“But this is the evidence they sent,” she says, opening it, tapping at her keys, pulling up her email, clicking a link.
A video opens. It’s shaky and slightly blurry, like it’s zoomed in too far and shot through a window, but it’s good enough.
On it, Caleb and I are sitting on the tailgate of my parents’ minivan. We chat for a few moments, his arm around me. Then we stand. Embrace. Kiss. The video ends, the window going black.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice strangely robotic.
“I hope it helps,” she says, already packing up the computer.
“It does,” I say, and my voice sounds faraway, like it belongs to another person.
Without another word, Dr. Castellano nods once, then leaves the bright, sunny room, leaving me alone.
I feel more wretched than I ever have in my life.Chapter Forty-EightThaliaIn the end, I make a list. It takes me an hour, maybe two, though most of the work isn’t in writing the list. Most of the work is in pacing up and down the room, shoes off, angrily crying to myself while I try to sort through everything that just happened.
I’m a mess. I’m on overload, ten emotions at once, all of them ugly. I’m furious with the school for having this rule in the first place, but that’s pointless and I know it, the rage just feels good.
I’m angry with myself, for not having one whit of self-control. I’m angry with stupid Margaret, just because she was such a bitch. I’m angry with Javier for overdosing, with my mom for putting up with my father, and with Bastien for no other reason than he’s irritating sometimes.
I’m angry as hell with Caleb for not answering my calls. For not consulting me in my own fate, for letting people think that he’s a monster and I’m some naïve, innocent victim.
And I’m furious with my father.
That what’s the list ends up saying: School, Me, Caleb, DAD. That’s all, but it’s enough.
I pull out my phone, find a number, and hit the call button before I can lose my nerve. It rings six times and then goes to voicemail: Thank you for calling Captain Lopez, United States…
I hang up and call again. And again. And again.
I call seven times before, finally, he answers.
“What happened?” he demands, short and curt and no-nonsense as always.
Suddenly, words escape me and I wonder what he said when he reported us. Did he call? Email?
I wonder what he said, exactly, to Javier the day he kicked him out, whether it was the same staccato rhythms I’m hearing now or something else.
“Thalia,” he says, the word a statement, not a question. “What is it?”
I look down at my list, and finally, I find my voice.
“Did you report me?” I ask, my voice oddly calm in my own ears.
He’s silent.
“To the university?” I go on, and though my heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my fingertips, I sound completely zen, like nothing could ever bother me. “Did you report Caleb and I?”
More silence. The sound of a door closing.
“I reported Professor Loveless for a clear violation of his contract,” he says, stiff and unyielding. “He should be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of you like that.”
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Ten thousand words fight to be the next ones out of my mouth.
“You didn’t even ask me,” are the words I finally choose. “Did it ever occur to you to talk to me about it? To ask me what was really going on? Whether I needed your help?”
I can hear the tears behind my voice, feel them heavy in my throat and in my skull behind my eyes, but they don’t come out. I’m shaking with the force of keeping them in, but for once, I do.
My father answers with a silence so flat that for a moment I think the line has gone dead.
“You’re my daughter,” he finally says. “And I’m not going to let your professor sully you like —”
“Stop,” I say, and to my surprise, he does. “Did you even consider talking to me about it?”
He doesn’t answer me, but he doesn’t need to because we both already know that the answer is no.
“Or did you just decide that someone needed to be taught a lesson and you were the perfect person to make it happen?” I ask, and now my voice is shaking. “How many times are you going to confuse cruelty for love before you don’t have anyone left?”
There’s a minuscule part of me that knows exactly why he thinks the only real form of love is tough love, that at least understands the theory behind what he was trying to do, how he was trying to protect me, but I’m not really interested in understanding right now.
After all, it’s not like he was either.