Again Page 22

  “My dad is speaking in here today,” she huffed, her knee bouncing higher.

  “Here, here?” I asked, pointing to the front of the lecture hall.

  I turned to Carter and Veronica—they were busy talking.

  “Yeah, he speaks every semester and I always have to come and watch. Even before I was a student—” She rolled her dark brown contact-covered eyes—“I had to come and watch.”

  As angry as she seemed at her father, she was still here waiting for him. I knew all about that kind of hate. It was how I saw drinking. As much as I hated it, as much as it ruled me, I had been, even sober, still under its spell.

  “At least he doesn’t make me go to his stupid office anymore,” she said, glancing at her phone.

  Her words awakened something—a familiarity I hadn’t noticed until now. It came to me all at once, a burning shot to the solar plexus. I saw a picture of her in a silver frame, much younger, her blond hair not yet covered in black, her blue eyes free of dark contacts and pouring out love at whoever was taking the picture.

  Where had I seen it?

  My question didn’t linger for long. Familiarity became fact when David walked into the lecture hall with Professor Parker.

  David?

  David.

  David!

  She was David’s daughter. That was why Veronica had recognized her. She was David’s daughter and the woman she was yelling at him on the phone about fucking was me.

  My skin went cold and clammy. My heart launched into my throat. Looks like I wasn’t going to have to wait eight years to be standing face to face with him again. It was happening now.

  Fuck.

  That was what I got for picking Hudson University, his wished-for alma mater.

  Veronica hadn’t noticed David walk in. She was talking to Carter about the tax ramifications of his trust fund. I considered running out of the lecture hall, but what was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to explain?

  I rifled through my bag. David still hadn’t noticed me. He headed to the front of the room with Professor Parker. I shoved my cat ears hat over my hair, pulled my coat on, and zipped it to my chin. It was a sorry excuse for a disguise, but it was all I had.

  David put his briefcase down next to the lectern and walked back toward Dawn. I put my head down, hoping outerwear and having no earthly reason to be here would be enough camouflage.

  Unfortunately, I also had Veronica sitting next to me, someone David saw daily.

  Before he hit our row his demeanor changed, his stride slowed, his face a growing wave of confusion. He looked from me to Veronica and back again.

  “Fuck,” Veronica said under her breath, finally sensing the panic hitting me.

  David was frozen at first. He didn’t know what to do. Say hello to his estranged daughter or ask me what the hell I was doing there.

  In the end he went with the easier target—me.

  “Dawn, who’s your friend?” he asked, holding on to a seat in the row in front of her for balance.

  David probably thought I was here to screw him over in some way. You know that Carly Simon song, “You’re So Vain.” Well, with David, the song was always about him.

  “Hi Dad, great to see you, too,” Dawn replied. Her voice was all eye-roll.

  He didn’t respond, waiting for her answer.

  She sighed. “This is my roommate, Kate.”

  “Your roommate?” he blurted, his blue eyes, that I now recognized as the same as Dawn’s, filled with questions, with doubt about whether he should even acknowledge he knew me, “A freshman, too?”

  “Of course, Dad,” Dawn said, like, are you stupid?

  “Hello, Kate,” David said finally, taking my hand, his touch both familiar and disturbing. “It’s nice to meet a friend of Dawn’s.” His voice carried a sarcastic lilt, which probably only I was supposed to notice.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” I replied, my mouth tense.

  I wondered how long we would keep pretending we didn’t know each other.

  “So are you a law student, or here with Dawn to hear me speak?” he asked, but there was something in his eyes, a look that said if you’re planning to do me harm, you should forget it.

  “Law student,” I said, giving him the very same look back.

  Dawn watched us. It was clear she didn’t understand why her father was giving me so much attention. “What is going on?” she asked.

  “What do you mean? I’m just talking to your friend Miss Townsend,” David said.

  “How do you know her last name?” Dawn asked, her eyes narrowing.

  David’s face went pale. I couldn’t see my face, but I guessed it was whiter than my stupid cat ears hat.

  “Wait,” she said, sitting up straighter and staring at me. “What the fuck?” she yelled, finally realizing, finally recognizing the thing David and I were both trying to hide, both trying to forget. She reeled back from me. “It’s you, you’re her.”

  “No,” I said, trying to touch her arm. I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Don’t deny it. He has pictures of you all over his phone.” Her voice caught. “How could I be so stupid?”

  “Dawn, calm down,” David said.

  “You bitch,” she yelled. She stood and pushed her father so he fell back. “You asshole.”

  Luckily, Professor Parker was searching for something in his bag. I couldn’t tell what Veronica and Carter were doing. I had tunnel vision on Dawn. Angry fire shone in her eyes, seemed to radiate from her nostrils.

  “Did you set this up?” she asked, her voice rising. Her gaze tightened on her father. “What? Were you trying to make me like her so she could be my new mom, or something?”

  “I had no idea she was here. I still don’t know why she is,” he said, his lips in a line as he stood up straighter. “What are you doing here, Kate, living in a dorm room with my daughter?”

  Getting screwed by one hell of a coincidence, I wished I could say. “I didn’t know she was your daughter,” I replied instead, my body racked with so many emotions, I was numb.

  Professor Parker watched us from the front of the room. As a friend of David’s, he knew his relationship with his daughter was strained and had, until her voice started rising, managed to ignore what was happening. But he was watching us now. If Dawn kept yelling he would surely walk over and ask what was wrong.

  And we would have to try to explain, if we even could.

  “Are you stalking me or something?” David asked, because even when I’d said differently, the song was still always about him.

  “I know it seems hard to believe,” I said, able to focus only on speaking, “but this has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  Dawn put her hand over her mouth. “I’m going to be sick,” she cried, running from the room.

  David went after her and I leaned back in my seat, wrestling my heart and pulse back to a normal rate, fighting my own sudden bout of nausea.

  Fate really was a punk-ass bitch.

  Probably knowing a lot more about their relationship than even I did, Professor Parker started class like nothing had happened.

  I heard Carter ask Veronica what was going on and heard her answer, “That is Kate’s old boss.”

  He turned to look at me. His mouth was open, words straining to come, but what was there to say? Carter knew everything, but telling the truth to one person didn’t matter once you were caught in a lie by everyone else—a lie that could and probably would change everything.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Carter

  After class we stood outside, a few feet away from the bustling quad. Luckily we were able to escape without Professor Parker asking about the unfolding soap opera that had occurred in our row, but Kate’s ex-boss and ex-boyfriend would surely fill him in later.

  The sunny day following us to class earlier seemed to be mocking us now—practically laughing in only the way sun can after shit has hit the fan. Its happy, abundant light, such an opposite of the huge bla
ck hole happening in your actual life.

  Veronica and I stood on either side of Kate like crutches. We weren’t touching her, but were close enough to catch her if she fell. She looked like she might. Her skin was bleached. Her eyes were wide, her breathing irregular. Even her hair seemed like it was standing on end, the tips of it shining in the mocking sun.

  It was like she had seen a ghost, the ghost of her past.

  My stomach wrestled into a knot. I thought about Jeanie. It must have been how she felt when she saw me, too.

  “What the hell am I going to do now?” Kate asked, words finally coming.

  She wasn’t looking for an answer, which was good, because clearly the two of us didn’t have one. She was asking the way people do when asking is all you have any control over.

  She was asking because what else was there to say?

  I was only starting to appreciate the gravity of what had occurred. The fake life Kate had made real could, with one word from Dawn or her father, totally collapse.

  “Maybe they won’t tell anyone,” Veronica finally said, touching her arm.

  It was clear Kate couldn’t even feel it. Her eyes were emptier than ever.

  I was glad Veronica responded, because the other thing I understood about what had happened was that I might be asking the same question Kate had depending on the outcome of all this.

  Her fate was now mine.

  “Are you kidding?” Kate spit. “Dawn gets to fuck over the woman who fucked her dad and screwed over her mom. You think she wouldn’t? And David…” She cradled her head in her trembling hands.

  She didn’t know what else to say and we didn’t either. The only thing that followed was the sound of our breathing.

  I understood forgiveness. There were a lot of things Dawn would probably have to do before she got there.

  “I can talk to Dawn,” I tried.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you on a good day,” Kate said, “and today is the vicious opposite of good.”

  “Well, we could keep standing next to the quad,” Veronica said, trying to smile.

  Kate was stone. “Trust me. She will say something and even if she doesn’t, you think David won’t?”

  “You can just stay in my room,” I said. It wasn’t a solution, but it was all I had, facing the fear of possibly losing her. Lock Kate away so she couldn’t be taken from me, so our life together could continue.

  So her life here could continue.

  It was stupid, but Kate and I had shared our truth. She had accepted me and I had accepted her. Shouldn’t that have counted for something?

  “I’m not only going to lose my scholarship. I’m going to lose everything,” she said quickly, but she wasn’t crying. Maybe she was beyond tears.

  “You might not lose anything,” Veronica said.

  I couldn’t say the same. As a law student I knew even if impersonating yourself wasn’t against the law, fraud definitely was. Accepting money under false pretenses was fraud. It was clear Kate did too.

  “You won’t lose me. You will never lose me,” I said, taking her hand.

  “See,” Veronica said, “and I’m still here.”

  “What kind of luck do I have that I got housed with the daughter of the guy I was having an affair with?” Kate asked.

  She still wasn’t asking for an answer from us. Maybe she wanted someone to realize how fucked up this really was.

  Tristan would say that statistically it was probably less likely than falling in love with a woman who was seven years older than you. I guess I could have asked him, but it was life. How amazing things happened and could be taken away just as easily.

  “You seriously didn’t remember David’s daughter went to this school?” Veronica asked, trying to get Kate to focus on her, to talk about something real, because it was clear Kate was starting to spin out of control. “I mean, he has his stupid ‘Hudson University Dad’ paperweight on his desk. He talks about his goddamn honorary degree like every other minute.”

  “That was why I came here. I wanted to do what he wished he’d done. I just forgot about the daughter part, I guess.”

  “Kudos on trying to outdo him, though,” Veronica said with a thumbs-up.

  “Not that it matters now,” Kate said.

  I touched Kate’s back, ran my palm back and forth against it.

  “Do you want to come back to the city with me today?” Veronica asked, latching herself to Kate’s forearms.

  I didn’t speak. I barely breathed, waiting for Kate’s response. Could I have found her and then lost her?

  Maybe I was as unlucky as she was. Maybe life was about to fuck us both.

  Kate straightened her stance. “No, I need to apologize to Dawn. I don’t know what she’ll do, but I need to at least do that first.”

  “You want me to come with you to talk to her?” I asked.

  Kate shook her head.

  She didn’t have to say the words. This time I needed to let her take care of herself.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Kate

  After we drove Veronica to the bus station and got back to the dorm, I went to deal with Dawn.

  I could have taken Carter up on his offer and hidden in his room, but I was done avoiding the things that were hard.

  Eventually there was no use avoiding them anyway.

  If I’d learned anything in my time during college-take-two, it was that escape wasn’t a solution and lying wasn’t an escape.

  I left Carter with a kiss in the hallway and headed to my room. It was time to act my real age for a change.

  I’d made these choices and I deserved the consequences whatever they were. I’d been unknowingly hurting Dawn for over a year and I would take everything she dished out.

  I entered our dark room. The lights were off, and Dawn’s bed was illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight coming through the window.

  She didn’t move, lying like a lump under her covers. She was hiding, only she had every right.

  “Go away,” she said before I’d even closed the door behind me. “I don’t want to talk to you.” Her voice was even.

  I was surprised. Mine would have been shaking had I been facing me. The woman who broke her mother’s heart, who ruined her relationship with her father, who might have been the reason she wore so much black.

  “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen,” I said quickly. I wasn’t sure how long Dawn would give me and those were words she deserved to hear. Given the opportunity, I probably would have apologized to David’s daughter eventually, anyway.

  She laughed angrily.

  I’m sorry was too small for the lies I told, too insignificant to my betrayal, known or unknown.

  “You sound just like my dad,” she spit. “I guess that makes sense now.”

  “I’m really so sorry,” I said, hating the words, talking fast to cover them up. “I didn’t know who you were, Dawn,” I pleaded. “I had no idea who I was to you.”

  “Apparently, I didn’t know who you were, either,” she said, finally sitting up to face me, “who I was to you.” Her skin was pearl in the moonlight, the color of snow. “I’m trying to decide what’s worse. How much I hated knowing you as my father’s mistress, or how much I liked knowing you as my friend.”

  “I am your friend,” I said, moving across the room and sitting on my bed. I understood I was one of the only people she’d let in and, even though I hadn’t totally reciprocated, she knew the truest parts of me the way Carter did. The person I was before alcohol made me into someone else, someone who would sleep with her father.

  “Friends don’t lie to each other,” she said simply.

  She was right. It was why I tried to stay away from everyone when I first got here. But I’d started to want this life—wanted to be the person I became in college-take-two. How much did that matter if who I was, was still a lie?

  “You’re right,” I said, finally. “I’m sorry.”

  “You said that already, three times
,” she replied. Her eyes were wet, shiny in the moonlight. “Say something that means something or get the hell out of here.”

  I took a breath. Sorry didn’t explain anything and Dawn deserved an explanation. She deserved a friend.

  “I wanted to be better than who I was when I was with your father. I wanted to be the person I was before I ever met him, before I even knew I would meet him.” I gestured around the room. “That’s what this was about.”

  “So was he your first married man?”

  “My first,” I nodded assuredly, “And most definitely, my last.”

  “Lucky me; I’m so glad you used my family to learn your lesson.”

  My skin tightened. I tasted acid on my tongue. “I knew your father was married,” I said, “but I fooled myself into believing he was the one who did the hurting, that my part in it didn’t matter. Meeting you, getting to know you, I see that was wrong.”

  “You should have known before now. How old are you anyway?” she asked, squinting, studying me.

  “Twenty-nine,” I admitted. “I turned twenty-nine a month ago.”

  Her mouth opened in an O like she was going to say wow, or fuck me, or something, but had decided not to give me the satisfaction that I had completely fooled her. “You act like a child. You act like you’re six.”

  “I know,” I said. “Unfortunately, that’s just starting to change. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing until we can step away long enough to see it.”

  “I’m sick of being your guinea pig,” she said, pulling her knees up under her chin. “I’m sick of my life being your laboratory.”

  “I wanted to tell you the truth. I mean, not day one or anything, but then I started to get to know you, and I needed everyone to believe I was nineteen, especially the administration…”

  Something clicked behind her eyes. “Oh I get it,” she interrupted, “you’re fucking them too.”

  I swallowed, my throat on fire. I was. I thought I deserved a second chance, but considering the way I’d gone about getting it, maybe I didn’t.