The Seven Kings of Jinn

And now she had to face a good man who was duped into thinking he had a familial obligation to her. Ari loved her dad. But it suddenly terrified her he would no longer love her if he knew the truth. It wasn’t a stupid fear. He hadn’t exactly been there for her these last few years. He’d let her make her own way through her teen years, and where had it gotten her? She was going to a college she didn’t want to attend. She had friends she couldn’t really talk to. And she was in love with a boy who didn’t want to be loved.

But I’m going to fix that, she thought. That’s the one thing I can fix.

To Ari, it wasn’t so irrational to believe that if her dad ever found out the truth, he would walk away. Surely, all that had been keeping him from walking away entirely was his love for his ‘daughter’. If Ari took that away from him, would there be anything left? Trying to hold down the anger she felt at that thought, Ari sucked in a deep breath when she heard a car pulling into the driveway. She twisted around in her seat, waiting for the sound of the key turning in the lock. The scrape of metal against metal seemed overly loud and Ari flinched as the door gave away from the latch.

Derek Johnson stepped into his home, dropped his suitcase with a thud, and slammed the door shut. Their eyes met across the room and Ari saw a war in her dad’s gaze: relief fighting with fury and disappointment. When he marched into the room and grabbed her up into his arms, Ari felt the burn of tears in the back of her throat. She gripped her dad tight, inhaling his cologne and the smell of detergent on the lapel of his suit jacket. His lips brushed her forehead before he pulled back to look at her. “I’m going to kill you,” he whispered hoarsely.

She blinked, trying to remember the last time he’d hugged her. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

He shook his head, his eyes darkening as he retreated. Ari’s heart sank. She wasn’t off the hook yet. “Sit.” He jerked his head at the couch and Ari promptly dropped onto it. She watched anxiously as he shrugged out of his jacket and loosened the tie around his neck. Finally, he collapsed onto the armchair Jai had only minutes before vacated. And then it came. He fired questions at her, not waiting for her to answer, lamenting her poor judgment, vocalizing his disappointment, creating criminal scenarios as reasons for her stupidity, his voice rising and rising until he was shouting, his face mottled red with anger. He wasn’t ready to hear her answers. Ari wasn’t even sure he wanted answers, he just wanted her to know what an inconvenience the worry he had felt for her was. As she sat there, gripping her hands tightly together on her lap, aware of Jai upstairs listening to every word, Ari grew angry too. Her dad’s worry wasn’t supposed to be an inconvenience. It was supposed to be a natural part of fatherhood. And true, he might not be her real father, but he didn’t know that.

Where had he been? Was he really surprised that something like this had happened? He had been leaving her alone for years. He was lucky something bad hadn’t happened before now. He was lucky she could take care of herself.

As her dad ranted on and on about the humiliation of having to call the police and tell them she was fine, that she’d had a bad period and didn’t want to answer the door or the phone, Ari’s fears gnawed at her insides. Would he walk away from her if he knew the truth? Would the dad she loved, who had loved her when she was a kid, would he love her enough to still want her if he ever discovered the truth?

“I just can’t believe that you would act so carelessly, so inconsiderately over nothing. I didn’t raise my daughter to act like that and she never has before. So tell me, Ari, what are you hiding from me?”

Gulping down the truth, Ari shook her head, the build-up of anger in her throat making it difficult to speak. “Nothing.”

“No, I don’t accept that. You never lie to me. Do not start now.”

She scoffed, the noise escaping her before she could stop it. Her father’s nostrils flared and she suddenly felt dangerous. Weightless and dangerous. “I never lie?” She shook her head, daring him to hate her. “Right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means… How would you know?” her voice rose an octave on the last word as she stood from the couch. “You’re never here. And when I complain you’re never here, you just call me a brat who doesn’t know how lucky she is to have such nice things in her life because her dad works hard to give them to her. Lucky?” she whispered, daring him to hate her and wanting him to love her all at the same time. “I’m all alone, Dad. I have no one, no one but Charlie, and he doesn’t want anyone to love him. So no. I’m not lucky, Dad. I’m eighteen and I’m alone because you’re never here. You’re never here and I made a mistake. I’ve made a few of those.” She shook her head, watching the color leach from his cheeks and his eyes dim from anger to sadness. “You think I never lie? I lie, Dad. I lied about Penn. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want a business degree. And worse… I don’t know what I want. I don’t know who I am. And I lied about that. I lied because I want you to love me, even though you’re never here. And…” she sucked in a breath, that old falsehood still biting at her conscience. “I lied about your girlfriend Michelle.”