“And I’d like you to try just as hard to put yourself in my shoes too. Think about what happened from my point of view, Tatum.” Okay. I nodded, wondering where he was going with this. “You are the most important person in my life. In my eyes, you have been extremely lucky in this situation.” Was he kidding? “Spending time with Chase, even with the best of intentions, was incredibly risky. Something much worse than a fine and a misdemeanor charge could’ve happened to you. I want very much to trust that you’re going to make the right decisions when you’re on your own, and this time, there was a better choice. Can you at least see where I’m coming from?”
I opened my mouth to say something smart, but then shut it. I wanted to point out that he wasn’t just an observer of this disaster, that he knew me deep down, that I wouldn’t willingly put myself in harm’s way. But the look on his face was so final, so decisive, that I couldn’t. Was it possible this one slip up scared him into not trusting me?
“If you want to be treated like an adult again, you need to show us that you can behave like one. I know you think we’re being unreasonable. But I hope that by the end of the summer, we will all be on the same page, ready to start fresh. You’ll see. Let’s use this time apart to really think, both of us. I will if you will.”
I nodded, not really sure of what I was agreeing to, but still too shaken to speak due to the combination of shame and confusion warring with each other in my head.
“I love you, Tatum. More than anything.”
“I know. I love you too, Dad.”
He left first thing the next morning, and I was alone.
After Dad left, I holed up in my room the whole weekend under the guise of studying for final exams. When I’d had enough of balancing chemical equations and analyzing Animal Farm, I took a break from my books and pulled out my laptop. It was boxy and heavy and ran slower than I would like, but it worked. And it was mine, which was really all that mattered. For what seemed like the millionth time, I checked my email. Nothing from Ashlyn. I didn’t expect it at this point—it had been a couple days since what my family was referring to as “the incident”—but that didn’t stop me from hoping she might apologize.
Right. Wasn’t going to happen. I sighed.
Like I always did when I needed something to make me forget life for a minute, I pulled up Photoshop and opened my current project. I was working on a logo for this girl Abby’s blog. She wrote for the school paper and was planning to launch a personal website over the summer. She’d asked me to make something up for her that she could stick on her site, her social media accounts, business cards, and “anything else I might need. A girl needs to advertise, you know,” she’d said. “How much do you charge?” She’d pulled me aside in our English class a couple weeks ago.
“No, I couldn’t charge you.” I was surprised she’d even asked. I just played around with graphics for fun.
“Why the heck not? You’re good. You could be making some serious bank.” Abby and I weren’t close—we’d only met this year in school—but I liked her. She told it like it was. We had worked together on a project earlier in the year, and I’d designed the slide show we presented to the class—complete with my own graphics, of course.
“Huh,” was my only answer. I hadn’t considered getting paid for my work, but maybe she was on to something.
I finished cleaning up the logo, which I was super proud of, and sent it off to Abby the moment I was done. She wrote me back in seconds.
Unbelievable about Ashlyn Zanotti, right? And with only a few days left in the year too.
My heart stopped.
What now? What are you talking about?
I thought you would have known? She left school. Shipped off to some boarding school in the mountains. Valley something or other.
Oh. My. Goodness. I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Blue Valley Academy. The private, girls-only school with the big price tag and even bigger set of expectations the students had to follow. Whenever Ashlyn stepped out of line, her father’s line, he threatened to send her there to “shape up.” He had brochures posted around the house as reminders to follow his rules—rules which were eerily similar to Belén’s, though no one ever offered to send me away.
The strictness of our homes was one of the things Ashlyn and I whined together about, and often. She told me once that I was her favorite person because I let her just be herself. I thought the exact same thing about her. The nights she slept over, giving both of us an escape, were filled with some of my best memories over the last few years. We’d shut my door, turn on the music, and have colossal dance parties, complete with hairbrush microphones and rock star makeup.
It seemed Mr. Zanotti had followed through on his threat, something I don’t think Ashlyn ever believed he’d do. Bet she wasn’t laughing about it now.
Great logo, btw. Change the color to purple and I’m sold.
I smiled to myself, pleased Abby liked my design.
Thank you. I like the way it came out too.
She responded again in lightning-quick speed.
Of course I’ll be giving you credit on my site. Hopefully get you some more clients.:-)
Clients? I’d need to start my own freelance business if this was going to be a real thing. But the idea of getting paid to do something I loved, I had to admit, was kind of electrifying. The gears of my brain started turning as I conjured visions of me becoming a small celebrity at school, followed by a spot at the college of my choice, and eventually leading to a job, maybe as a designer for a publishing house or advertising firm. I drummed my fingers on my chin. This could work out nicely for me if I played my cards right.
But try as I might, business plans never materialized in my head, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Ashlyn. Feeling particularly lonely and riled up, my body itched inside my skin, until I couldn’t sit still and concentrate anymore. Ashlyn’s perfectly highlighted blonde head flashed before me, with the same teary expression I’d seen on her face when she was sitting in her father’s car at the police station. I knew she was mad at me due to her radio silence. If our roles had been switched, I’d be mad at her too, but I’d like to think I’d give her a chance to explain. And since she was hours away at some secluded private school, my only chance for peace, or at least the ability to focus for more than ten seconds, depended on technology.
A quick search for Blue Valley Academy yielded their pristine website, complete with pictures of wholesome teenage girls in plaid skirts carrying hardback books and field hockey sticks. None of them had on eyeliner or showed bare knees, two things every parent knew were the gateways into delinquency. I scanned the menu bar items and found one that said “student directory.” With a few clicks, I had Ashlyn’s shiny, expensive new email address.