Twisted by Hannah Jayne(3)
“Can I help with the dishes?” Bex asked, standing.
Michael looked taken aback, his eyes going to Denise and then back to Bex. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
Heat burned the tops of Bex’s ears and her chest tightened. “Tell me what?”
“You’re a teenager. You’re supposed to hate us, refuse to do anything, then stomp up the stairs screaming, ‘You’re ruining my life!’” He broke into a grin so wide it made his brown eyes crinkle at the corners. Denise swatted at him.
“Michael, leave her alone. It’s only her first night. She’ll have plenty of time to scorn your terrible dad jokes and be that teenager later. Come on, Bex. I know you must be exhausted. Let’s get you settled into your room, and we can deal with chores and school and all that boring stuff in the morning. Okay?”
Bex followed Denise up the stairs, hugging her purse to her chest. Michael had already dropped her luggage into a room right off the hall, and when Denise opened the door, Bex sucked in a sharp breath.
“This is for me?”
Denise nodded silently.
The bedroom was enormous—at least twice the size of the one at her grandmother’s house and a dozen times bigger than the four walls she shared with three other girls at the interim home. The walls were painted a soft green that matched the chevron stripes on the bedspread that matched the curtains fluttering lazily in the evening breeze. From where she stood, Bex could see that her room had its own bathroom, and the cool green continued there in fluffy towels and a funky pattern on the shower curtain.
“I hope it’s okay.”
Bex turned to Denise, who stood in the doorway, nervously wringing her hands.
“Are you kidding? It’s amazing. I didn’t expect—well, I didn’t know what to expect. I mean…”
Denise batted at the air. “It’s your home now, Bex. We just want you to be comfortable, to know that you belong here. We’re so happy to have you.” She avoided Bex’s eyes as she started opening drawers and showing off the enormous, empty closet. “You’re—you’re our daughter.” She looked up, her eyes soft, almost pleading. “We want you to be happy.”
Bex nodded, too choked up to answer.
“And if you hate the color, you can blame Michael.” Denise’s grin was big but shy. She paused in the doorway for an extra second, her teeth working her plump lower lip. “If you can’t sleep or if you just want to hang out, Michael and I will be up for a while watching TV. And eating ice cream. Kind of a nighttime ritual.” Denise turned and shot another smile, her blue eyes bright. She was tall and naturally slim, and even with her shy grin, she had an easy confidence and grace that Bex instantly admired. She looked at home in her skin.
When Denise left, she shut the door behind her. Bex flopped on the bed, loving the smooshing sound of the pillow-top mattress and the soft, ultra-plush comforter. She could be happy here. She rolled over and spied a framed picture of Denise and Michael on one of her bookshelves. They were smiling, arms entwined, standing in front of a fenced-off waterfall somewhere.
They looked like parents. They looked like burger-making, ice-cream-eating parents who maybe had a Volvo sedan in a very neat garage and a shaggy dog and…a teenaged daughter. With her new hair color, Bex even looked a little like Michael, whose brownish hair was salted with gray, like they really could be father and daughter. But the second the elation of maybe actually belonging to a family swelled, it was hacked down by crippling guilt.
You have a father, the little voice in the back of her head hissed. You sent him to prison for the rest of his life, remember?
“I didn’t,” she said, teeth gritted, voice a low growl. “He ran.”
You gave him no choice…
Bex blinked away the tears that swelled below her lashes. “He abandoned me just as much as I abandoned him,” she muttered to herself. That was something the social worker had told her—that in deciding to run, Bex’s father had already decided to abandon her. Bex mumbled the phrase every now and again when the guilt bubbled or she missed her father or she wanted to remember what normal was.
“Normal is ice cream,” she said, tugging a sweatshirt over her head. “Normal is me having ice cream with Michael and Denise.” She paused, then tried out the words. “My parents.”
Three
Michael and Denise were standing at the kitchen counter when Bex got downstairs, a supermarket stock of Ben & Jerry’s pints set out on the counter in front of them. A gooey can of chocolate sauce, whipped cream, chopped nuts, and a half-eaten jar of electric-red maraschino cherries were also set out.
“I told Bex about our ice cream nightcaps,” Denise said, handing Bex a bowl.
Bex blinked. “You said you guys had a little ice cream at night. You didn’t say you were sundae masters.”
Michael grinned at that and drowned his two scoops of chocolate ice cream in whipped cream. “We do all right.”
After Bex finished creating her sundae—a stomach-stretching monstrosity of nearly every flavor on the counter—she followed Michael and Denise to the living room and took a spot on the couch, tucking her long legs underneath her.
The TV was already on the local news channel. From where she sat, Bex had a clear view of the news ticker running across the bottom of the screen and the concerned-looking newscaster standing somewhere that looked beachy.