed, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “Kelly, I’m so sorry –”
“Don’t you fucking talk to her,” Alex shot. “Kelly, go to your room.”
“Not until someone tells me what’s going on,” Kelly replied, standing her ground.
Alex turned to her and grabbed her by the arm, shaking her. “I said, go to your fucking room!” he yelled.
The shock on Kelly’s face brought a fresh burst of tears from me as she stared at her father then looked at me. She whipped her hand out of his grip and raced out of the kitchen.
Alex turned back to me. “I said I want answers, Jenni.”
The front door opened and slammed closed, and Alex quickly turned around to see what was going on. “Kelly?”
From outside, a car door slammed closed and an engine started up.
“Kelly!” Alex yelled, racing out of the kitchen with me running close behind him. We rushed out the front door just as Kelly backed her father’s car out, turned the wheel around, and shot down the street with a screech of tires.
“Kelly!” I called after her.
“Fuck!” Alex yelled, pushing forcefully past me and running back into the house.
I barely made it to the front door when he came storming out again. “What are we going to do?” I asked, panicking at the thought of Kelly behind the wheel of a car.
“We are not going to do anything,” he snapped. “I’m going to take the truck and drive after her. You are going to go upstairs, pack whatever you have up there into a bag, and get the fuck out of my house.”
“Alex.”
He whirled around, his eyes burning with fury. “I want you gone by the time I get back, you understand? I don’t ever want to see you around me or my daughter again.”
With that, he raced down the steps, jumped into the Ford, and drove off after his daughter. I watched him leave, and when he turned the corner, I dropped to my knees and broke into tears.
Chapter 20: Alex
Why the fuck had I ever taught her how to drive, I had no idea.
I felt a raging headache overwhelm me, the veins in my head pounding incessantly, threatening to burst. My heart raced as I pushed down harder on the gas, willing the truck to move faster, taking wild guesses at every intersection as to which direction Kelly was driving in.
She lied to me. She stood there in my house, slept in my bed, and all the time, she had been lying to me.
I pushed the thought away. Right now, none of that mattered. My little girl was driving around town in a car she could barely control. If anything were to happen to her, I’d probably kill myself.
Then you probably shouldn’t have taught her how to drive.
“Shut up, Janice.”