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“Sweet, we’re partners,” he exclaims. “Like Batman and Robin. Mario and Luigi. Master Shifu and Po.”
What's The obsession with kung fu panda?
“What’s my code name? You’re all chess pieces, right? It’s perfect,” he enthuses. “Six pieces, six people. Which one haven’t you used?” Deonte shakes his head firmly. “No way. You have to earn Bishop by not betraying us,” he reprimands Kevin. “You can be Assface.”
Not an actual chess peice but ok.
“I’ve always wanted to be in a group chat.”
That's So sad.
WINTER FORMAL MY FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL WAS money themed. Not literally, of course—the dance committee named the event something frivolously idiomatic like “Nights of Splendor.” It didn’t really matter what they called it. The point of the event was showing off.
None of the old ones of me with my parents, which I destroyed when I moved out. I’m shocked by how much my room no longer feels like mine, as if I’m an intruder stealing into my own life.
What unnerves me is the memory of how the younger me just… did stuff because it was there to be done. Because it was the expectation for the cute role of heiress I’d grown up into.
Standing here in my childhood room, I find I’m wrestling with how it makes me feel. Was I forsaken, or was I freed?
Looking around at the luxurious icons of my old life, I find I’m not jealous of the Olivia who lived here. The delighted, directionless girl who trusted her family to be there for her. Who imagined the future would look like the past, but better. I pity her. She had no idea what was coming. She didn’t know to protect herself fro...
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When she returns to her screen, I leave her in my old room, kind of wishing I’d put my foot through the dollhouse in the corner.
“You just don’t know how to be loved,” he says, his voice so quiet, it commands the room. “You wouldn’t even know how to recognize it when it’s right in front of you.”
What I do next isn’t part of The Plan. It won’t help me get the codes to Dash’s accounts or find out who Abigail Pierce is. I do it for one reason only. Because Dash has done his best to relegate me into the shadows of his life. I don’t live here, in my childhood home. I wasn’t in the bridal party. I’m not even seated at his table.
I’m center stage. I’m the main attraction, and I can’t help using that spotlight to cast darkness on Dash. To make his day look just a little worse. “Screw you, Thomas!” I shout at the top of my lungs. “I never should have slept with you.”
Dash is livid. His face, which has started recently to show wrinkles like the soft creases of dollar bills, is warped with fury. The vein in his forehead is visible, spidering out over his silver eyebrow. His lips only control his snarl with effort. There it is, I notice. Dash Owens’s favorite glare, reserved for his darling daughter. It startles me, catching on old instincts for repentance, ones I’ve fought and reassured myself were gone.
Will I never get free of the urge to seek my father’s forgiveness?
While his parenting wasn’t exemplary when I was younger, he was only dealing with the small stuff. Forgotten homework, loud sleepovers with friends, the dimensionless difficulties of childhood. Moments like right now give me rare glimpses of how he would have reacted if I’d needed help with harder parts of life, the dangerous grays of adolescence. Dating. My future.
“Knock it off. I kicked you out of this house once, and I can kick you out again.”
Dude that's tacky.
What dries my lashes is the sight of the safe behind his desk. The perfect iron reminder of my resolve. I sniffle once, sharply, flattening my mouth. Even if I have to help Lexi, I will get the codes I need. He can kick me out then. I won’t care.
“At least wash it first,” Tom implores. “Tom,” McCoy replies patiently. “It might surprise you to learn I have a few years of shaving on you.” “Which is why what you’re doing should horrify you.”
It… doesn’t work. For once, fury doesn’t erase the hurt or the stress.
“He’s just using your dad’s razor. You can get infections, or even, like, hepatitis. I don’t know,” he elaborates hastily. “But you’re definitely not supposed to share razors.”
Desperate Times.
The people in the room with me now have done nothing except perform excellently in the ways I’ve requested of them. They don’t deserve the worst of me. It’s poor leadership.
He pushed me. No one ever pushed me. Not in the right ways. Everyone else pushed me to shut up or acquiesce when I irritated them. He pushed me because he believed in me.
The semester at Berkshire was already paid for, so I was allowed to stay until the end of the school year, but I knew it would be my last before I transferred to East Coventry.
Of course my grades suffered. I wasn’t good about doing readings or homework, not when I was focused on surviving the ruin of the life I knew.
He knew something was going on at home, but when he scheduled a meeting with me and my parents, Dash didn’t show. He was confident the donations he’d made to the school would ensure my grade point average. It was what the rest of my teachers were doing. Practically Berkshire tradition.
The place was a master class in hiding ambition and indulgence under facades of pretty propriety.
I was determined to earn whatever I could. For weeks in the guesthouse, I stayed up studying while my mom worked late shifts. We woke up exhausted together. She quizzed me over instant-noodle dinners.
That exam taught me I could do whatever I set before me. It taught me what I was capable of. Without it, I never would have planned something like today.
McCoy was proud of me, too. He’d never had a student get one hundred percent before. My dad was… not. When Dash saw my transcript—saw the single B-minus I earned in a string of A-minuses I decidedly did not—he was furious.
“Why do you defend him?” he asks patiently. Why? Why do I jump at chances to defend Dashiell Owens? Why do I come to weekly dinners here while I feel like an intruder in my old life? Why do I want to impress him? Why do I even care?
“Maybe I’m misunderstanding,” he continues, conceding, explaining himself. “Misunderstanding you or him… Olivia, do you have fond memories of him? Was there a time your relationship was good?”
It would make it so easy if I could just find what he’s asking for, I know. It would quell the conundrum in me. It would make me make sense—my hesitation for vengeance, my hunger for Dash’s admiration. Yet with every passing second, my silent struggle growing more frantic, I find nothing. I scour Easters when he grimaced at the egg-dyeing colors little Olivia got on her hands or her meaninglessly expensive dress. I hunt every dinner I can remember for encouragement or interest instead of sarcasm and scrolling his phone. I scrounge for signs of companionship, finding only weekends when his
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“You deserve never to doubt your parents love you, Olivia.”
My heart is still pounding from his words in the office, but I keep my expression serene, as if I’m a wanted part of this family. I guess I’m smiling, the feeling not unlike sculpting stone with my hands. The photographer issues us directions I can’t hear past the roar in my head, and Dash laughs, pulling me closer. As if nothing happened. It didn’t, to him. He probably barely remembers it. But to me, it’s everything.
Your dads a narcassist and a nepo baby.
His expression is rich with compassion, his favorite counterfeit currency.
Am I so easy to toss aside? Of course I am. My own father has done it, hasn’t he? Why would Jackson have ever wanted to stay?
I fell for how much patient kindness fills the soft space under his renegade charm. Except, when I was falling for him, I was really just falling for his lies.
Falling for someone is loving them. Falling for something is getting conned.
“It probably doesn’t surprise you,” I continue. “You know better than anyone how easy I am to get bored of.” He reaches out as if he wants to take my hand—then stops himself. He’s respecting my wishes, part of me says. He’s out of patience, part of me replies. “I was never bored of you,” he says firmly.
Bro you cheated on her that's textbook boredom.
Yes, I engineered this conversation in order to have Jackson invite me to be his plus-one in the dinner seating arrangement—filling the space intended for the wife of the absent Sam Peters.
The fact of its objective doesn’t change how it feels, however.
I can end things with him again when the cake is cut, when I have the information I need.
While I’m relieved for the excuse to drop my act—forcing my reassuring words felt like chewing glass—I’m frustrated by how easily he figured me out.
He’s maddeningly savvy and strategic when he wants or needs to be. Less golden retriever, more German shepherd.
