𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌 & 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆! | harry styles

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈

"SO, you like that Harry guy, huh?"

I choke on my spaghetti. You'd think it was the only thing either of us knew how to cook, or that we really, really loved marinara, but we don't, and there's lots of other meals both of us are pretty good at cooking. This one, though, this one is just easy and simple, and there's a comfort about it that neither of us could explain. So we stick with it.

"I, uh -" I sputter.

"Don't even try lying to me." Dad grins. "You know shit-all about cars. Tell him that, next time, he's gonna need a better excuse to get you away from the house."

"We really did go look at a car." At least that part is the truth.

"You know, I checked up on the old Styles house." Dad eyes the meatball on the end of his fork. "That place is a downright shit hole."

I nod. It is.

"He's out there by himself, huh? All alone?" Dad is fishing again, cop fishing, which isn't much different from regular fishing, but I can't tell him about Sadie. I just can't. He deserves to know, but I can't ruin him like that. For one, he'd never believe me. Two, if he found out it was his sweet little baby girl who killed all those people, Sadie, the culprit behind all of his unsolved murders, it would wreck him. Devastate him, maybe even more than her disappearance. Plus, I'm still not entirely convinced her current situation is better than her just being gone with no explanation. Was an eternity as a creature of the night better than being dead?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

"He registered for school yet?" Dad shoves some more spaghetti down, and I try not to let mine come back up. Of course he thought Harry was in high school. That smooth skin and the hair and the jaw, he was a hundred-year-old vampire who didn't look a day over prom, pep rallies, and locker combinations.

"He has a GED," I hedge, nervous and mutilating my meal with my fork.

"Smart kid. Why don't you do that?"

I glare across the table at him. "I've asked you. You said no."

"Really?" Dad's eyebrows furrow, and he squints at me like he's trying to remember that conversation. "When?"

"Two years ago. When I was desperate not to go back to school because this whole town treats me like a leper. Remember?"

I can't help it that my words come out harsh and mean and full of venom, but fuck. I cried at this same stupid table for days telling him how bad it was. I didn't talk to him for two whole weeks after he refused to let me homeschool, and it was the longest two weeks of my life. I hated not speaking to him, but he just didn't get it. He didn't hear the whispers or see the ugly shit scrawled on my locker in permanent marker. Didn't understand that the teachers all looked at me with an equal mixture of pity and disgust, or that the students all avoided me like I carried some highly contagious disease. He didn't know that I spent lunch time in one restroom stall or another, or that I was failing PE because I stopped going. The locker room was worse than prison, and twice, I'd been pretty sure the cheerleaders were going to drown me in a toilet before they let me up for air.

"Well, maybe this year you pull out." He shrugs like this is no big deal. "Bust through the coursework. Thought about college yet?"

I just stare at him. Here he is making conversation about post-high school education like everything is normal, like everything is the same, like I have all the time in the world to daydream about college. All I can think about is little vampire Sadie three miles away from us, probably munching on bunnies and planning her wedding to Harry.