Wild Girl (Slateview High 2)

My jaw set. Why was nothing around here making any fucking sense anymore?

“What are these, Mom?” I picked up the small stack of letters, waving them in the air.

She glanced at the table and shrugged.

“Oh. I was just about to toss those out,” she said dismissively. “Just some updates from your father.”

“They say that he’s been trying to make visits happen?” I dropped all but one of the papers and rose to my feet, pushing my chair back. “But you haven’t been returning any correspondence. Why didn’t you say anything? I went once a while ago, but we could have gone again. Maybe there’s something he needs to tell us—”

“If your father needs anything important relayed to us, he can tell Isaac, who can tell us. There haven’t been any updates, Cordelia, and I don’t know why you’re in such a state over this. I let you go see him once. Do you want to spend more time in prison, surrounded by a bunch of criminal thugs?”

“No, but—”

“Then we’re not going to continue this conversation,” she said. I watched as she scooped up the letters, plucking the one that was in my hand from between my fingers, and tossed them into the garbage bin.

“Please take that out before the evening is over, Cora. It’s about to overflow.”

She flashed me a brisk, dismissive smile, then turned and headed back to her bedroom.

Half an hour later, she emerged and slipped out of the house, waving goodbye as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Whatever Mom’s reasons were for not wanting to see Dad, I decided that I wanted to visit him again.

Well, wanted wasn’t the right word. It was more that I felt like I needed to.

My meeting with Flint had gone horribly sideways so fast that he’d never actually given me any of the information he had promised me about my dad—if he’d even had it to begin with, which I was beginning to seriously doubt. But speaking with him, even if I didn’t learn anything new, had been enough to make me realize I needed to confront Dad about the things I did know.

Or—the things that I had been told.

I needed to be able to look him in the eyes and see for myself what he said about the things Bishop and Kace and, hell, most of the people at Slateview seemed to know about my father. Whether or not Mom cared about it, and whether or not she cared about seeing my father, wasn’t my concern. I was sure she had her reasons.

Just like I had mine.

On Saturday, a few days after finding his letters, I headed to the prison for my arranged visitation with my father. I dressed a little more conservatively this time. At least, as conservatively as I could.

I’d only been to visit him once before, but the routine was already slightly familiar, so that helped. I took the bus early, got there early, went through security, and was then escorted to the back so that I could speak with my father.

I braced myself, but I was calmer than I had been the first time. I had been through worse things at this point than spending time in a prison, and I knew that being here was more important than clinging to some kind of false sense of innocence that I knew I no longer had.

Not after meeting the Lost Boys, and certainly not after the incident with Flint.

Dad looked worse for wear than the last time I’d been here. His eyes held lines in the corners, the wrinkles etched deeper than I remembered. The bags underneath them sagged low and dark. What’s more, he was thinner, as if stress was literally eating away at his body.

I swallowed hard as I looked at him, feeling a wave of pity rise up in me. This was not at all the man I knew, and it hurt my heart to see my father reduced to this. But I clung to the reason for my visit, steeling my nerves. I needed to be direct with him when I asked him questions—I needed to get some damn answers. Finally.

“Cordelia.” He spoke into the phone receiver on his side of the glass partition between us as he sat down, and I could hear the heaviness in his voice. He paused as he sank onto the seat, looking around almost expectantly before frowning and leaning forward. “Where is your mother?”

Good goddamn question.

“She wasn’t feeling well,” I lied. “So I decided to come instead…”

A small line appeared between his brows, and his lips pressed together. “She must not have been feeling well for a while now. She hasn’t returned my calls or my letters.”

He’s been calling too?

I didn’t tell him about the letters, didn’t mention the fact that I’d salvaged them from the trash before hauling the bag out to the curb, and I didn’t tell him that mom was probably avoiding his calls too. That seemed like a needlessly cruel thing to do.

“She’s just been working hard keeping everything together at home,” I said quietly. “It’s been a lot. She sends her love, though.”