Cameron Casey and Annabeth Taylor are about to find out just how deep a burn can hurt you. Together, they're being trained to take over the family business. Neither of them want the lives their fathers have planned out and they realize that sometim...
"Her bark is a lot bigger than her bite. Actually, no. Her bite's pretty bad, too." —Travis Miller
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Annabeth Taylor. Twelve years old.
I did not need anyone.
My dad told me this the night my mom left us, almost two years ago. He wasn't there when she left. He was out working, he was always working, but I was home. It was just before dinner because I was hungry. I had wanted macaroni and cheese. I found my mom in her room packing and asked where we were going. She locked me out of the room until she'd finished. Then, she took her two suitcases and purse down the hall and told me she was going away. I don't remember where she said she was going or if she said anything at all.
"Where?" I had asked. "Are Dad and I meeting you?"
"No, Bethie. I don't know when I'm coming back, I just can't stay here. Will you tell your father that?"
"Wait, what?" I pulled at her sleeve and she yanked it out of my grip. "You're leaving?"
"Yes, Annabeth." She walked away and said "We've established this."
"Wait," I said, because I was trying to play catch up on this game and things were happening too fast and I was just beginning to grasp at what was actually happening when she opened the front door.
I had read about this happening in some of my books. Parents left and they didn't come back and I didn't want my mom to never come back because she was my mom.
"What about me?" I said, tears coming down my face when I realized my mom was leaving me and I didn't know what I did wrong.
My parents fought a lot but all parents did that. All of the adults I knew fought with each other. My dad worked with my uncle and he got into fist fights with people all the time. People tried to hurt my dad. Didn't my mom know that? Wasn't she happy every day he came home safe? So many nights, I stayed up late reading books in my bed to keep myself awake until I heard my dad walk through the door in one piece. My dad was tough and got mad a lot, so you had to be tough back and she wasn't being tough.
My mom turned around, now standing on the entryway to the porch, and stared at me with what I had thought was regret but I was just being hopeful. It was probably just annoyance for delaying her.
"This isn't about you," she said.
Tears rolled down my face in a heavy stream because it was about me. She was leaving me.
She seemed to measure out her next words carefully and looking back I wondered if she meant them or was just trying to reassure me, "You'll be safer with your dad."
Then she left.
I raced to the door and I can't remember now if I called her name or stood there. I didn't yell. I know that because back then I didn't yell. But I knew at some point, I sank to the ground in the door frame because my dad found me still sitting there when he returned home. He picked me up, carried me in, and plopped me on the kitchen chair.
