Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Anne Dayton

Author:Anne Dayton [Dayton, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

24

There’s a knock at my door. “Your stuff is all over the room. You don’t have to knock anymore.” It’s a boring Wednesday night, and I’m doing my usual—sketching instead of studying.

Dad peeks his head through the doorway. “Um.”

“Oh.” I drop my pencil. “I thought you were Emma.” I sit up, hoping he doesn’t actually come in my room because that would be weird. He hasn’t come in here since I was . . . a long time ago.

Dad pushes the door open but doesn’t step inside. “I wondered if . . .” He puts one foot in, then steps back out. He sighs. “You busy?”

“No.” The moment I say it, I regret it. He’s up to something, maybe something Candace put him up to, and I should have said I was busy to save us both the embarrassment.

“Good, then.” He motions to the hallway. “C’mon. I need your help.” He flees my room quickly.

Help? Well, that’s probably a good sign. I’ll bet he wants advice on what to get Candace for Christmas, and I know just what to tell him: a life. Ooh! Or maybe a brain. No, no, no. I know. A clue. Now that would be awesome. I toss my sketchbook aside and head out.

Dad won’t tell me where we’re going, but he did tell me to get a heavy coat. We’re riding along with his window a little cracked, dressed up like a couple of snowmen. This really can’t be good.

“So, I—” His voice fails him and ends in a squeak. He takes a sip from the water bottle in the cup holder, and I die a little inside for him. He’s almost in physical pain when he’s alone with me. “I wanted to talk about . . . Andrew.”

Curveball! Curveball! My cheeks flush so I stare at the window. I don’t want him to notice. Maintain calm, Christine. “Oh?” Didn’t he hear that Candace already gave me her version of “the talk”?

The light turns green, and he accelerates the car onto the highway. “In the future, I want to know if a boy is coming over.”

I scowl. Now he wants to play Dad? After all this time? “Why?”

“Because I’m your dad and I get to know where you’re going, who you’re going with, and what he’s like. I don’t even know this kid.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “He’s not a kid.”

Dad grips the steering wheel tightly, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

We pass fallow fields that are filled with artichokes, lettuce, tomatoes, and all sorts of berries in the summer. Now the upturned dirt just looks sloppy and hopeless.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t go about that right.” Dad rolls in his bottom lip. “But I would like to meet your . . . the guys . . . who are your friends.”

I pick a fuzz ball off my black mittens, then roll my window down a little more, hoping to let the awkwardness leak out of the car.

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