Nash mentioned that his mom and dad both have to work really hard, and often take on extra night shifts to pay for everything their family needs, but I didn’t realize he meant this kind of hard. I didn’t realize his parents were literally working themselves to the bone or how poor his family must be.
I suddenly feel terrible for all the things I take for granted. For my closet full of clothes and my weekly allowance and the car I suspect I’m getting on my sixteenth birthday.
I’m already deep in the guilt pit when Nash’s mom shoots me a weary look that makes me feel very foolish and childish and small.
She listens to Bea’s report of the incident without saying a word then asks, “Do I really have to take him home? I’m sure nothing like this will happen again. Nash really loves it here.”
Bea’s husband, Phil, a man close to my dad’s age who’s looked sick to his stomach since the moment he and Bea shined flashlights on our blanket, exchanges a loaded look with his wife.
Bea purses her lips, continuing to avoid eye contact with both Nash and myself as she says, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Geary, we have a very strict policy on being out of bunks after hours. Nash will absolutely have to leave, but…” She shakes her head. “Well, we’ll have to wait to see what Aria’s parents have to say before we can send him home. We may have to contact the police.”
Mrs. Geary’s brows pinch together. “The police? What? Why would—”
“Aria is a minor,” Bea cuts in. “Nash is not. I don’t want to start throwing around ugly words, but technically this is a very serious situation. Laws have been broken.”
“But Nash only turned eighteen last month,” Mrs. Geary says, her skin going even paler. “He’s still a boy.”
Phil sighs heavily, a sound that seems to pain him. “I hear you, ma’am, but she’s only fifteen. Hopefully we can work this out without anyone getting in more trouble than they’re in already, but if the Marches want to press charges, we—”
The rest of Phil’s sentence is cut off by a rampaging rhinoceros thundering into the room, smoke steaming from his ears.
It’s my dad, in full, protect-his-offspring, beast mode. His thinning blond hair is standing up in a crazy fuzz-halo around his head as he demands to know “what the hell is going on here!” His voice is so deep it makes the walls vibrate. Even dressed in suit pants and dress shoes paired with a Bob and Sue’s Smokehouse tee-shirt from before I was born, back when Mom and Dad opened the first of their chain of BBQ restaurants, he somehow manages to be terrifying, not ridiculous.
Daddy’s only five ten and on the slim side for a man with an abiding love of red meat, but he has the kind of personal energy that knocks larger men off their feet from half a football field away. He can be a lot on a normal day. When he’s mad, he’s flat out impossible.
This isn’t going to go well.
Not well at all.
The thought has barely passed through my head when Daddy’s gaze locks with Nash’s. My father’s eyes catch fire and his jaw unhinges, the better to fully unleash the power of his vengeful fury.
Words I’ve never heard emerge from his mouth stream into the room in a vicious river of ugliness, making my blood run cold. The things he’s saying are so awful that at first my brain refuses to process the information.
I sit, stunned and silent in my chair as my father accuses my boyfriend of being a “low life piece of shit,” among other, far worse things. Things that turn my breath leaden in my lungs, making it feel like I’m being crushed to death by my own shame.
But finally, when Dad points a finger at Nash’s chest, promising to prosecute him “to the full extent of the law,” my lips remember how to move.
“No, Dad! Stop,” I shout.
“I will not stop!” he thunders back in that awful voice that sounds nothing like the father I’ve known and loved for my entire life. It’s so jarring—and terrifying—that I burst into tears.
Big, sloppy, ugly-cry tears.
I try to pull myself together, but I can’t seem to stop, no matter how embarrassing it is to lose control in front of Nash and his mom and Phil and Bea—the directors have already seen me almost naked, for God’s sake, do they really have to see me wailing like a toddler on top of it?
The only good thing about falling to pieces is that it seems to pop Dad’s anger balloon. The next time I dare to lift my face from my hot, tear-soaked hands, he’s sitting on the couch beside me, patting my back. “There, there, baby,” he says in his normal voice, “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell like that.”
“Please, Dad,” I say, my voice thick. “Nash didn’t hurt me or make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Please, don’t call the police.”
“You’re only fifteen, Aria,” Dad says, what looks like fear in his pale eyes. “You don’t know what you want.”
“I do, too,” I insist, sitting up straighter. “And I know good people from bad people. You taught me that, Dad. And Nash is a good person. He’s so sweet and thoughtful and talented. He didn’t deserve any of those things you said about him.”
Daddy’s mouth tightens. “Well, that may be. If I ever see the boy again, I’ll apologize. After I tell him to stay at least five miles away from my daughter for the rest of his perverted life.”
“He’s not a pervert,” I say, but my voice sounds weaker than it did. I glance around the room, shocked to realize my dad is right. Nash is gone. He’s gone, and he left without saying goodbye. “Where…”
“Nash and his mother went to get his things,” Bea says, pity furrowing her brow as she sits down in the chair across from me, the one Nash was sitting in only moments before. “As the older, supposedly wiser party, he should have known better than to do what he did. But since you’re only fifteen and have been with us for so many years…” Her lips curve in a small smile. “Well, we’re going to offer you the chance to stay, providing you promise not to break the rules again and spend your free period helping out in the cafeteria to make amends.”
“I…” I swallow the words rising in my throat. It’s not fair for me to get to stay while Nash is kicked out, but Bea isn’t going to change her mind. Even if she did, my dad wouldn’t let me stay at camp if Nash was still here. And if I insist on going home in solidarity with my boyfriend, I have no doubt I’ll be grounded from my phone and my laptop, ensuring I’ll have no way to reach out to apologize for my psycho father.
But if I stay here…
Camp is a cell free zone, but there are payphones in the rec room and Delilah has an emergency burner phone her mom made her smuggle in just in case she has an anxiety attack and needs to talk to family in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t have the chance to get Nash’s cell number. Surely the Geary’s have a landline. They seem like grounded, landline kind of people, the sort who have a listed number a girl can track down if she Googles hard enough.
I’ll be able to talk to him if I stay.
That thought is the only solid thing in my mind as I nod and say, “Thank you. Yes, please, I’d like to stay. I’m sorry for breaking the rules.”