Part 24 (1/2)

He looked away, smoothed down his goatee with his index finger and thumb, and then sighed heavily. ”I don't know what to talk about.”

”Why don't you start with addressing some of the things you spoke to me about yesterday?”

He sighed again. ”I don't want you to smoke pot anymore.”

The air escaped my lungs, leaving me breathless.

”Don't act shocked. I'm a firefighter and paramedic; I know what pot smells like. I don't appreciate it being in my house.”

”That's not exactly how we wanted to broach that subject, but now that it's out there...” Wallace said, her voice drifting off as she turned to me. ”I think that you're probably not just a recreational marijuana user. I feel that it's time to address some of the reasons why you use.”

Although my mind raced, I quickly said the first and easiest thing. ”I'll stop.”

Tom straightened up. ”There's a good treatment facility in D.C. that specializes in-”

”What?” I sputtered, looking at him like he was crazy. ”I'm not going to rehab for smoking pot. That's bulls.h.i.+t!”

Wallace just looked at me as if she knew that I didn't just smoke pot. ”Your father is very concerned about you.”

I stared at Tom. What the h.e.l.l?

”Don't give me that look,” he said, his voice quiet.

”How the f.u.c.k should I look at you then? You're a f.u.c.king stranger who's basically saying that you want to send me away. You could have just said 'don't do it in my house,' you a.s.s.”

He tightened his grip around the arm of his chair. ”I don't want you doing it outside of my house either, and I don't want to send you away. I just got you back.”

”f.u.c.k you,” I practically shouted. ”You say that you just got me back like you wanted me or something. I was sitting in the room when she called you. I could tell that you didn't want to take me.”

He leaned forward and glanced at Wallace, who nodded to him, and then back to me. ”I was shocked. I hadn't seen you in years and then your mom calls up and tells me that I have to take you or you go to jail! How should I have reacted? I mean-”

”You should have told her that you weren't interested! You should have told her the truth. You didn't want me when I was little, and you don't want me now, and it's cool, Tom, but don't pretend that you-”

”I love you, Sophie. I loved you then and I love you now. You have no idea how happy I was when your mother told me she was pregnant. I didn't care that I was eighteen. I wanted a family.” He looked at me pleadingly. ”It wasn't my choice for your mother to take you from me. I came home from work to an empty house. All her stuff was just gone. All your stuff was gone. You were gone. Everything was just gone. It took me three months to even find out where she had taken you, and the only reason I did was because of the divorce paperwork.”

He ran a hand through his hair and then smoothed down his goatee again. I turned away because I was tired of looking at him. ”I'm sorry that I wasn't a better father for you, but by the time I finally got visitation rights, you were a little girl and I thought little girls needed their mothers. I didn't...”

I shook my head. He had no clue. ”Just shut up.”

”See? That right there!” Tom's voice was so loud that I had to turn to look at him. ”That's what I'm talking about,” he said to Wallace. ”I don't understand what I need to do. If I would have told my father to shut up, I wouldn't have been able to sit down for a week.”

”Then hit me, Tom! Or are you too busy banging another man's wife to care?”

He snapped his mouth closed. While I knew that I'd slept with another woman's husband, it didn't stop me from condemning him for boning that chick.

”Yeah, I f.u.c.king know,” I said in response to his shocked expression. ”Know how? Olivia told me.” Tom looked down at his lap. ”Didn't think she knew, did you? Well, surprise! She was aware you were pumping her mom before her dad died. She and Jamie aren't stupid, you idiot. Maybe you don't think about how your actions affect other people, especially people who can't change their situation. You can't just go around f.u.c.king people's mothers without there being...” I trailed off, a little out of breath from my outburst.

”For someone who lives in a gla.s.s house, you sure do like to throw stones, Sophie.”

I ignored him. ”Did you ever stop to think that maybe Olivia tried to kill herself because of that s.h.i.+t?”

”Clint was one of my best friends. He was sick for a long time and-”

”I don't want to know why you're f.u.c.king her. I don't care.”

”I'm not f.u.c.king her. Clint knew that I loved her and I didn't touch her until...”

”Until he was too sick to kill you for touching his wife?”

”I'm sure it makes no sense to you, but it's not your business. It's not a Leave It to Beaver situation and I'm not perfect, but he knew what she needed and realized she stayed with him out of obligation, and not the lovesick need she had for him when they were in high school.”

”That's sick,” I spat.

”I don't think this is the most productive use of our time together,” Wallace interjected, cutting us both off. ”Sophie? What is your major complaint about your father's love life?”

Oh, yuck. His love life? Whatever. ”Maybe he should have tried to be a better father with all the energy he put into someone else's wife!”

”I did my best. How was I supposed to know that your mother was-”

”I told you when I was twelve that I didn't want to go back there, but what did you do? You put me on a plane and sent me back.”

Tom looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. ”You didn't tell me why, baby. I thought...I thought that you just...I mean, how was I supposed to know that your mother was...I had no idea she could hurt you that way...”

”Just shut up. Just shut the f.u.c.k up, and stop talking about s.h.i.+t you clearly have no clue about.”

”Sophie,” Wallace said using her ”listen-to-me” voice. ”You have to allow your father to speak his mind, just as you speak yours.”

”Why? He clearly only has bulls.h.i.+t to spew.”

”What the h.e.l.l am I suppose to do with that?” he asked. ”It's no wonder she's got one foot in jail. She won't control herself long enough to listen to anything. The only thing she does is hide.”

I didn't hide. He could go to h.e.l.l. He was the one who'd hidden in his safe little town for seventeen years. Yeah, maybe he came home to an empty f.u.c.king house, but it wasn't like he worked real hard to get me back.

”She smokes pot.” He turned to me. ”And don't think I don't know who the h.e.l.l is supplying it to you,” he looked back at Wallace, ”and her att.i.tude is for s.h.i.+t.”

She leaned forward. ”Tom, victims of s.e.xual abuse usually...”

”s.e.xual abuse?” he yelled as he looked at me like I was just diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Wallace faced me, took a deep breath, and then said, ”Yes. She was raped repeatedly as a child.”

”Raped? What are you...?”

I kept my eyes trained on her. The feeling in the room had changed completely.

”You didn't tell him?” I gaped at her, extremely surprised. I a.s.sumed after that Sat.u.r.day night, by the way he was avoiding me, Tom was clued in. When she had called just to check in with me a few days ago, I could swear that she said she was going to tell him about what happened to me when I was little.

Or had she told me that she thought I should tell him?

Or had she told me that she was going to tell him when we had our little session together?