Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
And I know the video wasn’t my parents’ fault, but their shadow falls everywhere.
I glance at Aro and then walk over, pushing open the women’s locker room door. “This entire town revolves around my family, this school orbiting them the most.” I drop my jacket on a bench and kick off my boots. “My father thinks I’ll be a target as a motorbike racer. Not just because I’m a girl, but also because I’m his daughter. He doesn’t want me to be taunted like I still am at this school from time to time over my parents’ bullshit back in the day.”
Make no mistake. My dad knows and regrets the reputation he made for himself when he was my age.
But his mistake is thinking it’s my burden to bear.
I turn to her, whipping off my shirt and opening my jeans. “You know why my dad thinks it’s my responsibility to lay low and not invite scrutiny because I already get so much for his life?” I ask her. “Because I’m a girl.” I turn away and head for the showers in my bra and underwear, grabbing a towel off the rack. “When the time comes, he won’t tell my brother he can’t race motorcycles if he wants to.”
He’d love for James to share his interests, but I’m the one who needs to be shielded.
Whipping open the shower curtain, I step inside and start the water. I hold my hand under, checking the temperature as I hang my towel on a hook.
Aro leans in, pressing both hands on each side of the stall. “I’m going to tell you a secret.”
I cast my eyes up to her.
“Parents have far less control than you think they do, Dylan.” She smiles a little. “There’s a limit to how much and how hard they’ll fight you before they just give up. If that’s what you want.”
No. I don’t want them to give up. That’s not…
But she pulls the curtain closed and leaves me to clean up.
I tear off the rest of my clothes, hearing the locker room door echo shut as she leaves. I pull my hair out of my ponytail, wetting it under the spray.
She’s right. I know she is. I learned a long time ago that my parents would fold pretty easily on a lot of things with just a little resistance from me.
My father does not want me racing motorcycles, though. It’s the one hill he won’t descend.
I smooth my hand over the top of my head, seeing mud drip off my body, down to a pool around my feet as I quickly wash and shampoo.
However, I don’t want to go as far as Aro’s telling me I can.
Yeah, I can race, and he’ll scream or try to put me behind lock and key, but eventually I’ll find a way around him until he just gives up, both of us destroying our relationship—the respect and the trust—in all of the turmoil. I’ll tear my house apart, distress my mom and my brother… I don’t want my dad to just give in.
I want him to train me.
My head pounds, and I growl under my breath, shaking off all the noise in my brain.
I slam down the lever, shutting off the water, and grab my towel. I wrap it around me and exit the stall, finding clean clothes from the gym locker that I share with Aro.
The dull vibration of the music outside stops, but the walls are too thick to hear if an announcer is speaking or if the crowd is cheering.
I glance at the clock high to my left. Eight-nineteen.
We have to be there by nine.
I pull on the change of clothes, some clean sneakers, and my black varsity jacket that I love, because it has orange and black stripes around the cuffs and around the trim at the waist and collar. They’re our school colors and no one else has this jacket. I scored it at a thrift shop when I was ten, and I’ve saved it all this time, waiting to fit into it.
Sticking my keys in my pocket and my phone in the back of my jeans, I brush out my hair and swipe it up into a ponytail. Wrapping my muddy gear in a towel, I stuff the bundle in my locker—which Aro won’t appreciate when she opens it for gym class in the morning, but I can’t risk my dad seeing it.
I start to head out, but instead, I veer through the coach’s office, peering out her windows and down to the stadium below.
Everyone’s still there. Good. I don’t try to find my dad in the stands, I’ll just tell him I was here the whole time. He can’t prove I wasn’t.
I push up the sleeves of my jacket and gaze down at the pep rally, confetti and the remnants of the massive broken banner that the football team crashes through when they burst onto the field scattered all over the turf. The marching band twists and turns in formation behind the cheer team flashing and shaking their pom poms high above their heads.