“What if I like girls, too?” I ask, because I do consider myself about a two on the Kinsey Scale of sexuality, meaning bisexual with a stronger preference toward boys. “Can I still have girls in my room?”
“Shit,” Maxx murmurs, rubbing at his mouth to hide his smile. He gives me a sidelong look which I ignore in favor of staring at Tess.
She looks completely dumbfounded by my question.
“I …” Tess starts, while I just stand there with my hands clenched tight by my sides. I cannot even believe that she cares so little about my wellbeing that she’d force me to participate in a talk show, of all things, when I explicitly told her that I didn’t want to do it.
Just more proof that my wants and needs don’t matter. It’s all about her.
“I guess no girls in your room either,” Tess spits out finally, a deep frown forming on her prettily painted lips.
“Why?” I continue, just as Kimber comes into the room and pauses to look between the two of us. You’d have to be denser than a box of bricks to miss the tension brewing in that room. “Because of the sex thing?”
“Yes, because of the ‘sex thing’,” Tess replies, making quotes with her fingers. She’s getting angry now, all of that playful coyness from earlier erased. But she didn’t really think she could force me into this interview without some repercussions? Just thinking about it makes my anxiety spike to ultra-high levels. Already, I’ve got nervous butterflies and nausea stirring.
“Why can’t I have sex if I want? It’s my body.”
Maxx keeps his hand over his mouth while Parrish’s eyes go from slitted to wide-eyed and Kimber makes a strange yelp of surprise.
Tess, well, I’m not really sure what her expression is supposed to be, caught somewhere between a cringe and a glower.
“Until you’re eighteen, it’s my body; I made it.” Tess stares me straight in the face as I grit my teeth.
“So that’s what it all comes down to then? I’m your property. My body isn’t mine; it’s yours.”
“Precisely,” she replies, crossing her arms over her chest as my anger burns into a wild inferno.
“I had plenty of sex back home,” I blurt out, which is actually a total lie. I haven’t had sex at all, ever. But I want to see her reaction. I want her to hurt and burn the way I’m hurting and burning. “What do your stupid rules matter to me now?”
“What an ugly lie to tell,” Tess blurts back, abandoning her coffee as she storms over to me, holding out her hand. “Give me your phone. And once you get upstairs, you can give me your laptop and your PlayStation, too.”
The color drains from my face as I back away from her.
“No.”
I’m already lonely. I’m already sad. I hate it here. I hate it, and I hate her, and I hate Kimber, and I really hate Parrish who’s staring at me like he’s never seen me before. If I give her my devices, I’ll lose my connection to the world at large, to Danyella, to Lumen, most importantly to Maxine.
“Now, Mia. You can have it all back on Monday provided you’ve given me a proper apology.”
“I said no,” I repeat, taking a step back as everyone stares at me. “You can’t offer me plastic surgery, tell me I can’t date, and then shame me for challenging your rules.”
“I said I was sorry about the plastic surgery thing,” Tess snaps out, but like she isn’t even sorry at all, like that moment we shared outside of the country club meant literally nothing. “Give me your phone, Mia, now.”
“My name is fucking Dakota!” I scream back at her, and then I’m turning on my heel and running for the stairs as fast as I can. Just before I duck into my room, I notice that Parrish’s bedroom door is open. Without giving myself time to question the decision, I chuck my phone onto his desk and then slip back into my own room, slamming the door and locking it.
As I expected, it doesn’t take Tess long to appear with keys in hand, Paul hovering just behind her. The way he frowns at me and pushes his glasses up his nose, I can tell that he doesn’t like me, that he maybe hates me, that he most definitely wishes I didn’t live in his house.
“Phone, now,” Tess snaps at me, red-faced and tear-streaked. She storms over to the TV and yanks out the power cord, collecting my PlayStation and my laptop, too. I let her take those things because I know I can only push this so far. “Phone,” she repeats, but I just shake my head, grabbing my hoodie off the bed and tossing it at her feet. I even turn out my pant pockets.
“I lost it,” I tell her, and then I just stand there as Paul and Tess proceed to tear apart my room, emptying the almost-empty drawers on the dresser, digging through the nightstand, dumping my backpack on my bed.
By the time they’re done, I don’t even feel like a person anymore, just a thing.
That’s the issue with being a teenager: you need guidance and help, but you don’t need to be torn apart, ordered around, and dehumanized. Why the fuck don’t parents get it? Why, why, why?
“If I find out that you’re purposely hiding that phone from me,” Tess begins, letting out a harsh laugh before she rubs at her face and Paul puts his arm around her shoulders. “Keep this up and we’ll start stripping privileges one by one.”
She turns and takes her husband with her, leaving me alone in the middle of my trashed but nearly empty bedroom. As soon as she’s out of sight, I sink down to the floor, crying into my palms in as silent a way possible.
When I hear movement, I lift my face up and find Parrish standing in my doorway, staring at me.
He doesn’t say anything, but I brace myself for an onslaught of meanness and petty bullshit. Instead, he moves over to the bed and starts picking things up, putting odds and ends into the nightstand drawer before refolding the clothes.
“You don’t have to do that,” I whisper, my voice cracking. I feel strung-out right now, empty. And so, so freaking sad.
Parrish scoffs at me and then gives a violent scowl.
“And you don’t have to pretend like you don’t need the help,” he snaps back at me. He pauses for a moment to dig around in his hoodie pocket, withdrawing my phone and then moving over to stand in front of me. He hands it out, and I sit there for a minute, just staring at it. “You shouldn’t trust me. I’m likely to tattle.”
I take the phone carefully from his hand, my fingertips sliding across his palm. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I’m almost certain that he shudders at the touch.
“They shouldn’t have trashed your room like this,” he murmurs, which is up there in the ‘nicest things my stepbrother has ever said to me’ category. I mean, other than, “Your nose looks good to me.” That was a real one-liner right there. Almost dropped my panties to the floor.
“I want to go home,” I say, my voice husky and broken. I’m not sure why I say it to Parrish of all people. Like he even cares. He pauses near my dresser, putting a stack of refolded clothes in the top drawer before turning to glance at me. I can’t bear to look at him anymore. He’s too pretty and too mean, and he confuses me with the things he does. One minute, he’s tearing my grandparents apart with Chasm’s help. The next, he’s helping me clean my room.